grass tree panorama

I have tonight breezed in the door to home with dirt caked in my nostrils and shoes, smelling of sweat and the Australian bush, utterly dishevelled after five days of Year 9 camp. Going on camp was important; it was an opportunity for me to get to know more closely my pastoral group, the class I’ll be travelling with on their high school journey for the next four years.

The group built cohesion and relationships across the week. Individuals and the team were challenged by everything from expedition hiking, camping, eating and toileting, to abseiling over cliff faces into caves, surfing big Margaret River swell, and completing a high ropes course.

I recognise the significance of the week of camping for my students, while simultaneously trying to quell the rising panic that comes from a week away, ‘out of the office’. Not only was it a lot of work to prepare to be away—planning a week’s worth of lessons and resources, shopping and packing for camp, making sure the things required for our house sale-and-purchase were in order before I left, getting through the Famous Five novel I’ve been reading with my kids—but I’m returning to being (at least) a week behind my work.

Yes, lessons will have been taught while I’ve been away, but the double pile of marking I left behind wasn’t marked by marking fairies while I was away (darn those marking fairies; never there for you when you really need them!). Deadlines remain as they were, despite me being unable to make progress for a week (although I did take a notebook on which to scribble ideas). I feel in debit with my family, like I need to spend extra time with my kids and husband, like I somehow owe ‘extra’ because I left them for five days.

So I am feeling behind in my work and behind at home. I am pulled between the tension of wanting to do the right thing at home by immersing myself in time with my family; to do the right thing by work by catching up on marking, policy-writing and strategic project implementation plans; and to do the right thing by myself by painting my chipped toenails, exercising my aching body and finding time for solitude and seeing friends.

Workload and homeload as a working parent are always a tricky balance that can easily tip on their delicate axes. While I currently feel sucked into a vortex of mild anxiety, I know rationally that I will catch up. Sometime, I will catch up. In the meantime, I’ll breathe, do my best with the time I have available, and remember some of the stunning vistas I enjoyed while on camp in the West Aussie great outdoors.

my home for the week

Redgate Beach

abseiling into Brides Cave

Karri forrest