Friday 17 August 2007

Holidays From Hell

.. and we haven't even left yet. A word of advice from personal experience NEVER EVER decide to clear out your teenage son's bedroom the day before you go on holiday ready for re-decorating. For a start you'll find things that scare you and you'll find out things about him that you wish you hadn't. You'll also find several years worth of sweet wrappers , a dozen pairs of used underpants behind the chest of drawers and looking on the bright side possibly everything that had ever gone missing in the house. There will also be broken toys that will make you weep, homework that had never been handed in and things you thought he'd treasured that he clearly didn't. Another caution - don't stay up til midnight doing this as you'll lose the will to live and everything will seem very very bleak.
Of course I didn't heed my own advice and as a consequence it's now -8 hours til departure to the ferry and I'm only just starting the ironing and digging out the swimming goggles. Another midnight weep is on the cards I think.
And whilst I'm on the subject of holidays , the kind of people who say they loved their holidays are either gluttons for punishment or very rich and have just returned from a fortnight at a 5 star resort in Mauritius having chilled papaya juice ferried to them under their thatched beach umberella. They won't have endured a carful of bickering horrors or another day of rain... or else they're just lying which is always possible.

Monday 6 August 2007

I'm just un unpaid babysitter. Always available 24/7 . Usually get the phonecall about half an hour after he said he'd be home. It usually begins with something like .. some of the lads are going out for a meal or ... we were just going to go for a couple of pints ... or thought I might just join a few of the guys for a quick drink ...

Ironically I don't really care whether he comes home or not but here I am sitting on my own again. Can't remember when I last when I went to see a film I wanted to see or did anything spontaneously. I wonder how it feels just to go out on a whim at the drop of a hat and know that someone back home will just be there and take care of everything. I can't imagine how that would feel .The freedom.