Something intriguing happened when Fred and I were on our way to France for our skiing holiday back in February. First of all, we were sitting around at the airport, along with all the other people for our flight - mostly families, so there were lots of kids. All having good behaviour - ie. quiet behaviour - expected of them. They were pretty much all complying too.
Then the delay started to mount up. Then an hour or two's delay turned into the plane being deemed unfit to fly, which meant we'd have to wait some more hours for a replacement. And by this time, our original airport was shut for the night so we had to be re-routed. What happened? The kids all started playing. Running around the departure lounge, using big plastic bottles as footballs, chasing, squealing with delight. Some of the grown-ups were joining in too.
What I began to wonder was this - why wasn't this happening before? Why did it take such a melt-down of transport provision before all these (presumably quite excited) kids could start messing about with each other, enjoying themselves and burning off some energy? And what was it that changed? It struck me that maybe that was something to do with the grown ups. It was as if they suddenly stopped enforcing discipline once it became clear what a fiasco the tour company was making. As if any uproar had in an instant become the responsibility of the people who'd caused us to remain hanging around the airport for hours.
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