Mushrooms between my toes

‘Cause every time it rains

You’re here in my head

Like the sun coming out

Looks like the sun is coming out

Ooh, I just know that something good is going to happen

And I don’t know when

But just saying it could even make it happen

Cludbuster. Kate Bush

“Frau Koehl! When feet get wet in the rain, do mushrooms start growing between the toes?”

Welcome to morning circle in my Grade 2 classroom! Not even 9 o’clock yet, and my seven year olds are already pondering the true questions of life. 

Outside our classroom window it is raining. Pouring! Torrential rainfalls coming down, quickly turning the grassy play area into a muddy swamp. Rain like the city hasn’t seen in months…years. Puddles and streams forming at the entrance to our class container – nicely mixed with the dirt that someone decided to dump outside during the first week of school. What a mess!

“Please don’t play on the dirt piles children!” Another recess request falling on deaf ears. Who can blame them? It does look like fun climbing those enormous mounds of dirt. Especially if you are told not to do so. Warnings yelled from staff room windows. Teachers on duty trying their best to keep the kids off this exciting new play space. Good luck!

Back to my classroom. 24 pairs of muddy, wet rubber boots and shoes dropped haphazardly at the sliding door, school bags and sun hats on hooks outside, already drenched by the incessant rain. It is going to be a long day! 24 children stuck in a metal container for hours at end. 

Where every washroom break means putting on your (still wet and muddy) shoes – if you can find them in the ever growing pile at the door – and running to the main building, getting hammered by the rain. 

Where you think twice about having your students get their reading books out of their school bags outside (an idea quickly abandoned). And there are only so many movement breaks and beach movies on YouTube you can offer. 

By lunchtime I’m glad to get a – alas- short, but sweet break. Returning after a quick bite to eat, I find my class in a state of utter chaos. Not the normal it’s-Friday-and-we-are-having-indoor-recess-all-day-long kind of chaos. No, I mean children standing-on-chairs-and-tables-screaming-hysterically chaos! Assessing the situation professionally, I follow their little outstretched index fingers with my eyes and soon find the hard-to-miss source of their terror: a huge Huntsman spider! Sitting in the upper corner of the classroom. Not poisonous. Actually not dangerous at all – but really fat and hairy. And big. Very big. Luckily the beast is so far up that I don’t even have to pretend to be totally cool with catching it and extracting it from our classroom. Sometimes being the only adult in the room sucks!

“Don’t worry kids! It’s just a spider! (gag!) No need to panic! (silent scream!) I got this! (no I don’t).”

After teaching two more lessons – repeatedly checking secretly with my eyes, whether that spider is still sitting where I want it to sit (as far away from me as possible!) –  it is time to leave the classroom container. Freedom! Release! Finally! It’s swim time, with a free before-and-after shower included. Herding 24 kids in swimmers and goggles to the neighbouring pool, screaming from the excitement of being showered by Mother Nature… 100 metres never seemed so long!

My day ends with bus duty in – yup you got it! – the rain! By now I have ditched my soaking wet shoes and perform my duties in thongs instead. The shoe kind, not the underwear. If you can’t beat’em, float’em! 

Still…after a summer of drought and heat and bushfires, the rain does feel great! Extinguishing fires still burning along thecoast of NSW, filling depleted water reserves at least a little bit, greening farmers’ pastures, cleaning the air and city from all ashes and dirt. 

However, in the last couple of days it seems that things have gone from one extreme to the other: severe downpours, gusty winds, high tides and dangerous surf. Beaches in the area are being closed due to waves 5 meters high, flooding in the city, erosion in the bushfire areas, where the loss of vegetation cover increases the likelihood that some of the ground will get washed away. Fire and Rain. Australia, the land of extremes.

It’s a beautiful day to stay in bed and read, go for a walk in the drizzle along the deserted beach, letting your hair get all big and frizzy, meet with friends and sit and laugh in the rain. And maybe even grow some mushrooms between my toes.