You know when you get that piece of paper – inevitably, in my case, a
couple of days late (and after another mummy has asked me all about it,
prompting me to remind my child to remember to give it to me) – announcing the
impending school trip? Does anyone else
feel a slight dip in enthusiasm, before glancing at the note, the deadline, the
cost. It’s definitely not that I don’t
want my kids to participate in all the extra curricular (but of course
enhancing to their education) activities, it’s not even particularly the cost
(although nearly £2000 for a cricket tour to Barbados curbed our summer hols big time
that year) – it’s the packing.
I know, ridiculous. Especially as
I am well travelled and went to boarding school from the age of 10. I am an elite packer. I can pack for England – in fact I could
probably pack England in a rucksack and take it on as cabin baggage. But getting all the stuff ready for an away
school trip is a nightmare. For a start,
you realise that your kid has been existing on four T shirts (the others deemed
unsuitable for some reason or another).
Normally this would not be a problem as the washing machine is on
permanently in this house. But when they
are away for more than four nights, and they are hot and sweaty, it becomes a
bit of an issue. So that’s a shopping trip.
Then there is the inevitable ‘Kit list’ that helpful teachers put
together – this always includes waterproofs (I agree, the British weather is
not predictable) a torch (why, I know they are staying at a cheap hotel, but surely
they have lighting?) and the request for plastic bags for dirty clothes.
I have three boys, one of whom is too young to do overnighters, but the
others are dab hands at it. Eldest Son, having been through the ranks of
Beavers, Cubs and Scouts, is, like me, an uber packer. After a trip his plastic bags are crammed
with washing, and the torch has moved in the bag – so he obviously found a use
for it. Middle Son is a disaster. The
last trip he did, he found the plastic bags (for dirty clothes) blew them up
and then burst them noisily behind the teachers who wrote the kit lists. He
arrived back dirty and happy, with a bag considerably lighter, having managed
to lose a number of items and gained some from another child. And it didn’t
matter that he only had four T shirts, because three of them appeared to come
back absolutely spotless. We won’t even
go there with the pants and socks…
The other thing of course is that your child grows – often without your realizing,
and all the stuff that you packed away from the last trip, or the last child,
suddenly doesn’t fit. And so we have gained several pairs of waterproof trousers (all unworn), the ‘spare pair of old
trainers’ isn’t, and the wash bag suddenly becomes heavier, because your child
has discovered ‘products’ like hair gel and cologne.
Eldest Son and I worked through the list
yesterday for his impending few days away on rowing camp. This list required four sets of clothes to
row in, because they would get wet (or hopefully not…). We duly located four
pairs of jogging bottoms – some smaller than the others, four hoodies, and so
on. We bagged them up into individual days – stopping short of labelling them
Day 1, Day 2 – he is 14 after all… I talked him again through his enormous holdall
–telling him to put the rest of his wash stuff Here before he left in the morning,
that his socks were in this bit and so on.
He rolled his eyes.
‘I know what I’m doing Mum’ he said, slightly belligerently as I put the
list in the bag for him to check he had everything on the way back. (None of the kids ever use this itinerary, or
check list, but it makes me feel efficient).
And so it was, at 5.30 this morning I waved him off as he left to catch
the coach to his destination.
He’ll have a fantastic time.
(Without the soap, hairbrush, and deodorant, that are sitting unchecked on his bed).
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