The Adventurer Returns ( Pt 1)

This last few days I have been one of those dreaded "paranoid" mothers, not something I enjoy being but on occasion I can be seen biting my nails, checking my phone every few minutes (under the pretext of checking Twitter of course) and just generally being anxious. The cause of this? C was away on his first ever school trip to France for a few days. All sorts of thoughts were going through my head..was he eating ok? (only about 10 foods he will eat), was he washing? (something I still have to nag him to do), was he changing his clothes?(he would live and sleep in same outfit for days if I let him) etc etc and most of all, of course, was he having a good time?

Well last night arrived, he was due home at 10pm and I had made sure he took his mobile, with strict instructions to text or ring me and let me know if the coach was running on time, so that I would be there to meet him at correct time. I had sent him a text every day he was away ( no reply of course) and it had been delivered...but oh no..NOT yesterday!! The one day I needed him to have it on, it was turned off! As a result, I turned from a paranoid mother into a total nervous wreck, stressed out and losing it kind of mother. This is no lie, just ask the poor people on Twitter who had the misfortune to be talking to me at the time...you know who you are and you have my utmost apologies, you will be glad to know that normal service has since been resumed! I texted the mobile number that I had been given by the school for when they were away, explaining about his phone being off and asking them to let me know if coach would still be arriving at 10pm. This was at 6.30pm, and was told it would be late and they would text me later. No mention of why it was late, how late etc. Well time went on and by 11pm with still no text I was all set to go to the school to see if any other parents were there..I rang the phone (ok, maybe the paranoia was getting a bit extreme) and no answer..so now had the thoughts of "What if they forget to text and he is waiting on me?", "What if there has been an accident and they didnt want me to worry?"...you get the gist..so coat on, dragging his step dad out the door behind me, with him saying "what on earth are you worrying about, they said they would ring?" (please note OH, this does not help when I am ready to have a nervous breakdown!), got to the car and there was a strange buzzing noise from my bag..yep, you guessed it, the school had just texted to say they would be back at 12.30am. So back into the house we went with OH telling me "I told you so, you never listen" (please note OH, this did not help either and if I hadn't been relying on you to take me to the school you would have made a fast exit out the front door with a heavy boot up your backside!)

At 12.30am, we arrived at the school, to find it eerily quiet, we were the only car there, so had a feeling the other parents knew something we didnt..guess their little darlings all had their mobile phones switched on and had told them they would be even later..lucky them! It wasn't till just after 1am that other cars started to arrive..and at last at 1.30am we saw the coach coming down the road.


Us parents gathered round, waiting for the doors to open, looking out for our little angels to welcome them home (actually, it was more like so they could grab them, and rush home so they could finally go to bed). The doors opened and some very tired, slightly stressed teachers appeared,closely followed by the 40 kids. C got off the bus and I went up to say great to see you, but got cut short by "Cant talk, need to get my case", this obtained we got in the car and as we drove home I enquired why they were late and if he had had a good time.


He said the coach broke down and they missed the ferry, so had to get a later one. He seemed to have coped better than I thought with this but from what he said he was not overly impressed with the teachers suggestion of playing bingo while they sat for 2 hours waiting on the coach being repaired. He also told us "Do you know the driver had to pay £750 of his own money to fix the coach?" When I said I couldnt see the coach company expecting their drivers to pay for repairs out of their own money he was very insistant saying the driver told them they were lucky he had savings or they would not have got home. Think it was another case of someone making a joke and C taking it literally..but you never know I could be wrong.

We arrived home, and made him some toast, he said he hadnt had anything since lunchtime. I asked him if they had not stopped at a service station on way home and got told "Yes, but you should have seen the queue ..no way was I waiting in that so put my food on the floor and walked out". If anyone from the above service station is reading this, I do apologise on his behalf, he does not do "waiting" very well, but will advise him to put food back on shelf next time.


I asked him a few things about what he had done when he was away to get asked "Why do you want to freak me out?"..so decided to leave it for the morning. 


Lets just say I am so proud of how he coped with the trip and especially the late return. Glad you had a good time C xxx


Watch out for part 2. Paris and Disneyland through the eyes of C.