We set off on our summer holiday yesterday. As has become our family tradition, we go by car to Portugal. We drive down to Portsmouth and take a 24 hours ferry to Santander, Spain. Then we drive the rest of the way, normally staying at hotels or visiting friends for 2 nights.
Last year we had an awful start. An accident on the M25 meant that a trip of circa 2 hours took more than 4. When we arrived in Portsmouth we still saw our ferry leaving (we were 15 minutes too late) and I felt totally deflated. We did manage to get on another ferry 3 hours later that took us to St Malo in the north of France. We got there 12 hours later and then had more or less 16 hours to drive to our hotel in Spain, 1,000Km away.
We got there in the end. The hosts of the B&B told us that the latest they would allow us to arrive was 1am… We got there with 15 minutes to spare. Travelling that distance with 3 children all under the age of 6, hardly any stops on the way and in the heat of summer is hard work. The important thing is that we survived and we had a great holiday after that.
So back to the present time. In a bid to avoid seeing another ferry depart without us, I set myself a target of leaving the house just after breakfast. Then, when breakfast finished late I thought we would probably leave around 11am. We left at 12,35pm.
Fortunately there were no traffic issues and we were one of the first cars to board the ferry.
Although it sounds like everything was plain sailing, the truth is that throughout the morning I must have shouted at the kids more than a half a dozen times. I don’t know if it’s because they are going through a phase where they don’t listen unless you shout (because then you’re serious) or if it’s because PMS hit me hard (and great sense of timing; thanks for that Universe).
We had a great trip on the boat and are now driving down from Santander to a little roadside hotel just past Valladolid.
The GPS tells us that we will be there at 10,35pm local time. Small issue – check-in closes at 10,30pm š This isn’t counting the fact that we haven’t had dinner… I can feel the stress level raising in my bloodstream already.
Any minute now my better half is going to want to stop for dinner and I will have to call yet another hotel receptionist to tell him or her that we will be late to check-in and ask “is that ok?”…
I just hope I can keep my cool. If I can’t, I’ll just blame it on PMS, my hubby or the kids. In that order š Let’s hope not. I don’t fancy sleeping in the car!
Ok fast forward a couple of hours. Good news and bad news. The good news is that our GPS was showing arrival time of 9,35pm and I wrongly assumed that that was UK time which made it one hour later in Spain. It turns out that the GPS gets the local time from the satellites and so we arrived with plenty of time to spare. On arrival, more good news because the restaurant was still open and after dropping everything off in the room we went down to have a lovely meal.Ā Best prawns I’ve ever eaten in my life!
So what are the bad news? My hubby drank too much, didn’t hear a word I said when I asked him to go along to the room to get the kids ready for bed while I went to get something from the car and a snowball argument ensued. In front of the kids no less. I should have known it was a pointless argument that I was never gonna win and given up then and there, but no. Ok, so to my previous point, I’ll just blame PMS and my hubby. The kids had no blame this time.
Oh, and although the hotel is lovely for a roadside hotel, the room’s AC isn’t working. Blame assigned as per the above too.
Tomorrow will be better I’m sure. If not, then I have a solution I saw today on a young girl’s shirt: “Chocolate doesn’t ask silly questions. Chocolate understands.”
Nite nite…
PS: Woke up in the morning to find a remote control for the AC on the bedside table. I was being an idiot operating the, now obvious, ancient controls on the wall.