The grand saga of the half-term school trip

Like many children in the UK our youngest,  the boyo aka Rh, has been off on a school trip.  He was expected back on the 15th April, 2010 after 10 days in Canada on a school ski trip to Whistler. Aint he a lucky duck

Then that volcano blew its top and shebang went all the plans. Eyjafjallajokull,  well if you have a name like that no wonder you lose your cool cause I spit and splutter just trying to say this volcano's name.

After 5 days in the same clothes the boyo has arrived home. I picked him up from the school and helped to drag is bag the 10 doors home after he travelled for 35 hours on various forms of transport to get home from Amsterdam. This included buses, trains, private taxis, ferry bus transport, trains and minibuses.

It turns out he was hosteled in Rotterdam so they had to be bused back to the airport to finally get their luggage back from KLM.   The reason why KLM kept their luggage the group was a first priority group for when planes went back into action. Thanks guys for all your help but we have to get this party of children home and back into school can we have our luggage now.   They caught a train through Holland, Belgium and were then stuck thanks to the French Train strike.  They organised a local taxi service to drive the kids from the closest Belgium border town to Dunkquerke.

After waiting around for a good 8 hours or more with the kids at the Dunkquerke ferry terminal the school party was then picked up by a Dover Bus service who were doing a roaring trade by making sure there was a bus on the ferry as this ferry crossing was not allowing foot passengers.  The Dover Bus services were selling seats on their bus.  So the kids are loaded put on the ferry, cross over at 2:30am in the morning and were then unloaded in Dover ferry port.  At this point shanks pony ala their foot falcons (walking) was implemented out to a taxi rank so they could get to the train station.  If you have been to Dover ferry port it is a bit of a long walk for tired people.

After much mucking about  and bit of a cross country zig zag on the trains, as they could not get direct train, the kids arrived at Liverpool Lime Street.  Fortunately the Leading Teacher called from Warwick station and suggested that they were all picked up by mini bus from Lime St station cause she believed that they would not make another transfer onto the local metro train and then shank's ponying back to the school for pick up.  The kids were picked up and brought back to the school where I was on hand to help the boyo walk home.

One of the first activities we did was a stripping once he got inside, so his clothes went straight in to the washing machine.  They were almost standing upright on their own. He was then pushed into the shower were he fell asleep under the water.  After being fished out by his mother to which he was most indignant about. He was then tucked up into his bed.  Not sure what he most indignant about his mother fishing him out of the shower or his mother waking him up.

He has risen since he has got home yesterday but he obviously turned into a locust again on me.  Food has been disappearing at a great rate of knots as he inhaled a 20" pizza by himself.  The food to stock the fridge that I brought yesterday has disappeared and I have had to buy another complete week's worth of shopping to restock the fridge today.  I wonder how long this lot will last.