That's my girl.

An entirely different child tonight to the one I spoke to yesterday.

She got herself ready early and started practice early. Because she'd finished early, she was allowed a few minutes with her phone so I got some WhatsApp messages from her and she seemed a bit brighter, excited for the day ahead.

Wednesdays involve very little academics because she has a bassoon lesson and a full afternoon of sport, bonus of bassoon being she misses maths. She loved her English teacher and was raving about a project they're going to do on Anne Frank. She loved rounders and surprised herself at her ability to "thwwwwack" the ball with their superior to her old school bats. She was very pleased that they have a rounders match against another school next week, an away match, and they are all going to play. She's never played in a school sports match.

She had her first bassoon lesson and it was everything she hoped. Shes had an online lesson with her teacher once but absolutely loved the in person one today. She's excited about a meet up with the other bassoonists in the school tomorrow and a masterclass on Friday.

We talked about her clubs she wanted to do and she said she wanted to do the choir, which is twice a week, and rookie life guard after half term but asked to not do anything else so she knew she had time to do practice and prep.

And then, this evening, she had her first class zooming back to her ballet school at home. It didn't work quite at first but that meant I got a really happy half an hour of very bouncy bubbly Katie, absolutely full of it. The room she's in for this photo is the music room of their beautiful home. It's where she spends much of her term, between practice and ballet. It's rather a lovely space. 

She's so happy today. She was chattering away about new friends. She's made a lovely friend and they are Katie with a K and Catie with a C and she loves it.

Much much much happier day and I can feel the weight that has been pressing on my chest has lifted a lot. Today was a reminder why we have done this. And it was Good.