Schoolhouse Bell Rings Tuesday as Marsh Braces for the Return of Order, and Rumours of a Mud-Sliding Ban
I want it noted that this desk has not smiled since the twenty-fourth of September. That is about to change, in a purely private and professionally deniable fashion. On Tuesday morning the bell on Lilypad Lane rings for the first time in twelve days, and Term Four, ten full weeks of it, begins.
In the twelve days since the schoolhouse emptied, this marsh has hosted a Heritage Waddle, a nightly mud-sliding championship off the Lilypad Lane bank, and, by my own count, a great many unsupervised ducklings sharing one pond with excellent water levels. I filed through all of it with the dignity of a duck wading through a swarm. The weather office promises morning mist over the interior on Tuesday, fine and warm by afternoon with the odd shower, which means the school run will be conducted in fog, at a pace and a volume I have already begun to dread.
The Schoolhouse committee has declined to confirm or deny the rumour, circulating since Friday, that the mud-sliding championship will not survive contact with the timetable. Asked directly, a spokesduck said only that “sliding is not on the curriculum,” which this desk took to be a yes. The senior class, I note, sits its final papers from the thirteenth, and has been asked in writing to keep the noise down. I have been asked to do the same, in writing, and have declined to reply. This desk will be at its window at a quarter past eight on Tuesday with a cup of cold pond water and, for the first time in twelve days, nothing whatsoever to complain about. I give it until about twenty past.
Filed with reference to
- School Calendar — KZN Department of Education (Term 4 opens 6 October)
- Matric exams 2026: finals run from 13 October to 26 November — JoburgETC
- Saturday's weather — The Citizen, 3 October 2026