Holidays From Hell...

When you get back from your jollies, you usually have that period of mourning. When you are saying to each other, 'This time yesterday we were on the beach making sandcastles/drinking cocktails/laying topless' (delete as appropriate to your holiday). Followed by a dreamy look into the distance, a deep contented sigh, and then perhaps a scout in the holiday homes abroad section of the newspaper, looking for your dream property in the area you have just returned from.

Not when you have been on holiday in a group. You come back and say, 'Never again/what a waste of money/how horrendous were so and so's kids' (don't delete any, all apply).
There were warnings by several fellow bloggers who kept sending me good luck messages before I went, as if I was going off to the gallows. They knew, they'd done it, they were smiling with glee that it wasn't them going abroad with too many children under the age of five.

It has taken me two weeks to get over the holiday, I couldn't even face blogging.
I was more exhausted than after both times I gave birth. Mainly due to one family starting their day, everyday on HOLIDAY at 5am!! Surely this isn't normal for anyone other than a milkman? And why is it that kids have dog like hearing? If one child is up, they're all up. Then the tiredness creeps in, the hitting and whinging begins, the not eating due to overtiredness/weird food begins and it's a vicious circle of tired grumpy children and tired grumpy adults. Add to this a daily dose of rain, a bug going around the villa and I was entering our home address into the sat nav, wondering if it was possible and how long it would take to drive home across five countries four days early.

Due to post traumatic holiday disorder, I can say no more on the subject without suffering from horrendous flashbacks...maybe one day I will be able to talk about it fully. But not now. It's just too soon...

Killjoy Mummy

I don't think my daughters friends like coming to play around here. I try to be relaxing mummy but I can't help interfering.
Like when they want to make a den. Ooh goodie! I say getting the sheets and pegs out, abut instead of leaving them to it, I want to make it my way, as I am chief den maker. By the time I've finished my mastepiece, they don't want to play dens anymore.
When they are running around on the grass chasing each other, I'm shouting, 'Ooh, don't do that or you'll get grass stains on your skirts.' Even though they are squealing with delight.
When they are doing craft stuff, they ask if they can use my cut up cards (I am the saddo that saves nice birthday cards to 'use again' as thank you cards). I begrudgingly hand them over, watching over their shoulders hoping they don't use my favourite cupcake one. Of course they do and I am sulking inside.
When we are making buns and my daughter wants to do the icing, I tell her they aren't cool enough, so that I can do them when she has gone to bed, as I want them to look nice, not all dribbly with sprinkles in all the wrong places.
When they are playing hide and seek, I won't let them hide in our bedroom and then I tell my daughter where the older girl is hiding so that she isn't looking for ages. Thus spoiling the game.
When my daughter wants to wear her new sandals for school, which are gorgeous and silver with a beautiful jewel on (totally inappropriate footwear for a four year old who likes getting dirty) I say OK, as long as she changes them before going out to play, and under no circumstances must she play in the wood chippings or mud. Or with the boys.
I must stop trying to live the perfect life, children don't like perfect. They like fun.

Be Nice...

Do you think it's unreasonable to hand my husband some 'House Rules' before we go on holiday?
My house rules will be quite simple, in fact really there is just one big rule.
BE NICE.
Simple as that.
Like when we are loading the car, don't get a sweat on if I am running around checking that the iron isn't still plugged in, that the hob is turned off, and chucking some bleach down the loo.
When we are at the airport don't get cross in the queue waiting to check in.
Don't say that we have brought a ridiculous amount of luggage when you are loading it on to be weighed. It's too late to do anything about it by this point.
On the aeroplane don't get cross if it gets bumpy and I get scared. Don't tell me I have more chance of being killed by a donkey on the beach at Blackpool. I already know this. But I don't go on donkeys at Blackpool and I do go on planes.
When we land and we're in the queue for the hire car, don't get cross because it takes ages. We know it's going to take ages, again, there's nothing we can do about it. Doing deep sighs, tutting and generally giving people dirty looks doesn't make the queue go down any quicker.
On the way to the villa, don't sack me for being a terrible map reader. Oh, actually, do sack me, then I won't have to take the blame when we go down the same road in a different direction four times.
When we have arrived, you have unloaded all the luggage, set up the travel cot and finally sat down to have a large glass of wine, don't think about the fact you have to do it all again in 6 days time. Take deep breaths and remember. Be nice...

The Great Escape?

We are heading off on hols for a week with a big group of friends. Sounded like a good idea when we booked it. Three couples with kids, two single blokes who wanted to spend time with the families who they barely see any more.

One of the blokes met a girl, now she is coming, so now one gooseberry.

Bloke meets Girl is sending mails to all about how he is looking forward to drinking lots of wine from lunchtime onwards, relaxing by the pool, playing cards.

No one has replied.

No one has told him he has more chance of marrying Kylie Minogue than either peace and quiet or all day drinking. Especially when the children discover he is fun to play with.

There are FIVE children under five. It is bringing me out in a cold sweat just thinking about it.

The noise, the tantrums, the 'this ham/milk/cheese/sand tastes different to the stuff at home' whinging, the over tiredness. And that's just from me.

This week is the build up to the holiday, where the fear creeps in. What on earth were we thinking? The weather forecast is rubbish, the children on a plane for goodness sake for two and a half hours (when they can't even keep still to watch a 5 minute Charlie and Lola cartoon), the ironing and washing to do before and after, the cleaning of the house from top to bottom (in case the burglars come and think it's untidy). Will it all be worth it for just one week?

Who knows, but I intend to be by the pool drinking Pinot Grigio, playing cards all day whilst Bloke meets Girl entertains the children...

Mean Girls

Having just come back from a hen do with a group of school friends, I am thinking, what on earth is the problem with my husband? He is a darling compared to my female friends!

After moving south 15 years ago, I have travelled back less and less to see my school friends. As we have all slowly married, had children, got careers, some have even got divorced,there has been less time to invest on visiting bars and getting stinking drunk together. So, this hen weekend was a chance to revisit that time.

It also brought back all the memories of how horrendous it is being in a large group of female friends. Not that I don't like other girls, after all, I hang around with women all day every day, at playgroups, coffee mornings etc, but I suppose the competitive stuff is more about the children; 'Mine can count to 3 million and they are only 2 months old you know...', 'Mine never watches TV and is only interested in Beethoven', 'Mine will only eat seeds, dried fruit, organic meat and home made fish fingers, he's never even tried a chip.' The kind of stuff people can lie about and you'd never really find out. On the hen do, the girls were actually bordering on, dare I say it, being downright MEAN!

One of the hen party had lost a considerable amount of weight, two stones in one month to be exact. She'd been on this 'drink milkshake and soups as well as 4 litres of water all day everyday' diet and she looked completely different. The bigger ladies in the group just couldn't handle her success. 'Oh well, you'll put it all back on when you start eating normally,' they said. 'You just don't look like you anymore,' they sneered. They just stopped short of saying, 'Please stay being really fat so we all feel better.'

Then, it was opinions on outfits. We'd gone to the horses so the girls had decided to dress up. Fair play to them. I however, had gone for the slightly more casual look. After winning a whopping 15 in three races, one girl said, 'How come you're winning when you're wearing such a shit outfit?' The thing is, I knew I looked pretty shit, but it was harsh none the less...

Then there was the money. People holding onto their tenners tighter than a winning Lottery ticket. Insisting on going to the bar one by one instead of buying rounds, in case they lost out on a couple of quid.

At night it's not much better. We are surrounded by 18 year old glamour pusses. We look like a bunch of old ladies who should be at home watching who was going to be crowned Nancy by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Women of a certain age hunt out seats when they are out, so having found a cosy booth, we ordered some jugs of cocktails and settled down for the night. Or so I thought. Having dared to hit the dancefloor, (I knew I still had it in me somewhere) I was even rubbed up by a young bloke who was so young, he didn't even have whiskers (see, I told you I still had it in me somewhere), one of the hen party came up and shouted in my ear, 'Amy feels ill, Suzy wants to go back to the hotel, Laura wants a cup of tea and Karen wants a kebab'. It was 11.30pm. There were 5 of us getting sweaty on the dancefloor so I said, 'OK, see you later.' But oh no. If a few were going, we all had to go. So on my first night off from being a mummy in about two years, I was frog marched back to the hotel to watch everyone drink tea and eat Cadbury's fruit and nut bars. Cinderella even managed to stay out until midnight...

Next time, I'm going with the Stags...