Day One and a Half

 France 2023 – Day One

With true St Michael’s resilience, our Year 6 pupils and staff endured a lengthy day of sitting on the coach and waiting to board a ferry. Unlike previous years, everyone had to clamber off the coach with their passport, have it scanned at passport control and climb back on again…..and then have them all individually scanned again at check-in. This wouldn’t have been a problem, but for the many coaches of school children in front of us, who all had to do the same thing. On the bright side, we all have nice stamps in our passports.

Despite a really smooth road journey to Dover, this delay caused us to miss the ferry we were supposed to be on, by approximately two minutes. A certain member of staff, however, who was travelling by car, had driven past us hours ago waving merrily, and sent messages asking what the adults’ coffee order was. Alas, this was kind but very premature of him, as he was on the original ferry and we now had to wait for a later one. Mr Bird says he had a lovely time on the ferry eating his lunch in peace.

Your Year 6 children were amazing at entertaining themselves on the coach for all this time – there was much singing, playing of Top Trumps, reading of books, making friends with the children at the back of the coach in front, and a LOT of sweets eaten. No complaining, no bad tempers – some of the adults were less tolerant and had to amuse themselves by playing games of A-Z. This shouldn’t have been too taxing, but when “Claire” was suggested for a boy’s name beginning with C, it was clear that concentration levels were struggling. Another adult insisted the letter U comes after Q, and a decision was made to stop.

Finally we made it to the terminal at Dover, and the children enjoyed some fresh air on the balcony watching the port, while the adults had their first coffee of the day. Mr Bird was on his fourth, relaxing in the lounge on the ferry. He kindly sent us photos.

Once on the ferry, everyone enjoyed their packed lunch and spread out, chatting and stretching their legs by wandering around. We were most impressed by those children who ate their lunches then ordered a huge portion of chicken and chips from the onboard restaurant, devouring those as well. Some of your children have remarkable appetites and you should be proud.

We blew the cobwebs away on deck, but couldn’t see Dover or France in the distance, as it was quite misty. Nobody seemed to mind.

By the time we arrived in Calais, it was clearly too late to go to Rando Rail which was quite a long drive (it has been re-booked for tomorrow.) A quick plan B was drawn up, and we headed to Berck beach to meet Mr Bird – at last! – and a good long run around, bury each other in the sand, collect shells, do gymnastics or build huge sandcastles. After a good long time, we headed to the hotel, found out who we were sharing a room with, plonked our suitcases in the room and marvelled at the bijou bathrooms. There was some consternation over how high the top bunk bed was, and a little assistance was needed for some to dismount, but we made a swift exit to dinner as – incredible though it seems – people were hungry again.

Some of us were flagging by now, and chose to head back to the hotel after dinner for a nice shower – others stayed on the basketball court for another hour or more, playing games with French teenagers. One of these asked our Year 6s to do the Mbappe pose, which they did beautifully. It was fantastic to see some of the normally quieter members of the year group taking part, and throwing themselves into the game with gusto. There was such a lovely atmosphere, and the chance to mix socially with French young people is a wonderful part of this trip. In addition, the mixing between our two classes has been great to see.

As we write, all is quiet and everyone is in their room, worn out from a day of travelling, eating, beach, basketball and more eating. In Mr Bird’s case, there has been a lot of walking up and down the beach, pining for us – and he looked so happy to see us when we eventually turned up.

Bonne Nuit!