Eleven year old Douglas's parents, who live in France, arrive to find all the grown ups standing on the bar, enthusiastically 'moving like Jagger' in the routine they put together last night over a few bottles of Prosecco, while the rest of us were engaged on a Gelatti hunt with 32 children, two of whom are accutely allergic to nuts.

Soon Douglas's big brother joins him on the floor, to demonstrate dancing gangnam style, while ten year old Wilbur does an Irish jig to 'I am Happy".  And we all are. This eclectic mix of adults and kiddies have bonded so well that no one cares who they find themselves sitting next to over the unremitting daily supper of rock-hard white rolls, kos lettuce, radiccio, olives, and tinned chopped carrots.

Prior to supper, evenings comprise two lines of adults and children sitting on their bums, back to the wall, legs in everybody's way, in the hotel passage, gaming, running their businesses, gambling, or checking out the talent on Times Encounters, as the free wifi doesn't work anywhere else.

Days involve forty-one Brits racing around the mountains on skis, from the first chair-lift up, to the last chair-lift down.  It is extraordinary that every single child appears to be mad about skiing, however much crying takes place in between runs. Meanwhile the adults oversee the action from the centrally located mountain cafe, tucking into something called Bombardino - an orange kind of advocat that you mix with coffee and cream - discussing children and parenting.  'Benevolent Neglect' appears to be our most favoured approach.

The sun is hot, the sky is blue, the snow is perfect, the runs are virgin, there's no one else here.  The mountain is our very own.

On the last day we are all such experts that we ski to France.  Here we find noise.  Hundreds of English people clogging up the chairlifts, all colour coordinated.  Some wear orange caps, lots of tiddlies are crying, some young teenagers sport purple sweatshirts, others have sky blue ski jackets, all with the names of their schools emblazoned on the back. School ski trips have clearly become big business.  The Bombardinos cost nearly double over here.  We are glad to get back to the peace of  Italy, where even the first-timer seven year-old skiers are now leaving me behind, as they ski their bittersweet last run, after a week of universal hilarity and joy.

"My ski gloves are older than Malcolm," I declare.  

Malcolm is one of the teachers running the school ski trip. He is twenty-eight. My gloves are twenty-nine and still white(ish).  They still work too.

The school ski trip comprises 32 children and nine adults.  I have been clear throughout the planning of it, that I am not here to look after children, and all promises have been kept to, rigorously.  I have nothing to do but be told when and where to go.  No decisions to make. No responsibility. I don't care what the weather's like, what the hotel's like, what the skiing's like.  It is just heaven being able to relax for a week.  Even though it feels odd that there's been no break between attending the school music competition, swimming at the unhealthyclub, finding a home for Twiglet, coach, plane, coach, hotel, ski-hire place and revolting supper in the very basic hotel's very basic dining room somewhere in Italy, surrounded by eight year olds who've also been up and at it for 48 hours. I've rarely been happier.

"I wonder how the airlines deal with the changing of the clocks?" I mused.  Our flight was leaving at 6am, and we had to catch the coach to the airport from Beloved Daughter's school at one-in-the-morning.

She and I were enjoying a typically disgusting unhealthy lunch prior to a swim at my awful health club, now that term was over, to commiserate the fact that after all that, she hadn't made it into the school's music competition final. Which, incidentally, was won by an excellent cellist, aged eight, playing a Grade 1 piece immaculately.  The top music scholar going home with nothing, despite a particularly impressive advanced performance on her violin.  But who am I to judge. 

"The flight's tonight - the clocks go back tomorrow," Beloved Daughter casually replied, finishing off her microscopic 'for adult tums' spag bol, ordered off the kids' menu.

"No, it's tomorrow," I said.

"No, it's tonight," she said.

"Well I'm going for a swim and we'll find out when we get home," I said calmly, rattled.

And so it was that I found myself driving around central Dartmoor at 10pm, with the dog and his food and cage, mobile in hand, desperate for a signal, running out of petrol, trying to find someone prepared to look after him for a week to whom I could deliver him immediately, two hours to go before we had to catch the coach.  My landline was down again, thanks to my old mates, BT.