A Path Lost And A Friend Found

 Just before the kids broke up for the 'grandes vacances' one of the exciting things on offer to the pupils of 6eme was a day of orienteering in the beautiful forests at St Sever in Calvados.  To help control the kids who found themselves set free to roam the forest, was the sports staff of the school and  a rather feeble army of four parent helpers alongside....myself included.
Now, I was so scared. I didn't know at this time whether it would be just me and 120 twelve year old French 'ados'. I was looking for any excuse not to go, examining each muscle and joint mentally, looking for a twinge or a sprain that could get me out of it.

 When I introduced myself to a rather dishy teacher, he seemed pleased to have me along,  so,  I was in.
I followed behind the coach in my fab new pale green Twingo, much to the delight of the boys on the back seat who thought it was hilarious!
The forest of St Sever is not far from the town of Vire in Calvados and is the natural habitat of wild boar, badgers and foxes, although we saw none of these creatures on the day that the forest was invaded by a tribe of wailing banshees.
The parent helpers were split up into two's ( two lots of two in fact) given a map and sent to patrol the border, marked quite clearly. I hoped that my partner would turn out to be a wizz at mapreading....it quickly emerged that she was hoping for the same thing,  we could't even decide which way up this map should be! We walked and we talked and we had a great time together with absolutely no idea if we were actually walking along the path or not.
Eventually we came across a woman walking her dogs who pointed us in the right direction, so we cooly finished the course on track, appearing to have followed it all the way round.

Whoever the wag was who first pointed out the fact that women and maps do not mix, was totally spot on!

I was glad that I didn't back out of going on this great day out, because I had a really good time, met a new friend, and also, sometimes you have to step outside your comfort zone and do something that terrifies you...it's good for you!