Collecting children from school - from a long way away

Once, or more often, JaneAnn?

I once dropped everything and drove from Kent to Surrey to pick up DGS from nursery as he was ill. When he next went to nursery the woman complained that I had taken nearly two hours to get there !!

I wouldn't do that on a regular basis. My three times a week school run is 10 miles in each direction.

We drove about 850 miles to pick up grandchildren from school in Surrey (from Switzerland)... at a day's notice, in exceptional circumstances.

I drove 140 miles to do a school pick up - reading some of the above makes me feel it was just popping round the corner. What would they do without us?

Only in a dire emergency would I do that distance.

Me too Nelliemoser, I hate motorways and driving long distances, though DH enjoys it.

Oh my some of those journeys are amazing... I've only had to run over to my daughters occasionally its a 10min walk
I would do it if circumstances warranted it .

We drive 45 minutes each way to collect GDs and I think that is quite a distance for a school run.

I have done a 73 mile bus journey (2 buses) to collect my grandson from school. It takes me five hours.

Blimey - thank goodness my DGC only live four miles away!

Even so, the miles I do dropping off and collecting DGC from nursery, and running them to various activities all add up.
I only have them between one and three times a week, but I've had to increase the annual mileage that I'm insured for by 2000 miles because of all this running around, and it's looking like I might need to increase it again soon when DGS starts school and DGD starts doing more half-days at preschool.

My DH drove 162 miles to pick up one of the DGS from nursery because DS and DDiL were both caught up in crises at work and their usual back-up had collapsed. Then he met DDiL on the way home. She had managed to extricate herself. 162 miles for 10 minutes baby-sitting.

Picking my grandson up from school is only a 9-mile round-trip. But I take him to school as well. So that's 9 miles, twice a day, 5 days a week, for the last two years and for the foreseeable future!

My school run for the grand-children is even shorter and I could walk it if really needed. Much as I love them I do wonder sometimes if it's all too easy to just fall back on grandparents to help out. We never lived close to our parents when the kids were younger and my DH worked long and erratic hours so I didn't work until the youngest went to secondary school. DD says she needs to be out of the house a couple of days a week as she a) needs the money, b) likes her job and c) reckons it preserves her sanity!

It was just on the one occasion!

Actually I think it is much more of an achievement to pick up grandchildren on a regular basis, making that commitment.

We do 70 miles every Thursday in 3 round trips. Have done for two years. We pick up the 3 year old from nursery and go back to our house; 2 hours later we do the same journey to pick up the 6 year old and then 2 hours later we take them home, all homework and Physio completed, fed and watered.
And no, we have never been offered any money towards the petrol.

That is what we are there for Humbertbear