Anyone prepping kids for overnight camp knows it’s a weeks long project. Our basement is a sea of bug jackets, life jackets, tennis rackets and camping gear. There’s the practical side to packing; follow the list, and Marie Kondo your way to two tightly packed duffels. And then there’s the emotional side. Always much harder. Will someone comment on her Grandmother’s old comforter? Will she want to shave her armpit fuzz when she sees other girls doing it? What if she gets her period? Does she have enough stamps? And what about him; will he change his underpants? Will he be warm enough with that old blanket? Is a pink sleeping bag an invitation for bullies? Sending a child to camp is an exercise in surrendering control. In that heap of fleece and Gortex and triple layered masks sits every parent’s inner most worries for their child. No wonder parents fret so much about packing; it’s the only thing we can control. Fourteen pairs of underwear, check. One pair of wellies, check. The most important things –– confidence, resilience, courage, kindness, flexibility –– we all know, aren’t packable. And no amount of bandaids or sunscreen will stave of homesickness. So we make a list, check it 42 times, and hope for the best.

“I heard from a swimming coach that how soon children learn to swim depends on how much they trust themselves and the surrounding world,” wrote the Hungarian polyglot, Kató Lomb. In this beautiful film by filmmaker, Luca Werner we meet three teenage boys, two of whom share an innate love of water and swimming. “I remember I used to beg my family to take me to the beach.. It was when I was learning to swim and I wanted to go as far as I could. And my father would shout at me because he was scared. But I never listened to him and kept swimming.” The film, set in Rhodes, is an exquisite homage to the sea, and to the idyllic carefreeness of youth. The third boy, the reluctant diver, says he fears what he can’t see. Anything could be lurking underneath the surface. “It’s hard to find sharks in Greece,” quips his pal.

There’s something endlessly exciting to me about the connection between raw material –– wood, clay, stone, metal –– and the maker that inherits it. In the hands of an artist’s imagination, a lump of wood or a slab of clay has the potential to be anything. Some artists, Betty Woodman for example, took a radical approach to the material, turning clay into exuberant multi media murals. Others, create something that bares more of the markings of the material’s original identity, like Eva Jospin’s cardboard forests. Both are an exquisite homage to their chosen material, innovative, original and arresting. We’re drawn to originality as much as we are to the familiar; Nadia Yaron‘s striking wood sculptures are reminiscent of both Brancusi and the tree stumps that they came from. As long as we can see some spark in the work that sets it aside from someone else’s, as long as we can see the artist in the wood, in the clay, in the shimmer of glass, as long as there’s a connection, then something original has been created.

I remember Paul Gascoigne in floods of tears after being booked during England’s iconic semi-final defeat to West Germany in Turin back in 1990. I watched Gareth Southgate hit the post in that semi-final penalty shoot out against Germany in 1996. And I watched a 23-year-old David Beckham get sent off the pitch after lashing out at Diego Simeone in the 1998 World Cup. You can’t grow up in England and not care about football. Football, bangers, the Queen –– they’re British essentials. Penalties are thrilling, agonizing and heartbreaking to watch, and last night’s penalty shoot out between England and Italy was all the above. I’m happy for the Italians, I really am, but I’m gutted for our England boys. Throughout the game, I kept picturing my many English friends, on the edge of their Habitat sofas, or crammed into London pubs, cheering and speechless. I pictured my brother, a devoted fan, holding his head as 19-year-old Bukayo Saka missed England’s final penalty. There are few things more unifying than a big football game. We come together in our joy, in our loss, in regret and hope. I thought about London and how quiet it must have been last night and this morning. International correspondent for Australia’s SBS news, Ben Lewis, tweeted: “Streets of London are strangely quiet and the back of my cab smells like tequila and sausage rolls, so fair to say it was a big night. #itsnotcominghome.”

It’s not that there aren’t sandy beaches in Greece, there are, but the most beautiful ones are a mass of pebbles. Walking on them feels like an intense hot stone massage for the feet. Most tourists prefer sand –– it’s easier –– so pebble beaches are often empty. And the water is clearer because there’s no silt being whipped up waves, swimmers and jet skiers. As a child, my feet were leather hard at summers end. I always travelled back to England with at least a dozen pebbles in my bag, keepsakes from every beach I explored. Artist, Alan Magee is most famous for his beautiful paintings of pebbles. They’re so detailed that they look like photographs. I look at them and feel hot pebbles underneath my feet as I hop towards the water’s edge.