Frenetic Friday

I've often been called the bag lady. Today I'm helping put on departmental morning tea and my bike braking hand is also my food bag carrying hand. There are a few wobbles, and crushed corn chips. At the end of the school day I meet my Nutrimetics supplier and friend, Joan, on site. Having dropped off Nutrimoist over many years, Joan knows my old house and is interested in the new. We walk through. No building this week but I need the breathing space. I've got pre-wiring, windows, doors, pre-plumbing, exterior paint colour, heating system, spouting, and now painting the fascias to sort out. Note to self, keep asking Kirk what's up next.
After a swim I go to Boys' High for my Boys' High swan song. It's a welcome to this year's Year 9 parents and the PTA are serving drinks and nibbles. We gossip and laugh as we present trays of sushi, mini meat pies and blinis. I wander off for a last look through the entrance. Christchurch Boys' is a very traditional school, much like Southland Girls' High in Invercargill where I spent my high school years, and my mother and aunts before me. These schools, founded in 1879 and 1881, were among the first secondary schools in New Zealand. Much of Boys' High's identity is based on sport and war service. The halls are lined with framed pictures of these heroes and flags of the armed services sit beside the entrance to the hall. Currently the school are national rowing champs and tonight there's a rowing machine set up in the foyer where the boys are attempting to break the world record for continuous rowing as a fund raiser for cancer. Their pride in the school is obvious and the new parents are equally enthusiastic about the school they have selected for this formative phase of their sons' lives. At the end of five years they will bear the CBHS imprint and emerge from boyhood as young men.