Thursday 29th May – Friday 30th May 2008
Prepared for a night away from home last year in Reception, Rhiannon now embarks on a 'real' residential trip to a place the school use regularly in Hachioji, a couple of hours drive away from us.
It will last for all of one night away.
Although excited, she is also terrified, poor lass. She's a terrible sleeper at the best of times, so I very much doubt she will sleep here, in a dormitory with other kids. Not my problem! She's given a list of things to take, including raincoat and several pairs of socks, so it sounds like they are going to get their feet wet at least! The weather all week has been glorious and the older children have already been on their field trips there.
The mum's wave the kid off on the bus and there were no tears… on either side! Then the heavens opened… what a shame. It poured with rain the entire time and I found out the next day that Rhiannon had left her raincoat at school before catching the bus. She'd had to borrow one of the teacher's and this limited her participation. Ah well.
We had an email from school saying they'd arrived safely and were busy enjoying various activities in the open air – rain obviously did not stop play.
Tim and I treated ourselves to a trip to a local Indian restaurant that night. Not a place we can go with Rhiannon in tow as she doesn't eat anything remotely spicy.
It was absolute heaven not to get woken up in the morning by a small exuberant child and I made the most of my rare lie-in.
We were told that they would return to school at 3.30pm – so that's when I arrived. However, it turned out they'd arrived a lot earlier and most of the other mum's had been told and had already collected their children. You have to be friends with the "right people" at this school…
On the way up to get her, I met one of the attending teachers who looked absolutely knackered. It turned out she had the dubious pleasure of being the dorm-mistress to the room Rhiannon was in. And as expected, Rhiannon was fairly homesick and did not sleep at all. In doing so she also kept all the other kids awake. Once fitfully asleep, she was then the first one awake – and made sure all her room-mates woke up too. Hmm, it seems she takes after her mother when on holiday! But I do respect other people's need to sleep.
I found poor Rhiannon all alone in her classroom desperately trying to stay awake and brave.
I scooped her up with a huge cuddle and bundled her home where she regaled me with stories of how they had to make their own beds from scratch – with sheets and blankets! Unheard of in her little life. And pretty tricky when you're only 6 and on the top bunk. All good training though!
She was impressed with the meals there, but not too keen on the activities due to the torrential rain and oversized raincoat. And she's already talking about going next year as in Year 2 they stay away for TWO nights!
A hot bath and a very early night restored her to bouncing normality.
No photos, sadly – I'm sure the teachers took many, but I haven't got copies.
