OUR youngest two were forced to endure a two-week holiday with Mum and Dad at the end of August. It’s not every teenage boy’s idea of fun.
The 17-year-old would rather have been at Leeds Festival, the 13-year-old moaned it meant he would miss football training and his first match of the season.
They weren’t happy their three older brothers, all tied up with various work commitments, couldn’t make it for the first time this year.
So it was just them and us in South West France, having to make the most of the warm weather, swimming pool, regular games of tennis, with plenty of time to read and enjoy long, leisurely meals of delicious food and wine.
“This is the worst holiday – ever!” was an expression uttered once or twice. As was “I hate you all”. A typical family holiday with teenagers really.
I came in for particular stick when I indulged the two farm cats who paid regular visits to the gite, in a converted barn, where we stayed for the first week.
“Aren’t they just lovely?” I cooed as I fed them bits of leftover meat and stroked them on the sofa.
It wasn’t until the day we were leaving, I noticed a paragraph about the cats in the guests’ information booklet: “Please do not let them into the gite. They have fleas.”
That phrase “worst holiday ever” was bandied about again as the boys itched and scratched,  insisting they were riddled with fleas: “Thanks Mum.”
All in all, as holidays go, it was shaping up nicely.
We managed to distract the boys from the hell they claimed we were putting them through by taking them kayaking and swimming in a beautiful, clear nearby river, with weirs and waterfalls and wide, grassy banks where people sunbathed and picnicked.
Little was I to know it was here our holiday, at least in the boys’ minds, was about to turn into one of the best they’d ever had.
After a gentle swim with the pair of them, during which they complained because I refused to get my hair wet, we were making our way to the edge of the bank where people entered and left the river.
At this point, to our left, there was a steep drop with a series of man-made dams with high walls either side built in stone, the water rushing through turbulent drops towards a deep rocky pool at the bottom.
I have since found out this was a ‘trout ladder’, constructed for luring fish. All I knew then was it looked quite dangerous. And, although we had seen a few older boys jumping in and coming out alive, we had also seen them ‘tombstoning’ from high rocks.
I, like all other sensible parents there, had steered children well away.
But, on this particular day, with quite a few people coming into the river as we went to leave, I made the mistake of moving to the left to make more space. Just a little too far to the left.
Suddenly, dragged by the powerful force of the water, I was sucked into the vortex of the trout ladder. It all seemed to happen in slow motion.
The last thing I saw was Roscoe and Albert’s wide-eyed, shocked faces, as Roscoe shouted: “She’s being dragged in!”
Spinning around in the whirling mass of water, it felt as if I was tumbling about in a giant washing machine, set at maximum speed.
Thankfully, I managed to make my way to the surface, where I grabbed onto a ledge, and was greeted by a row of concerned adult faces peering down at me.
Once it was clear I was OK, there was a wave of relieved laughter.
But they all knew the only way out now was down, through three other dams and plunge pools to emerge into the river again at the bottom.
“You can do it,” shouted Roscoe and Albert, who, strangely, did not seem at all embarrassed by me, as they normally would. This was far too entertaining for that.
With all eyes on me, and people shouting encouragement, somehow I managed, eventually, to emerge out of the pool at the bottom in one piece, even if I did look like I’d just done ten rounds with a crocodile.
“That was brilliant, Mum,” said Roscoe as we made our way back to their dad, who had been reading in the shade, oblivious to the drama. “The best day, ever,” said Albert, whose only regret was he didn’t have his phone on him to film it.
Thankfully, at least, my little drama won’t be appearing on YouTube. But I’m glad I was able to make their holiday…