Vicariousness

 

When you have children and grandchildren, you do not really need to live your own life. Instead, you can live their lives vicariously. You are with them as they suffer their lows and their disappointments and equally you are with them when they achieve special things - their highs, their moments of joy.

Above, that's a picture of our son Ian, taken this very afternoon. He successfully completed an ultra-marathon, running (and walking)  fifty kilometres from Wantage, Oxfordshire to Avebury in Wiltshire in an event called "Race for The Stones". Most of the way, competitors ran along an ancient track called The Ridgeway.

Shirley and I were quite concerned about this event as it happened to fall upon one of the hottest weekends of the year. However, all was fine. Ian set off at 5am in an early morning mist that hung about till around 7am before being burnt off by hot sunshine. He approached it all sensibly, taking advantage of aid stations along the way and he was buzzing at the end.

In Great Britain, it used to be that graduation ceremonies only happened in universities. However, probably owing to American influence, our secondary and primary schools picked up on the idea of graduation ceremonies for younger students too.

Yesterday, there was even a graduation ceremony at our oldest granddaughter's nursery school. Phoebe has been in attendance there for almost three years but now she only has a handful of weeks left before moving on to the local primary school.

The video of the ceremony made me laugh when I saw Phoebe literally skipping to the stage. That doesn't usually happen at university graduation ceremonies.