Return

She’s back.

My daughter’s three days of adventure on her PGL trip are over.

The activity holiday organised by her school was a huge hit.

Once we’d got through the usual blow by blow, or rather forkful by forkful, account of what she’d eaten, my daughter volunteered the following information about her escapades.

"I had three gos on the zip wire, Mum. I’m not tired. They said I broke the record for falling asleep the quickest in my room. I’m not shattered. I didn’t like the fishcake, but I ate it all up. We couldn’t do fencing because the saw [sic] was broken. I liked it so much, I want to live there. I would like to work at PGL. It stands for Parents Get Lost, you know."

The school have filled out a little diary with nuggets of information about how she joined in with everything, including scaling part of the climbing wall, swinging on a giant swing, wriggling through a tunnel, trampolining, dancing at the disco, and helping tidy and pack.

All summed up with the last diary entry: “An absolute pleasure to take away and we know she had a great time - she kept telling us.”

The adventurer has gone to bed, pink and fragrant from her shower and hair-wash. Calm, serene, sleepy, dreamy, and very very happy.

That was at 7pm. Her brother, on the other hand, has only just gone quiet after spending storytime bouncing up and down on his bed with a pair of pants on his head.

Video is The Upsetters - Return Of Django

Days

I’ve just dropped my daughter off at school.

I gave her a big hug and a kiss, and watched her disappear inside, wearing her waterproof mac, trackie bottoms and trainers, and carrying a luminous pink bag that weighs the same as a small hippopotamus.

It’s packed with towels and spare trainers and T-shirts and jumpers and a washbag and a torch and a spangly dress and a swimming cozzie and Bully the cuddly, soft toy bull. (Not a Bully from Jim Bowen’s Bullseye show, although if it was one of those that would be super, smashing, great).

My daughter and her classmates are piling into a minibus and heading to deepest darkest East Sussex, for three days and two nights.

It’s a PGL multi-activity holiday, and they’ll be taking part in all sorts of exciting stuff from fencing and archery to climbing and disco dancing. (I wrote about it in my previous post Intrepid).

It’s the kind of thing kids all over the country do.

It’s the kind of thing my girl does, too.

I never thought she’d be able to take part in something like this. I used to wonder whether she’d ever walk or talk. 

Days like these are ordinary and extraordinary. 

They're not perfect, though. There's always a tiny improvement that could be made. Today, for example, could have been truly sublime. If only I'd thought to hide my toddler in the luggage rack.

Video is The Kinks - Days

Intrepid

I went to a meeting at my daughter’s special school last night, where some of the staff were giving parents information about a trip coming up.

It’s a PGL ‘multi-activity’ holiday. Thousands of children go on them every year. They stay in lodges, and take part in things like rifle-shooting, raft building, archery, orienteering, abseiling, climbing, and fencing.

For most families it would really be nothing out of the ordinary. But it’s an AMAZING thing to me.

Imagine this: Three days and two nights away from home, in a strange environment, when you can’t cope well with change. Days packed with physical activities, which are challenging and even scary - especially if your muscles don’t work that well, spinal surgery means you can’t bend your back, and your stamina isn’t great. Menus that contain some foods you’re not allowed, so you have to be rationed whilst others can get stuck in. And all of this alongside schoolmates whose own set of idiosyncracies, weaknesses, and behavioural issues can upset you.

I wouldn’t want to do it. I don’t think I’d have the bottle.

But my girl, my hypotonic, titanium-rodded, routine-loving girl, can't wait to go. 

There are many parts to my daughter’s unique personality. But there’s a word that describes a beautiful and surprising slice of her soul. And that word is intrepid.

She’ll have a wonderful adventure. Now I’ve just got to find £150 to pay for it.

Song is Natalie Merchant - Adventures of Isabel, based on a poem written by Ogden Nash for his seven-year-old daughter, Isabel.