20th Nov day 37 school athletics

With it being summer here in NZ it's the time for school athletics, or sports day, as we would call it. What a treat for me to see Nicholas take part for the first time ever. St Matthews, although having great facilities, don't have their own playing field so it was held at the local senior school. Unfortunately I was given the wrong time so missed the discus and shot but arrived in time to see most of the events. It was all very well organised with the various year groups moving to different areas for each event. 

The kids were obviously enjoying taking part and didn't seem to notice the cold. Nicholas isn't particularly sporty but he threw himself into each event. I love these actions shots from the high and long jump. 

What was very special for me was to watch the way he encouraged his friends, particularly Amos who is really sporty and won all his events. Here are the two of them when it was lunchtime.

All the kids had to do the 100m and 200m races in their year groups but right at the end of the afternoon years 5-8 were given the option of taking part in the 400m and I was pleased Nicholas opted  to do it. He was up against 13 year olds but nevertheless gave it a good shot and interestingly he was much better at the longer distance. When Simon was in senior school he used to be in the cross country team, so I am wondering if Nicholas will follow in his footsteps?

I was allowed to take him back with me in the car, rather than him walk back to school and me have to wait around for another hour for the end of the day. He was delighted to be home earlier and have time to play on his Xbox for the first time in a week before we had to pick up Simon. 

Friday evening is supermarket shopping night, not Nicholas's favourite thing but we kept the list to a minimum and he helped by racing around getting things in order to cut down the length of time spent there. After dinner it was just a feet up, family Friday night, wonderful.