So, the dog-eared decorations have come down, the cards have all been gathered from the dusty window-ledges and the last of the pine needles hoovered up and chucked out with the tired looking tree. It’s not a nice task to have to do and one which I always dread even before I’ve put the things up to be honest. The dreary new year is here and with no more twinkling fairy lights to brighten up those foreboding skies, everything suddenly seems like a chore.
It’s like wading through tar and that’s before you’ve told the children they have to go back to school. So spare a thought for me, who had to face all this following an eight hour journey in shocking weather with two little people in the car who would much rather have been nose to nose with a particularly angry Big Foot.
Previous to this experience, they had been so excited about a recent delivery of Bertie Beetle car beds to our showroom that I had been faced with daily begging sessions to get them one each. However, they would now happily sleep on a bed of nails than set foot in a car again!
We had been to the ends of the earth (the Scottish Highlands to be more precise) on family business and had managed to squeeze in a couple of blustery days holiday which was lovely. Getting up there was arduous yet pleasant enough. Hogmanay to look forward to, a few days by a log fire sipping hot chocolate. Bliss. However, coming home is never quite as much fun, especially if you’ve had a skinful the night before and have to navigate stomach-churning single track roads for the first two hours.
When one child gets car sick you can just about manage, but when two are retching into their rucksacks and their parents aren’t feeling much better then the outlook is somewhat bleak.
Such was our journey on the worlds longest rollercoaster – aboard which any self-respecting fairground svengali would be impressed. We lurched along that ‘road’ in battering rain, desperate to reach civilisation. Around every tight corner there was another even tighter one. It seemed like we were on the gladiators energy zapping travelator, with no hope of getting to the top. Frankly this was more or less the case with cries of “Mummy, my tummy’s hurting”, and “Mummy I want to get out!” every two seconds. Those words should come with a health warning as overexposure is likely to rot your brain and cause general illness. They were certainly working on me. Or was that the vomit that just sprayed the window perhaps? A gag-inducing clean up operation and attempted poohs on the rainy roadside followed – by the children I might add. This scenario was hardly inspiring me to get my head together. Even a quick burst of One Direction couldn’t lift the mood so we soldiered on, pale and uninterested. Throughout all this I must admit there was some effort to remain human in the form of a rather rubbish game of eye spy. I say rubbish as when all you can see are trees, grass, sea and rain the excitement is limited. We did try hard to think of new things (glove box anyone?) but ultimately returned to the old favourites for fear of exerting ourselves. It’s taken us all the best part of a week to recover (and that’s just from the game of eye spy). Hogmanay schmogmanay. Next year we’re staying at home.
