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At weekends, we usually, as a family, find ourselves facing a daunting and ridiculous to-do list. Because of the long hours we work, we find things slip a little out of control and our home swirls with a cacophonous chaos of stuff. Correspondence competes with filing, half written notes with half completed projects, all in piles, vying for space on the never sacrosanct kitchen table. 

At the weekend, we need to rest and recuperate from the trials of our week, to touch in and be with each other, to play and have fun, so I wonder why we try cram so much in, from swimming lessons, to family visits, sponsored bike rides and local events. We have a varied and active social life, yet somehow it can be stressful, and that seems wrong to me.

Our garden languishes untended, because we are too busy for it, our allotment, whilst productive in parts is in places prairie-like, shoulder high grasses swaying their rhythm of neglect in the summer sun. What is going on with us? I wonder why we seem to have forgotten how to stop and be with the earth, to lay our hands in clay and shaping it remember who we are, where we are, and why we are, as well as what our lives really mean to us. We seem to be out of synch with our values, beliefs and actions saying different things about us.

So, I pull the plug. One Saturday, I cancel everything and we simply go outside and spend the weekend, our two supposed days of rest in our own back garden. No work is done, we play, we ride scooters and tricyles, we mess around in the paddling pool and make a crazyily dangerous, but good fun water slide. After counting the clouds, our children capture and release pet snails who slide gratefully away, and we find a frog and delight in watching him flex and leap into the cool security of the shade underneath our garden shed.

We eat outside, resurrecting out rusty barbeque and cooking together with the elements, our son busily involved in fetch and carry from kitchen to garden, we are a human chain of preparation. Our neighbours play noisy basketball, shooting hoops with whoops and laughs; a red kite hangs over our garden, expectantly hovering above us, eager to share our feast.

This weekend has cost us nothing, and I am wondering why we don’t do this more often. We feel connected and happy in each other’s company, rather than feeling denied or that we have missed out on something important. Maybe the important things are closer to home than we thing and I am now off to clear out our diary of weekend commitments for the summer.