Back to School: Returning from the Quantum Realm

Spending the summer in the Quantum Realm explorer (pic: Brickset)

(NB May contain Ant-Man and the Wasp spoilers)

The silence in my house is so absolute that I can hear a mouse scratching under the floorboards in the living room.

I pause in the kitchen, uncertain why I went in there; I listen to the hum of the fridge.

Brushing aside a Blu-Tacked child’s drawing of a pair of buttocks, I take a look at my sunken face in the mirror. Two inches of frizzy grey hair scream from my side-parting.

Yes, the kids went back to school this morning and I feel like Michelle Pfeiffer in Ant-Man and the Wasp, emerging from the mysterious void of the Quantum Realm after 30 years.

When I went in, six weeks ago, my hair was all flicky 80s chic; I returned an old woman. Older and wiser in the mind, more shrivelled in the flesh.

It is clear to me now, that after this long period of running a particularly chaotic and emotionally fraught holiday camp, a period of rehabilitation will be necessary.

Part of me is desperate to seize my work and embrace the satisfactions of achievements that do not fade within minutes of having accomplished them (see: making the dinner, hoovering, tweeting)

But part of me, readers, wants to lie amid the wreckage of my life and career and stick two fingers up to it all. For a couple of days at least. Surely I have earned a Twirl and that box set of Girls while the kids are busy conquering Govian sums in their scratchy nylon uniforms?

Not that there weren't any upsides to the holidays – in many ways I’ve had more fun and learnt more than I had ever thought possible.

I wouldn’t have gone to see Incredibles 2 or Ant-Man and the Wasp, for example, and appreciated just how good Hollywood blockbusters could actually be (thanks kids, I never really wanted to see Cold War anyway). Who knew that women could have genuine leading roles in superhero movies these days?

Who knew that the coolest superpower of all was to make yourself incredibly tiny? It’s a fantastic lesson for kids in a world where biggest and angriest always seems to win out.

I would also not have had the chance to discover just how non-existant my upper-body strength is, as I tried out the hipster sport of bouldering (basically, it's climbing without ropes – it’s all cool concerned readers, there’s a crash mat).

I also learnt to make very serviceable ice cream with no tools beyond a Tupperware box and a fork.

And there is nothing quite like watching the twitching legs of a harvestman spider after it is devoured by your son's Venus fly trap.

Indeed, it has been a summer of wide experiences, and wild emotions.

Let’s hope, as I bob up - Michael Douglas by my side - from the Quantum Realm, that things calm down a bit now.

Pic:Georges Biard