“What holidays?!”
byWyn Evans
You wait all year for the summer holidays to arrive and when they do it’s to warnings on Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme this morning not to go near dead birds or seals on the Pembrokeshire coast for fear of cross contamination with bird flu; Just Stop Oil walking for mile after mile in front of vehicles, preventing folk going on holiday in the first place; high temperatures on the continent threatening lives and homes in an arc from Spain through the Greek islands; and, closer to home, the futile attempt to make every minute of the holidays full of learning and meaning for our kids.
Culmington Manor in Shropshire. It takes the form of a sports/adventure camp with inputs from specialist speech therapists (an important resource for those with DS). The Girl loves the camp, and it was all I could do to prevent her telling everyone she was starting her holidays a week early. “Not so”, I’d interject, “the course is part of your education, it’s just like going to school.”
This simply earned me uncomprehending looks. Much like the ones I gave my dad when, fifty-seven years ago, he told me he’d decided that I could have a weekly comic. I assumed I am writing at the end of week 1 of the holidays that he’d allow me agency in choosing what although it feels like we’ve already had a comic to take and had already narrowed it fortnight off. My 17 year old daughter was down to a straight choice between The Beano given permission to be absent from school for and a Marvel comic, possibly Thor. You the final week of term allowing her to attend can imagine my joy when, on the following the annual summer camp run by an excellent Thursday along with that day’s South Wales charity called ‘21Plus’. It’s a five-day residential Echo they delivered my new comic: ‘Look and course aimed at 14-21 year old young adults Learn’. Over the months I came to appreciate with Down Syndrome and this year’s was held at some of the articles but they did not match up 6 CARDIFF TIMES
