TUESDAY One day to go and tensions are high. The kit list states “one bedtime companion, if desired”. An assortment of battered toys has been arriving on his desk and an anxious Susanna wants to know if three small, cuddly rabbits are the same as one large teddy bear. “You see, if you lay them out like this they have the same area.” Who says the numeracy hour isn’t working.

WEDNESDAY A phone call from one very stressed teacher. A child who brought only wellies and no socks has blisters, a beanie baby identity parade has been necessary to locate a missing elephant, and Katy is convinced she has seen a rat. Hysterical tales of the plague and of giant rodents biting people’s throats are spreading.

THURSDAY My partner returns home looking like a member of the living dead. In between wet beds, night terrors and the occasional phantom rodent sighting he had little sleep. The woodland ramble started after breakfast. The children were delighted to help clear up litter on the way, finding such unlikely items as brand new shower gel, a teapot and a pair of washing-up gloves. After half-an-hour or so they met pupils from another school coming from the other direction. They were on a treasure hunt, searching for “things you don’t usually find in the wild”. The staff were perturbed that so many of their clues had gone missing, as they’d put them out just a few hours earlier.

FRIDAY Recovery time. My partner is ploughing through “residential diaries”. Ideally, there would be drawings of wildlife, stories about the working farm and worksheets from the village museum. Instead, there are accounts of huge rats and recollections of puddles of wee.

Emma HOWELL Emma Howell lives in Oxford