Limping towards the end of term with tired pasty faces, bags under our eyes, school shoes which have fallen apart and scrap ends cobbled together to fill the seen better days lunchboxes.

Tonight, while I bathed and bedded the littlest, I left the older two with a stack of coloured paper and the faintest of instructions to write a thank you note to their teachers. They were busy at it when I finished upstairs so I left them to chat and continue while I pottered about in the garden. Over an hour later I cajoled them to stop and get ready for bed. They'd had such a nice time chatting and cutting and sticking and writing. The results were impressive; creative, thankful, funny and sweet.