The house is decidedly quiet today. The girls are back at school and I am home alone.

I actually love the holidays, the lack of routine, the freedom to decide on the spur-of-the-moment to have a picnic, go for a swim, see a movie.

But of course it comes to an end and back to normality we go. Lunches to be packed, notes to be signed (yes day three and already the paperwork is coming thick and fast), extra-curricula activities to be sorted, uniforms to be washed, ho um groundhog day all over again.

There were a couple of articles over the holidays were parents lamented the length of the break (it’s anything from four to six weeks off school over Christmas here in Australia). As parents juggle the demands of work and family some were arguing for shorter holidays. While in the UK a former political adviser was calling for

“From September 2016, all state funded schools will, by law, provide 45 hours of education per week for 45 weeks of the year”

Let’s not put too fine a point on it, kids are INCONVENIENT. Once they arrive we are locked into the world’s greatest juggling act and it’s bloody difficult. But I don’t think the answer is to trap them into the 9-5, four weeks leave a year lifestyle of their parents from kindergarten.

I think children need a chance to laze about, to spend the day at the beach, to daydream, to create castles out of cardboard boxes, to get bored. Childhood shouldn’t be restructured to meet the demands of a corporate world.

In the meantime parents must tag-team, “buy back” extra leave, take time without pay, work part-time, job-share, call in the grandparents or remortgage the home to pay for a babysitter, it’s stressful, expensive and a pain in the butt, but somehow we get through it.

Are you a fan of shorter holidays? Or do you think kids need the extra down-time? How do you juggle to make it work?

It’s hard to believe we are into the last month of summer, our holidays were very quiet (a downside of not working is no spare cash to go away) but we had fun.

After the Christmas gathering,

There were trips to the beach and picnics with friends.

I won tickets and meet ‘n greet with Jessica Mauboy when she played a concert here in town. She was so sweet to the girls and I think she’s got them as fans for life now.  Overseas readers, Jessica is a R&B, pop singer and actress, she was great in the film The Sapphires. I especially love the fact Jessica was doing a large-scale regional tour, kudos to the performers who leave the big cities and venture out into the country areas.

We made it to the movies, the girls saw Frozen, and I saw August: Osage County. Which I must say was dark but brilliant (is it just me or is there a lot of films out at the moment with depressing storylines?). I thought this was Julia Roberts at her very, very best and of course Meryl Streep delivered her usual stellar performance. In fact there wasn’t a dud amongst the cast. Filled with black humour and fantastic writing I hope it manages to nab at least one Oscar (although the competition is pretty tough this year).

What did you get up over the holidays?