So Much Fun

We arrive at Grenoble Airport three hours prior to our flight, to ensure there is plenty of time for a party of 41 to check in.

We discover that our plane hasn't even left England yet, and will probably be delayed by around four hours.

I don't care.  I am still in a state of bliss.  No decisions, no responsibilities, I will just do and go and be wherever, and whenever I am told.  I am a remarkably obedient person for someone who is so cussed.

The airport is entirely choked with school skiing parties. 'Unicorn School' seems to have nearly fifty children, all in matching brightest blue. 

The people at check-in are clearly like the ones in 'Airplane', enjoying mixing up and matchmaking the children from the different schools.  Our coolest kid, who went from nought to skiing helicopter turns in the air in just one week, is horrified to find himself seated between the window and a strange 13 year old girl from another school.  He cant sit down, crouching against the wall of the plane, his mouth open in abject horror, until a teacher takes pity on him and swaps some children around, and he is next to a boy he already knows.

We are finally dropped back at school in a pitch black gale of horizontal rain at 4am, to find our cars without a torch or an umbrella.

Up again at 9am to prepare a picnic to beat that of Nemesis, the woman who stole my husband four years ago, and off to a football match of 21 of Revered Son's friends from his old prep school, on an exposed cliff outside Boscastle. The rain is still bucketing down and I have never seen the West Dart more torrential.

As it happens, it doesn't really matter what the picnic comprises, because Revered Son is captain of his side, broken thumb and all, and his friends crowd around him at the back of my cool courtesy car anyway.  Revered Son's team, "Twiglet Hotspurs", has won again, for the fourth year running, and this year, I promise Nicole, the organising Mum, that I will definitely get the huge silver cup, lovingly polished by X, engraved.  The adults hover around, quaffing plastic cups of chilly Cava, as their hair sticks to their heads in the downpour, and the hardcore, which turns out to be only Nemesis and me, repair back to Nicole's house for more.

Racing home again we still haven't unpacked, done the post, or replied properly to B&B enquiries, risking the disaster of double-booking. But no, we can hardly sit down before it's the next morning and Beloved Daughter's first official ride on Perfect Panda, my wonderful horse, in thick fog, high winds (you only get both at the same time on Dartmoor) and rain so heavy it's as if God is pouring an endless giant bucket of water over the whole of Devon.

I have given myself a couple of days' grace from the B&B to squeeze in some fun - more riding scheduled for tomorrow - and then it's back to work.  Hopefully I will have a new shower installed before our next guests arrive on Thursday.