I have been seeing signs around town for weeks advertising an event called ‘Classics on the Common’ and had assumed it was a big open air classical concert.
Doh.
Thankfully, Being Mrs C put me right. It is actually an annual event where around 1500 classic cars and motorbikes go on display. In other words, DorkySon’s dream day out.
I posted a couple of weeks ago about what a surprisingly lovely time I had just going for a walk and taking a path that I hadn’t been down before. The weather was stunning again today, so I went out for another walk along a similar route, but this time I took a macro lens to really make me pay close attention to some of the things I saw along the way.
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I was chatting to a friend last week, someone who lives in the same town, and we confessed a slightly shameful secret. We love to take our cameras with us when we go out – she is a much, much better photographer than I am – but we both find the countryside around here completely uninspiring. I had never thought of myself as an ‘urban’ girl, but I would far rather take photos walking down a street of grotty graffiti than I would take photos of the fields and rolling countryside around Hertfordshire. I just find it all a bit… well, dull.
On Sunday it was a lovely sunny day, so I thought I’d try and snap myself out of the photographic funk by going out for a long walk with DorkySon.
We started in the park as usual.
When we left Edinburgh, one of the reasons we chose to move to Harpenden rather than into London itself is that the schools in this area have a brilliant reputation. But it wasn’t until we arrived – and I joined a local parents email list – that I realised there are also some serious problems with the education system here. There is a massive under-supply of school places in the town, and for the past three years there have been large numbers of children who have not been allocated a place at any of their chosen schools.
It has taken me a while to get my head around this – in Scotland you either go to your nearest school or you go to private school and the application process is much simpler. But after a few months reading emails on the local list, chatting to other parents at nursery drop-off and seeing the stress that families go through as they wait to find out if their children have a place in Harpenden at all, I am starting to understand the situation.
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Dorkymum | Stories from Tasmania 