Are the summer hols really everything they’re cracked up to be?

As his children look forward to six weeks off school, Will Gore prepares for boredom and tantrums

Going anywhere on a hot day is frankly a pain in the backside (PA)

And so, the long summer holidays are finally upon us. That glorious time when, as a child, possibilities seemed endless; and when, as an adult with children, everything seems impossible. And that’s not even taking account of an ongoing pandemic.

On Wednesday, my children finished lessons at lunchtime. My daughter, leaving junior school for the last time, exited the gates to applause from parents at 1.15pm. I clapped, gave her a hug, then dashed the two-thirds of a mile to my son’s infant school, in time for his pick-up at 1.25. He greeted me with a carrier bag heavy with books, a lunchbox and water bottle, to add to the other water bottle I’d brought because I knew his would be empty, and a football.

He and I then headed back up the hill to the playing field next to my daughter’s school, where she and the rest of year six were waging water wars on one another. By the time we arrived I had sweat soaking through my T-shirt and would have been glad had the water bomb that came my way exploded onto my chest, rather than bouncing off to burst harmlessly on the grass.