1. I give the children some painted pumpkins, a dish of black paint and an old sponge cut into triangles. Alec examines the experimental pumpkin face I stamped out yesterday and then pronounces himself disappointed with his own version. 'Throw it away,' he says.
'No, put it up here and look at it when you do the next one so you know what you didn't like.' I warm to the subject. 'It's good to make mistakes. It shows you're working hard.' I stop, feeling a bit awkward and overbearing. But he looks... he looks exhilarated.
2. Bettany's first pumpkin is pretty uniform: I showed her where to put the stamps and pressed her hands down. (She definitely said 'Press!') The second pumpkin is covered in small coaly fingerprints and faint black triangles where she has re-stamped. And the third... the third... it's just dark.
3. When I pick Bettany up we sit on the floor to do the handover. Bettany runs first to me and squeezes me and then back to the practitioner, gives her a squeeze and then runs back to me.
