Exams over! Really over!

Last Monday he had his final hurdle.

The day started as usual at 8.30am and went: school as usual, piano grade 3 exam, classes as usual, lunch as usual, band practice at a different time (cancelled last minute), games as usual, quick change (no time for shower), clarinet exam. We finished about 4.20pm, perhaps. Exhausted.

In between I missed helping to run the school uniform shop. I completely forgot. Thankfully the other mother did not forget. I was, to say the least, a bit stressed by all this. There was a chance that he might be playing a cricket match after lunch. So, for the first time, I was relieved that he came back last Friday and said, "By the way, I was not selected to play for the match."

Whew! What a relief! As I would have had to fetch him from the games grounds (a little drive away), rush him over to school again, get him changed, freshened up, etc, for the exam. No thanks (or should it be "no, thank you?").

This morning I got hauled up by the Director of Music. Apparently son went into the exam hall and spent a minute scrabbling on the floor sorting out his music. The examiner has exactly 12 minutes for each candidate and told him to move along. (The examiner had also been at his job since 9.30am.)

Not his fault, really, I insist. His clarinet teacher has decided that he would pick pieces from three different books. With his piano exams, they use a standard book with the three sections from which they choose a tune. For some strange reason, son had to do pieces from three different rather dated books.

Ah well, I just hope he had not been marked down. We keep making the excuse that he's only seven, or now, he's only eight. So much of his behaviour is really due to his being a really young boy. The fact that he is ahead of his peers in his music and maths does not make him any other more than, well, eight.