Feats of great courage and derring-do.

The other night as we got into bed, I said to the historian, in the dark, "I'm already thinking about leaving. " Meaning, by "thinking," "feeling sad."

"Don't," he said. "There's no point."

I laughed.

"I mean," he continued, "if there were a point to thinking about it, it would be fine. But since there's no point..."

"Right," I said.

Well, the people, it is not over. But we are drawing nigh to the end of this visit which has been splendid in every, every way.

A visit this long means you can be more than an event, you can be part of the day-to-day. For instance, the village of Inverurie is highly walkable. We've walked the girls to school almost every day, and then we've met them at the end of the school day and walked them home. We went to a park yesterday after school; today, we met them for home lunch, which meant that we brought a picnic and ate it in the park, getting them back before the bell to assemble for afternoon lessons rang. We've eaten breakfast and dinner together. We've done projects. We've read an entire chapter book together before bedtime.

Of course, it's enchanting to fall into daily life with children, to see their beauty, their willfulness, their flights of fancy; to watch them play, to play with them, to see them run and climb and bounce on the trampoline. And this life of theirs will go on when we leave. Once we get home, we too will fall into our own life together, its comforts and joys. But still, it will be hard to leave them.

We have a few more days to celebrate being here. Tonight there were many forward rolls, aka somersaults, performed in the back garden. Homework done. Dinner made. And both yesterday and today, the children showed great bravery in scaling and grappling with the most challinging of the playground equipment, and conquering it at both of the two parks.