School started last Tuesday with Rhiannon heading off on a residential trip to the north of Germany somewhere near the Polish border.
For four days and three nights. Three whole nights!
She's been away before, but only ever for one night at a time. To be frank, she doesn't really do too well away from the comfort of her own home (and mum!). She gets over-excited then over-tired swiftly followed by over-emotional and over-wrought.
But she was incredibly excited about the trip, albeit tinged with a little nervousness and a lot of bravery considering all the changes she's been through recently. For example, I'm still having to reassure her that there will not be an earthquake here...
However, by Wednesday she realised that she'd be away for another couple of nights and I received an incoherent phone call from her. Sobbing her heart out, she told me she wanted to come home. I can't say it was unexpected, but it was upsetting for this mum nonetheless.
Her mobile phone reception wasn't good so we resorted to texting - me with reassurances and advice to speak to a teacher, Rhiannon with vague, almost monosyllabic comments. As far as I could gather it was purely homesickness and nothing more worrying. (This turned out to be correct, by the way).
Finally it all went quiet on the phone front. I pondered contacting the teachers, but decided they were aware of the problem and knew how to deal with it.
Apron strings need to be loosened sometime and now was as good a time as any.
Thankfully I was right and when Rhiannon called later that evening she was much perkier and stated "Well, I must give it a go". Good girl!
On Friday she texted me to say she was on the bus heading back to school and was very tired. For her to admit she is tired means she's about to drop. The bus arrived at school an hour earlier than expected and the next message I received was "when are you coming to collect me?"
What!? I'd not expected that. I thought she'd be coming back on the bus as usual - oops, assumptions again!
Time for mum to be brave now and drive the 12km to school - a particularly complicated journey involving massive roundabouts (my personal nemeses) and the potential to accidentally get onto an autobahn of massive size.
To my relief I made it without incident although I will admit to being very shaky at the end of it.
It was fabulous to see my girl again and instantly noticed in her a new maturity hidden under the dark circles of tiredness. All in all she'd had an absolutely brilliant time, although not all the promised activities happened for various reasons.
She arrived home to a fabulously enthusiastic welcome from Kita; Tim arrived home from work and we went out for a celebratory meal at the trattoria.
Rhiannon slept for 12 hours and is still tired this morning. She's gone riding now. What a busy week for her.