Know when to walk away, know when to run...

The Duke of Edinburgh dramas did not end with the shitey noodles travails.  Having visited Cotswolds Outdoors for last minute kit (I wafted to the checkout in my impractical silk frock and handed the man a list, explaining that "I do not do Outdoors, I don't know what any of these things are; please fetch them for me, or else I shall cry bitterly"), and of course endured the Tesco Noodle Hell, I could stand it no longer, and handed all responsibility for the expedition over to the DC.

Thus it was that at 8.45pm on Friday, Saff was discovered to have lost her sleeping bag.  There was much shouting and clambering up and down to the attic, but I was most of the way down a bottle of red and attempting to watch the last instalment of Jamaica Inn, and being very glad the poor sound quality meant I had to turn it up very fucking loud indeed and so drowned out the stamping and banging.

All enquiries and interrogations about "Have you seen my..." or "Where is the..." were simply met by the answer "I bought noodles" and another glass of wine.  Eventually I felt a bit bad and lurched through to demand if she had packed all the noodles.  Discovering many noodles had been jettisoned, I returned to my wine in a fit of pique.

There was little drama the next morning apart from Saff refusing to have porridge because the DC had told her it would make her need a shit, so she had poached eggs instead (very binding).

Apart from the boiler deciding to break down, the rest of the day was also uneventful, until I decided to apply my super fast acting fake tan before going out for a night of margheritas and poker with some of the other parents from the expedition.  Initially I had a lovely glow, but due to the broken boiler I attempted to remove the tan with a damp flannel which didn't really work, so by the time I arrived for the margheritas my ankles were day glo orange (well, my whole legs were, but only my ankles were on display).

There were six of us there to play poker, a notion we quickly abandoned, though not because I am actually a) quite good at poker and b) unbearably smug when I win at anything.  I hardly crowed over my huge pile of chips at all, and I wasn't patronising in the slightest when I tossed some of my winnings to others less fortunate, and I didn't say "I am practically Victoria Coren Mitchell" more than 8 or 10 times.

Poker over (because I won. I won, I FUCKING WON IT ALL), talk turned, as it ever does when six middle class women who don't know each other terribly well get together, to schools.  Three of us have our precious angels at the Posh School, and the other three have opted for the local state school.  The three Posh School mummies' eyes grew wider and wider as we huddled together in horror at the tales of the 'local' school.  I'm pretty sure the margherita jug was wrested from me in time and I only shouted 'knife addled rape academy' in my head. 

I mean, I know there's smoking and drinking and sex and drugs at the Posh School, but its all on a much nicer scale.  After all, Duty Free Gauloises bought on the way back from skiing are hardly the same as Mayfairs and when Charlotte Baxter had to have her stomach pumped last year after drinking a whole litre of Pimms at a party on a private island, it just was all quite jolly really! 

The next day Saffy tottered home, still bearing many packets of noodles.  I was incredibly proud when she told me that she had been so feeble that the rest of her group ended up carrying her bag for her in an effort to make her walk faster.  That's my girl.