No FoH

By 8.30am I have had a breakdown. It started with a minor fit of the swoons leading to a full-blown pulling at the hair and screeching like a banshee.

Shock induced, probably. Inevitable, however, since English Heritage cancelled the Festival of History.

Yes, I know to you, well-balanced, socialised, sane human being, the word cancelled slipped past your eyes with ne'er a care. It is an inconsequential matter is it not? Inducing the scale of household panic we might expect if a five-year old left the fridge door ajar for one minute, i.e. a 0.0009 ounce of panic, compared to the hysteria that a five-year old and a fridge can bring about. But to me, sad and lonely old maid that I am, the Festival of History is a BIG THING. Its cancellation, bigger than anything.

You'd think for me that matters can't get any worse, but they do. The FoH - those of us in the know like to call it FoH - is one of those events of incalculable worth I actually plan my year around.

Come our January planning meeting - the thing we parents in two countries must do - I say to Dig, Summer is non-negotiable. I must be in England for the FoH.

He looks at me without pity because I am an irredeemable human being, but I do the laundry and look after the kids, so let it pass, because you never know when she might turn ugly with the tin of baked beans again.

What he does not realise, probably along with everyone else in the world, is how important FoH is to my home educating year. The potential of it is so great, there is in it a year's worth of value. From a single day at FoH I can keep going with 52 weeks of activity: discussion, pulling-books-off-shelves, watching history programmes, attending minor local reenactments, taking part in craft sessions to make costumes, astrolabes and pomanders. I will say Remember when we spoke to the Romans/Georgians/Scott of the Antarctic at FoH2012? and off I'll go again, on my tireless circuit before we reach the glory that is FoH2013.

Anyway, it probably doesn't matter to you. Or anyone. I just thought I would say that if I look a little downcast over the next year, the cause is probably not the helpless matter of life, nor the thread of hopeless daily despair I find myself in. It will be all down to the cancellation of FoH.