Daughter has been away all week with the school on her trip to the mountains of Wales.

After moaning about her abuse of my mobile phone last week I was at first relieved to hear they weren't allowed to take their own with them.

In reality, it was very odd not receiving her usual "away from home" nightly phone call. I realised this was the first time she had been away and had not made regular contact with us.

It made me feel very lonely and, to my surprise, I missed her lots. She finally returned last night and it was nice to have her home again.

I asked how she had enjoyed her week as she had been apprehensive about some of the planned activities, such as abseiling and rock climbing.

She went abseiling on a trip a few years ago and her description of "dangling on a string 100ft up while my trainers slipped against the surface of the climbing wall" didn't sound a lot of fun.

This time round she fared better and was full of enthusiastic descriptions of abseiling down cliffs and gorge walking, although she did say she had seen enough cows and sheep to last a lifetime.

The group had also been to visit an old mine. "What was it like?" I asked.

"Dark," she said.

"Well, what else apart from dark?"

"Very dark."

"What was the castle you went to see like?"

"Like a castle. We had these worksheets."

"How where the ancient ironworks?"

"OK."

She was more enthusiastic about the food, which seemed to have consisted of cake at least twice a day, so I decided it was time to give up trying to prise any more information out of her. It gets painful after a while.

She did, of course, return bringing a large bag of very muddy washing with her.

She said this was good practice for when she is older and going away to university to learn to be a vet.

I disagreed, partly because my washing machine is still not working and hasn't been since the beginning of August.

The engineers have turned up a few times with wrong parts and not turned up at all a great many more times.

Him indoors is fed up sitting in waiting for them and I am fed up with hanging on the phone to their service centre listening to tinned muzak.

I am also fed up with having to cart the washing round to the launderette every week.

I think it's just a sign of the poor service you get from a lot of places these days and it's certainly one company I will never buy anything from again.

They are supposed to be turning up again next weekend but I have little confidence they will manage it with the right part and mend it all on the same day.