We packed our eldest daughter of on a coach at 7:15 yesterday morning.

So her long awaited French exchange trip is in motion. She seemed to be a little bit nervous most of the weekend and this, as usual, emerged as petulance, and a stronger than usual argumentative streak. 

As with all these things there were many lists to complete and full and frank disussions of what could and couldn't go but all in all it all came together reasonably well and she was whisked off to Luton airport to travel to Bordeaux. 

The exassperating role of parent of a twelve year old daughter is a journey full of constant missed opportunities. Of course the adoring parents where keen to get out the biggest atlas we have ( and we have a few) and try to look up all the places she was visiting, the villages she'd be travelling throu' and one or two obvious 'interesting' local places for her to visit in her no doubt copious free time. She was prepared to know she was going to France and leave it at that, so given this session of geographical exploration was going to take five minutes out of the far more important task of farmville maintenance, a certain amount of discussion ensued.

But these are minor gripes. The basic fact is the twelve years have flown by and it's odd to consider that she is porbably already over half way to leaving us, and this is just the first proper testing of the wings.

I'm missing her already.