Taking to the Skies

Last Saturday morning, I was on a 7am flight on my ownio to Exeter, (and then on to Torquay - the English Riviera, don't ya know!), to spend two days and one night with old school friends. Sounds simple...and really it should have been, but I don't travel that often on my own and it shows. The last time when I was in London to visit my sister, I somehow managed, in panic, to drop my pull along case full on a woman's head.... in a packed train carriage. She was stunned but fine. It. Was. Excruciating. As it happened, I actually hadn't missed my stop after all, so I had to stay on and continue apologizing over and over, until it was time to get off.... Good times.
Anyway, this time I was all organised the night before, so that when my alarm went off at 445am, I got dressed, took my bag and crept out. It was 530am, pitch dark and pouring down. Ten minutes down the road, I realized that I'd forgotten my phone - it was charging and I'd forgotten to lift it. Unable to face an entire weekend without it, (I know-pathetic!), I made the snap decision to turn back and screeched  into the drive, up the stairs, grabbed the phone (Loverboy- 'What the...?') and out the door. Again. It was now 548am, time was seriously tight and any hope of a pre flight cappucino was dashed. Like a bat out of hell, I somehow made it over the mountain and into the airport by 610am and rushed into the queue...  to discover 10 minutes later that it was the wrong one. Aaaaarrrrggggh! Finally, it was into security, which for me typically involves the removal of several lbs of costume jewellry, then two or three trips through the magic door frame, then finally a  good 'feeling up' by the burly security woman. This time didn't disappoint, but eventually, more than a little frazzled, and frankly slightly violated, I made it through to find that the flight had been slightly delayed, so all was well. Phew!
My thoughts now turned to the issue of my hand luggage. Loverboy had measured my bag the night before and declared that it was 10cm too big. Laughing uproariously at the ridiculous suggestion that I take a smaller case,  I'd decided to risk it. Now, before you heckle, I had my reasons. These were:

Not my bag but remarkably similar

a) I'd used this bag as hand luggage in the past with no problems,
b) I'd reasoned a 7am flight to Exeter was bound to be pretty empty.
c) It was leopard print and I loved it.
d) I'm basically a gambler at heart.
The first indication that I'd backed a loser came with the announcement over the loudspeaker, warning of hand luggage charges. Probably just a standard recording, I reassured myself. The second indication was the crowd of people who appeared to be waiting for the flight. It transpired that this flight wasn't actually finishing in Exeter- it was continuing on to Paris. Two little words popped into my mind and the penny reluctantly dropped -' halfterm' and 'Disney'.
Hurrying towards gate 10, I remembered that my fairly large handbag still had to be squashed into my already bursting 'hand' luggage. So, when I got there, and watched with genuine interest by my fellow passengers, eventually, and only by kneeling on it, I managed to get my handbag in and the zip shut. At this point, it dawned on me, that my bag possibly DID look moderately large in comparison to everyone elses, and I'm almost certain that several of those around me shared that observation.

No chance....

Getting up off the floor, I discovered that, most annoyingly, the bag's handle had jammed in the half position. As in, I could put it down but couldn't fully extend it. No matter how hard I tried, (and by this stage I really WAS the floor show), it was resolutely stuck. Right on cue, a grumpy looking staff member approached checking on ID and boarding passes. Standing in front of my case, I smilingly handed her my documents, but she wasn't fooled.
'That's too big- you'll have to put that in the hold'.
'Really? I did measure it.' Well I did.
'If it doesn't fit in the bag checker, it's going in the hold. Follow me.'
It's very difficult to walk with dignity through a crowd of people, while pulling a leopard print case with a much shortened handle, and wearing these shoes but I did my best. You can guess what comes next. The humiliation of valiantly trying to force the case into the bag checker, with the entire queue watching in amusement while Grumpy Arse  looked on triumphantly. 'I think you'll have to admit that doesn't fit.' In a flash, a credit card machine was produced and she extracted her pound of flesh. Or more specifically £40 of cold hard cash. Nose in the air,  I swept past her on to the plane, and was in my seat, still burning with embarrassment, when a member of ground staff appeared in the empty aisle with the credit card  I'd left in the machine. So much for my grand exit.... Ah well, you win some, you lose some. The moral of the story is I need to travel more...or maybe that should be less?

Summer Dreamin'

Come to Mama.....

I don't know about you but once Christmas is over and we're plunged headlong into a cold, dark, overdrawn January, I start to dream of summer. I suppose that I should come clean and openly admit that surfing holiday porn,( along with shoe porn), is one of my all time favourite pastimes. It calms and clears my mind, just the way meditation or yoga might do for you. Every week the top holiday deals land in my inbox, and with one short click I'm chilling out in a blue skied fantasy, somewhere fabulous, cocktail in hand.

 But here's the kicker-having five kids not only severely cramps your holiday style, it kills it stone dead. Yes, like oil and water, an insatiable appetite for travel and a much larger than average family size, do not mix. It's something you don't think about when you stare down at those blue lines for the third, fourth or fifth time. Oops! Bang goes our relationship with Thomas Cook for the next twenty years! For 'family' holidays don't cater for your average woman living in a shoe- they cater for the 'happy meal' family of two adults and two children and not the 'Extra Value meal' family of two adults and five children. All those free child places in sunny climes? Not for us, unless we deposit three of them at a Travel Lodge en route! (See you when we see you. Let's skype later! Byeeee!)

Most hotels are just as bad. I'm currently trying to organise a family weekend away with my parents, brothers, sisters, their spouses and our collective twelve children (almost half of whom are mine). One local hotel quoted us triple that of my brother's family of five. It took all I had not to politely enquire if they were taking the complete p***!
Owning a caravan isn't an option either because they only go up to a 6 berth. Between you and me though, I suspect that I'm not cut out for caravaning anyway. I've tried to like it over the years because I know that I should- it's so family friendly after all....but I just can't. I hate rolling up beds and sleeping bags and walking in flip flops across wet grass with a toilet bag under my arm. And it's SO off putting trying to eat breakfast while watching men file past, their turd filled pullalongs bouncing along behind them. And what of the prospect of a little 'summer lovin'?' Let's just say that the cosy proximity of 5 children is a most effective deterrant. Enough said. 
Another problem is to fly us all anywhere is so expensive! I was quoted €5000 for us all to fly to Boston this summer to meet up with family on Cape Cod, but as this didn't include car hire and accommodation, it's back to the drawing board. Last year we did take the children to Canterbury to stay with my cousin. We flew into Gatwick, and as I went into the M&S to stock up on wine and goodies, Loverboy took the 5 kids to pick up the minivan we'd rented. As I came out of the shop, laden down with bags, I stopped for a moment or two to organise myself. A policewoman standing close by came over and asked me, totally unprompted, if I was looking for a man with five children. (Cue instant internal vanity panic ' Do I look like a mother of five? What does a mother of five look like anyway? Old? Haggard? I must look like shit!') Quickly composing myself,  I admitted that I was indeed, so she informed me that they'd passed her a few minutes before. With a certain amount of dread, I then asked her how she knew that we were all together, and she replied that she'd noticed them because a man with so many children is very unusual .Then she'd spotted me, and the family resemblance and baby bottle had given the game away. Give that woman a job in MI5!


The Griswolds off to Wally World- at least it's sunny!

 I know we're not THAT unusual though - most of my friends have four children, a few have more. It's just that I suspect we're not found en masse in airports very much- we're in a 4/5 bed rental in rainy Donegal. Or in Kerry as we were last year, which was, in the kids opinion, our best holiday EVER. Jude did his 'All about me' powerpoint presentation in school this week and stated that it was his favourite trip, the only minor downside being the wood lice. Only downside? It was a damp, wood lice infested shitty dump with no dishwasher or microwave, an ancient cooker and plastic settees. Oh, and it rained so much that we came home two days early. And yet....the children reminisce about the beach, the picnics, the boogie boarding and the fish and chips. Go figure!
So maybe it's high time that I wound my neck in and instead felt grateful for the fact that my children, maybe more than their mother, know what really counts is time together ..and lots of ice cream. And despite the tempting holiday deals, I won't be selling any children on Gumtree this year after all......But I will make absolutely sure that next time we get a rental house, it'll have a dishwasher, a comfortable settee and definitely NO wood lice!