Monday, August 23, 2010

Home again, Home again...


... jiggety jig! With a vow never to go on holiday again. Ever. I have never really been very good at family holidays and now I am officially rubbish. Oh, I know, stop whingeing & get on with it, at least I had a holiday what with the recession etc etc BUT this holiday blew all other ‘not great’ holidays back to last Sunday. Started off with us being sold a turkey - a “property mis-description” shall we say? The website I had booked through had gone on & on about “the house” e.g. ‘the house has spectacular views’, ‘the house was built in 1890 & is a large Victorian house’, ‘Clean, spacious, well equipped house’ – well you get the picture. So not unreasonably I expected to find a house. Except it transpired I hadn’t actually booked a house. I had unwittingly booked a first floor flat which was accessible by 18 well worn, uneven stone steps on the outside which is great if you’re 15, not great if you are recovering from a broken foot & have a dodgy back! It was only identified as a flat in the terms & conditions PDF that was hidden in the tiny little bar that sits at the bottom of all websites that people ignore. Caveat Emptor or what. That’ll teach me.
And the dodgy back decided to come out to play pretty quickly this holiday. Suffice to say that despite my sending many missives to the owner of the holiday property trying to explain that as I have bits missing from my spine I really needed a firm bed, she assured me that the (vile) Tempur / memory foam topper they had in the master bedroom was a miracle & all would be well. But after 2 nights of sinking into it (vs. being supported), my remaining discs decided to pop out leaving me in agony by day 3. The good bit (yes there’s some good!!) is that we tracked down & bought an amazing blow up orthopaedic mattress which I will now take absolutely everywhere with me as it saved my life. However ..... being in serious pain meant I was chewing down industrial strength pain killers & wasn’t sleeping much, a combo which, when a glass of Shiraz was added, caused me to faint in an expensive restaurant one Saturday night!!
So you get the jolly picture. I won’t even bother discussing the fact that my ‘teenage tolerance’ shifted from 7 days to just under 5 days (have I ever mentioned I am childless by choice??) nor the rows caused when a certain long term thorn in our side caused big trouble by going somewhere they were neither invited nor welcome. Whilst I would never, ever, revert to the "old life" I do pine sometimes for the days when a holiday meant calling my mates who lived in exotic climes to see who was free & then using airmiles to book a First Class ticket on BA to go join them. But then I was single. And if I'm honest quite miserable about being single! I love my husband more than anything & adore being married. Hey Ho ... you can't have your cake & eat it I guess...No pleasing some people!

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