By the time you read this the school holidays will be in full swing. Some of you will be enjoying precious special time with your little angels; others will be counting down the days until the school gates open again. There’s no shame in it. After all, you can get too much of a good thing, and these 6 weeks will I’m sure have their ‘challenging’ moments for all of us.
I have to admit I did have some concerns that I would be unable to top the excitement of the road resurfacing week, back in July. I actually think it would be worth the whole street chipping in so that they come back and do it again every year. It’d be cheaper than hiring a kids entertainer for a week, far more educational, with the added bonus of getting a shiny new road at the end of it.
However, the family holiday is booked, and that will be exciting and exhausting in equal measures. While some kids in the class boast about going to Florida or Europe (don’t mention the EU, don’t mention the EU… doh!) and such like, ours have to get by with UK destinations. The very thought of taking the family through an airport gives me a rash and makes me hyperventilate. Queuing for 30 seconds at Tesco Express is enough to agitate the kids, 3hrs in passport control would blow their mind.
Choosing the specific destination is simply a matter of following a basic mathematical and geographical algorithm (like all my key life decisions). This requires it to be within 2.5 hrs drive, be ‘rural’, and have a sensible bedroom layout to suit our young family (i.e. rubbish sleeping toddler on same level). Factor all those in and you are left with a fairly easy choice of a handful of farm cottages. Our eldest still talks about the time we went on holiday a few years back and woke to find a dozen highland cows breathing up against the cottage windows.
The chances are, as you read this, we will be settled into our retreat. Planning random day trips to local parks, stone circles, and museums. Plenty of fresh air and exploring with only a very small sprinkle of tacky tourist hot spots. I’m not judging – each to their own and all that. That’s just how we roll.
Come September our kids will be back in class, trying to write about this. Hopefully the highlight of this holiday won’t be me getting the family stuck on the side of a large peak in Dovedale National Park… which remains probably the worst experience of my adult life. Oh well, still more exciting than Disneyland though I reckon!?
