Post-exam bliss 'n' blues

It's over - I did my last exam on Thursday morning (Spanish GCSE, for anyone (if there is anyone out there) who didn't know I was taking it this year). And it is a mighty strange feeling, to have it all behind me.

It's a funny business, taking an exam as an adult. Sitting in the school hall on Monday afternoon, all the mature students in a row down the length of it, like warships steaming out of Scapa Flow, and two or three rows of schoolkids as well, to our left; on the hottest day of the summer so far, with the curtains drawn to keep out the glare and occasionally lifting in the breeze from the big windows; in silence, except for the squeak of chairs and click-clicking of pen tops; the invigilator sat up on the stage watching us all - I hadn't expected it to bring back so clearly those summers forty years ago when I sat my "real" O- and A-level exams, the ones that mattered.

Because this exam doesn't matter, not in the way it matters to the year 11 students sitting it with us. Our future in work and higher education doesn't depend upon it. We said we'd like to do it, as a challenge, and to keep us focussed on our evening classes, as a bit of fun, we said. We weren't going to get stressed about it, we said. Ha! We've been worse than any 16-year-old. We've been obsessively revising, learning vocabulary on the train, doing practice papers every weekend, swotting up on our irregular verbs at any odd moment that could be spared (and some that shouldn't have been). We've probably been hell to live with. I don't think there is any one of us who doesn't have a first degree; and several have postgraduate or research degrees. We've all had demanding careers. We've all had families and personal problems and difficulties to overcome. We are experienced and we are used to achieving. But when it came to the exam, we were worse, much worse, than any 16-year-old. So yes, there is a sense of relief now that I can sit back and discover how much more time I have got. Heck, I can go back to reading a book (instead of a textbook) on the train!

But there was a real sense of release in sitting the exam. I'd forgotten what it was like. That wonderful moment when you can sit down, relax (there's nothing more you can do), turn the paper over - and just let it go, all those things you have learnt, putting it all down. Perhaps it is like a concert pianist, with all the months of practice, all the rehearsals, behind; finally waiting for the conductor, in silence, then lifting her hands on to the keys and playing. It is deeply satisfying. And addictive.

So, what next? I doubt I shall continue with the Spanish next year. I think the rest of the class want to do more conversation, and that isn't what I enjoy about a language. I don't have Spanish friends, I don't have Spanish family, we don't always go to Spain on holiday, I am not going to retire over there. So what use would it be to me to learn how to talk in Spanish? I'd love to do more reading and writing, but I'll have to accept that I will be in the minority in this respect. It seems a shame to put it all away and gradually forget it... But.