Arrivederci to NaBloPoMo and Lemon Tree Kindergarten

The last day of November the last day of NaBloPoMo! Posting every day has been enjoyable but demanding. Finding something to write about and the time to write about it was often challenging to say the least. I think I can guarantee that I’ll be relapsing, with a hefty sigh, back into posting three or four times a week here. I have been neglecting my book review blog and the writing of articles, which I’m supposed to be doing to get our websites seen out there on the big wide Net.

Food and Family is always going to be my place for friends and family, for me to relax, visit friends and swap stories. The fun part of NaBloPoMo has been discovering other blogs through the Randomizer, and have new people show up here.

We’ve just come home, laden with baskets of crafts, paintings and presents from my six-year old’s Kindergarten festival and leaving ceremony. They did a very sweet Nativity play with us helping out with singing the carols that we knew, especially the endless Gloria in Ding Dong Merrily on High., we duly admired all their hard work of sewing and embroidering cushions for themselves and then came the farewell. One of the mothers had proposed adopting their German tradition of singing farewell to each child leaving kindergarten as they walked out through a flowery archway. We gave each one a rose to take with them to symbolise beauty. It was lovely but nearly caused a tear to be shed.

There is an extra cause for nostalgia, as we don’t know if our kindergarten will be continuing next year. Our teacher is moving on to another school, only four children will be still in kindergarten, so unless Camphill can keep it going as a small playgroup and reabsorb it as part of their organisation, it will have to close. Youngest has still shown no signs of being ready to go back to kindergarten. Perhaps when she does it will be to the new kindergarten building at Dassenberg Waldorf School, where my son is and his middle sister will be starting next year. It still feels sad to be witnessing the end of an era though. Four and a half years for me of taking one or other child to this tiny kindergarten in leafy Camphill village, its atmosphere so sheltered and safe like a little cocoon enveloping the children and filling them with music and beauty. Youngest did have a few months of it before she elected to stay at home with me, but I wish she could have had a whole kindergarten career there, before facing the hurly burly of the real world. Who knows... maybe it will keep going and she will. Che sera sera.

Anyway it was a lovely final festival for the children, something to remember and value when they are in big school. I seem to be splashing Italian around today, so Arriverderci tutti! See you soon.