At what can only be described as the most frenetic time of the year, when all deadlines loom up: exams, interviews, booking plane tickets home, organising end of term parties, preparing for Christmas concerts… and so the list goes on, it can feel that there is never enough time to do everything.
It is a somewhat salutary reminder therefore, when we understand that for many older people who perhaps do not have family to spend time with, that time can tick by very slowly. At the Mount, Mill Hill International we are lucky enough to have visits from older people in our community. On some days we have intergenerational cooking, where our pupils learn how to bake and cook, benefiting from the expertise of our older friends. In other sessions, folk from Age UK come to have lunch with us and then have a ‘digital learning’ session where our pupils show their expertise in technology, using mobile phones, iPads and computers to teach our older visitors how to use devices which are difficult to use when you haven’t grown up as digital natives.
In both these sessions, time has a different rhythm and we learn how to adjust our pace. How lovely to know that, for just some hours in the week, we can stop the noise of being busy and slow down to enjoy our time sharing precious moments with older people in our community.
