Sports day season: march-pasts, medals and mothers with water bottles
The whitewash lines are drawn, the house flags are ironed, and somewhere a PT teacher is guarding the starter's whistle with his life.
Sports day is the school year's most rehearsed spontaneity. The march-past alone consumes two weeks of practice, one ceremonial salute, and an amount of white shoe polish that briefly distorts the local market.
The events are eternal: the sprint that decides playground hierarchy for a year, the relay with its heartbreak zone at the third baton change, and the lemon-and-spoon race, which teaches more about pressure than any board exam.
Parents' involvement is total. Fathers who cannot attend send elaborate excuses; mothers attend in force, armed with water, glucose and opinions about lane assignments. The parents' race, officially a fun event, is contested like a national final.
The PT teacher runs the day on a clipboard and adrenaline, and when the last relay ends and the house cup is lifted by children who will remember it at fifty, he allows himself the year's one visible smile — then starts folding the flags for next year.
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