You Know You're On Holiday When....

...You've booked Eurotunnel.

But you've never been Eurotunnel before, so you don't EXACTLY, QUITE.... know where you're going.

And somewhere in the mad packedness of getting all seven of you ready and out of the house you haven't quite apprised your husband of the fact...

And DESPITE the fact you've read the bit of paper you printed off from the internet, which looks less reassuring every mile you've travelled, which SEEMS to mention Eurotunnel in connection with FOLKESTONE, somewhere in your brain you have the idea that when you prends le train through the tunnel it goes via ASHFORD. So you go there.

It is only at the point that you are queuing up in a roundabout towards Ashford, that you start getting wobbly about this UTTER CERTAINTY you have about the start of Eurotunnel. The utter certainty is fading away into some kind of... oh shit, why did Folkestone seem to be featured so highly in the contents of this very important bit of paper I have...

Such thoughts are immediately dispersed by the sudden realisation that your youngest daughter doesn't feel well. In fact, despite a travel sickness pill (carefully chosen to work fifteen minutes into a journey, as opposed to the crap kind we had last time which take two hours to get going), she is sounding distinctly wobbly, in fact, very wobbly, indeed.

I know I am on holiday the moment my daughter vomits everywhere just as my husband is navigating a roundabout sending us in the wrong direction (Ashford) as opposed to the right one (Folkestone). To be utterly sure we had made prats of ourselves we had to of course visit the Eurostar office, where we apprised of the notion, that whereas ten minutes, one traffic jam, one vomity child, and a wrong turn earlier we had been in plenty of time for our Eurotrain, we were now in danger of missing the fucking thing...

Fifteen minutes later, Spouse (who heroically rose to the occasion and drove like a maniac - as behoves a husband of this blog - to get there on time), pulled in at the check in for Eurotunnel. The car smelt like sick, everyone was moaning, we had no time for a clean up, and we hadn't left England yet.

What's more, it had started to rain....

In my family. As no 4 put it prosaically a couple of days later, I know I'm on holiday when it's raining....

If you weren't knocking about this blog last summer when I recorded the holiday from hell, well here's your chance for a recap. Our recent sojourn, wasn't quite so terrible, but it didn't start off promisingly...


(To find out what happened to us last year, go visit: http://maniacmum.blogspot.com/2006_08_01_archive.html
http://maniacmum.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_archive.html)

Luckily there is more that was more fun to come....

And I've just got back to the news that Frankie Dettori has won the Derby. Given that it is on my doorstep, and my favourite run includes half of the Derby racecourse, I have to stop to raise a brief cheer for that. There were LOADS of reasons (more to follow) for being pissed off for being away this week and the Derby was one of them. A couple of years ago, we watched Frankie Dettori in a race on Derby day (we knew it was him because he was chatting to the other jockies and that amazing accent? IT'S FOR REAL!!!) and I was chuffed that he won today... but bugger me, the most amazing Derby in ages and I missed it.


So you know you've been on holiday, when:

You nearly miss your train,
Your daughter is sick,
The weather is crap,
And your favourite jockey wins the Derby....

It's nice to be back folks, pip, pip!
(And thanks so much you nice people, for your messages on my farewell blog!)