Mangroves

When I found myself nominated to parent help on a school trip I have to admit, I was not too overjoyed.
When I found out it was to go look at mangroves I was even less enthused.
However, the event fell on my day off and, because I’d recently been on a class trip with the twins, Master Eight saw no reason why I shouldn’t go on his.
But I did.
Besides the fact that fair is fair, of course, and we were long overdue some special time together.
Let me just say that, although ‘day off’ conjures up images of sleeping in, meeting up with friends for coffee and general lounging around, it is anything but. My day off is consumed with all those mundane things that, before I returned to work, used to be spread out over the week – house work, gardening, lawns, groceries, town errands, exercise, Christmas shopping, amongst before and after school duties.
And I learnt from the early baby days of everyone saying that housework can wait that it doesn’t. It just accrues until when you finally take to it with the vacuum cleaner, it clogs up.
So these days off are rather precious but when a school activity falls on this day, it is also a novelty to be able to attend when most working parents can’t.
But mangroves?
A week or two before we were disappointed I missed the Limestone Island trip Master Eight went on. The night before we’d been reading Famous Five together. The five had returned to Kirren Island and rediscovered the ruins of the old castle.
He was quite impressed to discover our local island has its own ruins and even a dungeon and I was too when he relayed the day’s adventures back to me.
I knew how much it would mean to Master Eight if I went along on this outing so I rearranged my week, cramming all the Wednesday humdrums in before and after work on the other week days.
There was no postponement date on the notice which meant it was going ahead rain or shine. But I needn’t have worried about floundering around in mud for hours with the rain pelting down, for the day dawned brilliant. I went along to the school and my group of boys was waiting for me.
We set off down the Waimahanga Track and spent the day in the depths of the mangroves.
Amongst other things, I learnt that, as well as being an important habitat for many plants and animals, mangroves help to hold the land together and stop the sea water from washing it away.
I learnt that it was still possible to collect multiple bags of rubbish from the same area where 12 bags had been collected on the previous class trip only two days before.
I learnt that I needn’t be worrying about my eight-year-old’s behaviour – his peers are just as silly and trying to get a photo of them all smiling or with normal faces, at least, was impossible.
I also learnt that hanging out for a day with a bunch of silly eight-year-old boys who are just too cool for school is quite fun and humbling.
And I learnt that, although the housework doesn’t wait patiently, some days it’s rejuvenating to just wake up and smell the, er, mangroves.