Everything I learned.

Every day is a school day. How often I hear that statement made by one or other of my friends. It is of course very true, life is a learning process and it continues throughout the whole of life.

 But even thought it is true most of what I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be, I learned before I ever went to school. 

Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate mountain, but there in the sandbox and back gardens of my friends or when out with parents. 

These are the things I learned and I am sure you did also.  

Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. 

Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. 

Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm scones and cold milk are good for you. 

Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.

Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands and stick together. 

Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the plastic cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup - they all die. So do we.

And then remember the first book about Dick and Jane and and the cat on the mat.  The first word you learned, the biggest word of all: Look. I remember coming home one day to find my son had written it all over the church walls in chalk. Look.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. 

Ecology and politics and sane living.

Think of what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had scones and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. 

Or if we had a basic policy in our nations to always put things back where found them and cleaned up our own messes. 

And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is better to hold hands and stick together.

Have a marvellous day and remember every day is a school day.