Waving goodbye

I've always tried, with my daughters, to follow the example my own Dad set. Nothing was too much trouble for him. He'd always be there with the offer of a helping hand, or a lift to take me wherever I needed to go. So there I was, at 2.30am, knocking on Natalie's door telling her it was time to get up and go to the airport to catch the first leg of her three-flight journey to this year's field trip in Belize.

Belize? Flippin' 'eck! The most exotic educational trip I declined as a student (I never went on any school trips) was to northern France. Mind you, she has been through the mill a bit these past few months what with Hep-C, rabies and typhoid injections and anti-malaria pills she's felt pretty sick a lot of the time, so I hope the trip is worth it. I'm sure it will be. Trip of a lifetime, probably, but before the excitement comes many hours of flying. 6am flight to Amsterdam, then the 10.45 transatlantic leg to Houston (10 hours flying) and a final 90-minute flight to Belize. They're on Central Standard Time there, 7 hours behind the UK, so when she lands at 4.45pm local time her body will think it's 11.45pm, and she'll have been awake for 22 hours. I have no idea how much more journeying there is at the tropical end between the airport and the resort.

Check-in for the Amsterdam flight didn't open until 4am but the trip organiser had insisted everyone be at the airport by 3am. I know. What can you do? At least, when we walked into the departures hall at 3.05, a small group of her mates had already gathered near the desk. So we hugged, I waved goodbye, and left her in St. Christopher's (and KLM's) capable hands.