It Never Stops

Revered Son has just broken his thumb, by punching someone.

The game is called 'Bum'.  You form two lines opposite each other, and then individual children run down between the lines, as the others punch them as hard as they can.  The modern version of 'Strip the Willow'. The kind of thing you expect your children to learn, if you are stupid enough to pay for them to attend private school.

This is bad luck because Revered Son has been playing rugby all season at regional level, and is now engaged on an outward bound adventure course outside Barnstaple, which is clearly being run with all the ElfandSafety small print crossed, ticked and dotted.

But he's punched someone in the hip, broken his thumb joint and now can't go skiing.  Which means neither can his father nor his two friends, one of whom, it turns out, isn't insured.  That's £1000 gone for his poor mother.

So while I'm living it up in Italy with Beloved Daughter, Revered Son and X have moved into Wydemeet, which, frustratingly, I have failed to let out either for my skiing week, nor for Easter.  £2,500 down the drain, and no B&Bers booked in as a result.

It is an odd thought having X back living in what is now my home.  Where will he sleep? Revered Son (15) refuses to sleep in his own attic bed, as we found a spider on his lampshade in there last week. So he is currently in Bellever. No one is allowed in Dartmeet as it's now made up all clean and ready, by Sashka, for our next visitors. I don't suppose X will want to go back into my luxurious, rather pink, bedroom, 'Hexworthy', but I'm not too bothered if he does.

Also odd is that I have more communication with X during my Italy stay, than with anyone else.  First he is organising for the puncture in my courtesy car to be mended, then the puncture on my trailer; then the dishwasher blows up and needs to be repaired; the landline goes down again twice more, and Twiglet is collected from the Forest Inn next door - the kind couple who took him in with a smile with one minute's notice at dead of night for a fiver.  Meanwhile both Revered Son and X are clearly quite ill, with colds bordering on flu.  In the end it becomes apparent that they have had a very happy time, chatting, bonding and relaxing; finally leaving behind a bottle of Premier Cru Chablis and an immaculate home with everything working in it again for me. Funny how the world keeps on spinning.