Jamie Goes on his Residential

Jamie has gone away on a school residential in Shropshire from today Monday and he will be home on Thursday. This was not a day I had been looking forward to, but when the letter came home saying they would be running a residential for Jamie's year I had to let him go on it if that was what he wanted to do. He did!

I was a little more relieved when Jamie and I attended the first meeting about it and found out that there were to be no water sports involved and that the place he was going looked very nice, well organised and well run. School had already checked it out and it seemed as though it was be a positive experience for Jamie. It turned out to be incredibly popular with a huge number from Jamie's year wanting to go, so much so that they had to organise a larger bus to take them all.

We had got Jamie all of the things he needed and a few extra clothes too (we had been warned that there was likely to be a lot of mud involved) so Jamie was sent off with 2 sets of clothes for each day and some spares on top of that!! He was allowed a little spending money and so plenty of change was found for the vending machine, torch, sleeping bag and all those other little bits were packed and ready to go.

I was very happy with the Dad who queried taking MP3's at the meeting and a unanimous vote of not taking from the parents was greeted with boos from the kids but it was a sensible suggestion from the parent, well done whoevers Dad it was!!

And so the day dawned when he had to go - Jamie was fine, I wasn't but hid it well! We got up to school, unloaded his large bag, to find his wasn't the largest!! Lots of parents thinking along the same lines. He had been very lucky and was in a room with lots of his friends, so I suspected sleep would be in short supply!! We checked him in and then had to leave him in the school hall along with all of the others.

So our gang (those of us who meet up and chat in the playground, whose children are friends etc) gathered at the school gate chatting away to take our minds of the huge bus waiting to take our babies away from us, most of us for the first time without Mum and Dad on such an adventure. Eventually they starting filing out, getting their bags up the steps, some with help (Mike headed off to help Jamie), piling their bags ready to go on the coach and most getting a quick final hug of Mum and Dad - Jamie did of course!!

Then we headed to the other side of the bus as that was where Jamie was sitting and so Andrea S, Vicki, me and one or two others were stood waving, smiling and feeling terrible!! It took so long to get the bus loaded with the bags but eventually the time came for the bus to go. We were stood there smiling and waving, and most of us eyes filled up but not crying, we didn't want to let them see that!! It was nice to see that I wasn't the only soppy silly old thing, who was clearly going to miss my little chap or chappess very very much!!

The bus headed around and so we had a second chance to wave as we headed back to the car, only for the bus to get stuck in the cars, as everyone was still there waving them off, so we got another big chance to wave and then they were gone. There were lots of Mums then trying not to cry and not succeeding very well.

Our babies were growing up and heading off for one of their first adventures. There were to be no telephone calls, no emails or texts from them and the first time we would have contact again would be Thursday afternoon. It felt like it was going to be a very long time. We would get updates on the school website and that was going to be it.

We headed home to an empty and very quiet house and then I headed off to college feeling pretty bereft!!

Ciao

Sue
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Reading challenge 10/16 - currently reading Songbird by Josephine Cox