We’re back!!

What a fantastic break. I can’t believe it’s been two weeks already. It was so great to be back in England, apart from the floods of course. I had no struggles with the lingo, I could eat all my old favourite foods from Tescos (and make all my clothes just a little bit tighter) and no-one dinged the new car. Yes, we got it! The guy was even quite complimentary about the state of the Volvo, apart from the damaged bumper obviously, but he still let us have the S-Max. I didn’t get to drive it until we were through the tunnel however. After endlessly complaining about getting a ‘Mummy-mobile’ Nobby has been quite selfish about driving it at times. And he did get two rounds of golf in thanks to the massive boot so I think it’s now time he shut up and handed over the keys.

So now I am fighting with the un-packing, deep joy. Considering we are heading off again for another two weeks on Saturday it hardly seems worth undoing the suitcase. However Poppet is clamouring for the bag-load of second hand clothes she was given by a friend and Pickle needs all the little inventions he created out of cardboard that he insisted we bring home with us so I guess I need to tackle some of the bags. At least most of the washing is done thanks to my ever-efficient mum who will wash, dry and iron your cast-off clothes before they hit the floor! Bless her. She’s been an absolute angel giving us the run of her new house for the past week. The children repeated their territory-marking ritual as soon as they were through her front door and left a trail of toys all over the house. But the thing they ended up playing with the most was all the Lego – the same Lego kits I used to make when I should have been revising for my exams. Pickle built the town and Poppet made up stories about all the characters in it and they were occupied for hours.

After a night at Mums we headed off to the Cotwolds to a Holiday Park where we had snobbily turned down the luxury caravans in favour of a Pine-Lodge. We were glad we did, though, as we spent the afternoons cooped up drinking endless cups of hot tea and playing every game we could think of while the rain lashed against the windows and the lake-shore gradually crept closer and closer. I felt an odd kind of glee that our British summer holiday had such dismal weather, after all that’s how I spent a lot of holidays when I was a kid so why shouldn’t mine get the same treatment? (Aren’t I mean?) Luckily this holiday camp had an indoor swimming pool and an Entertainment Team so we did venture out to splash down the water slides and join in the Sammy Seahorse Club. Who could resist Bingo, Family ‘Name That Tune’, and ‘Deal or No Deal’? with an eight foot tall cuddly blue seahorse and his pals Tommy the Turtle and Larry the Lobster… took me right back to Pontins and the Blue-Coats, ahh.

After a week in the Cotswolds Nobby headed off to a Stag party while the kids and I hitched a lift with my parents back to their place then I took off - alone - on the train to meet Nobby in Exteter. I was quite looking forward to the two hour journey – just me, my I-pod and a good book with no kids in sight. The nice man who sold me my ticket told me First Class was going to be cheaper than a standard fare for some bizarre reason and that he reckoned carriage ‘H’ should be nice and quiet. Hmm, what a joker. Funnily enough all the mummies with kids were offered the same deal and I ended up back to back with a harassed mum on her own with 3 children, the youngest of which was still in nappies and trying to make his way around the carriage without touching the floor. As she dashed past me to retrieve him for the fifth time she gave me that defeated smile of the weary mum-on-her-own-with-the-kids and I thanked my lucky stars for my generous parents.

Nobby and I spent two very relaxing days in Cornwall at my Uncle’s and I got to hear all the gory details about the Stag party. Did you know there are 3 topless bars in Bournemouth? One called ‘For Your Eyes Only’, another called ‘Spearmint Rhino’ and the newest one is simply called ‘Wiggle’. Love it. (And so did the groom-to-be by the sound of it.) Then we came back to my Mum’s for the rest of the week, seeing various people each day and hearing all about their day out at Legoland with my sister and all the other lovely things they had been doing while their parents swanned off without them. I don’t think they’d even noticed we were gone. They made up some great games in the garden once the sun came out, although I’m not sure the fish enjoyed ‘Fill The Pond Up With Stones’ or ‘How Deep is That Pond Anyway?’. Pickle invented an interesting one; he shoved a stick down the back of his trousers, offered it to his sister saying ‘light my fuse!’ – he was a firework! Soon after that the stick became a tail and Pickle was now a kitten crawling round the patio. It didn’t take much longer for him to revert to type, though, and decide the stick was best suited as a weapon to beat his sister with. Ah, little boys.

So we left for France on Saturday morning, having managed to cram all our gear in the car without popping the roof off. By the evening I was back in the local supermarket stocking up on supplies and missing Tesco’s already. I managed a little French at the checkout but it is weird to be back.

But it’s pelting rain outside now so I feel right at home.