Latest on my son's trip to Malawi:
Week two: all suitcases have finally arrived and the team are reported to be "fit and healthy and just back from the Dwambazi climb".
Dwambazi climb? I really should have paid more attention at that parents' evening back in January.
Update: I am told the group is doing "conservation work". I dare say I'll find out more when they get back.
Three weeks in Malawi is a far cry from the school trips I went on as a child. At a similar age, shortly after our O-Grades (the Scottish equivalent of O-Levels), we spent a week at the Lochgoilhead Outdoor Activity Centre.
In six years at secondary school that was it, unless you count a trip to see The Cheviot, The Stag and the Black, Black Oil at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh.