My son, 16, is currently on a three-week school trip to Malawi.
The group - 22 children and half a dozen adults - arrived safely last weekend, via Ethiopia. I know this because within 24 hours we received a bush telegraph style message from the parents of another child on the same trip. We then had to phone the parents of the next child on the list and so on to tell them the good news.
The bad news is that the same cannot be said of their luggage. Reports are a bit hazy but seven days later at least 17 suitcases have still to be reunited with their owners. Eleven have been traced to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, and six are unaccounted for.
Apparently, Ethiopian Airlines has decreed that freight is more important than clean underwear for a group of teenagers from Cambridgeshire.
Understandable, perhaps, but I do hope they are reunited with their possessions - including my son's malaria tablets - very soon!