Sweet Holiday

I have a very long day today and it doesn't help that it started at 4:30 this morning when our lovely old cat Casper spooked a fox in our driveway, making an awful noise that bolted me right out of my slumber. I think it was the cat that made the noise. Our bedroom over looks that play ground and as it was still dark at that hour, the security lights came on full tilt. Rooster moved quicker then I did which was a bit of a surprise at that hour, and was watching the cat and fox for a full minute before I could even put my glasses on.


He then explained that he had been tossing and turning for the last hour and couldn't sleep. Well, that was all it took for him to promptly fall asleep and start snoring as bad as our old dog. So then I was fully awake and it was 4:40 when I threw back my beloved duvet and left him snoring away.


I know the new chickens are safe as I created Fort Knox last week. There are three doors to get in to the hen house. One door with a proper latch and the hen entrance with a double whammy, sliding door up and down and pulley door to the side. I keep smacking one of my chicks as she hears me coming to open the door and gets in the way of the pulley door. A few more times and I suspect she will figure it out. 


So in the wee hours of this morning, I have cleaned out the fridge, folded laundry, charged and found batteries for cameras and ipods, inspected noisy culprit who came meowing at the window for wounds(none), changed blog picture and am just about to have my second cup of tea. I wish I hadn't packed last night for our sweet holiday because that could have taken me right through the breakfast news!


Our flight doesn't leave until 10pm tonight so I shall be a walking nightmare in the airport by 8pm. Good luck to my darling chicks and lovely rooster that will be dragging me along. 

Booking a Holiday is Hard Work

Last Thursday left me with a headache, soar neck and google eyes from spending seven hours on the keyboard typing in hundreds of destinations all over the world trying to find a suitable holiday for Rooster, the Chicks and I in August.


Since boy is dead armed and doing nothing much more then physio and xbox(funny how that doesn't seem to hurt his shoulder even though he throws his arms all over the place while he is killing aliens!) until school starts again, I was assigned as holiday rep for the family.


Well,my aunt was a travel agent for many years and I always thought that her job was So clamourous, booking people into exotic locations all over the world. I was so wrong. It's really hard to find the perfect spot. The last five years I have had it lucky. We just go to our beach house in the summer and if we ski, we go to France with friends or out west to family, simple. No brainer. 


But to actually think of a place to go with two teenagers and a husband that needs a rest isn't easy. They want somewhere that is sunny but not hurricane season, flyable but not 14 hours and three changes of aircraft, adventurous but not too physical as boy will moan and girl won't hike, food has to be readable on the menu and meat not dog,donkey or dragon, a spa would be nice, history and shopping would be a plus, no sitting in traffic, dirty water or over crowded swimming pools, and no spending more then one term of school fees per person!!!


Really not a lot to ask of one mother and a computer. I think at one point I had the big Apple and the laptop open with about 10 pages each on them. I had to check NOAA for weather, google for maps, every package deal company I could think of and then when I was feeling beat, I called friends and trolled through the holiday sections of every magazine in the house. Of course my family only wanted to know what had I found? and where were we going? I just wanted to never look at the computer again. Nearly everywhere I suggested was wrong one way or another, too far, too ugly, too European, too close, too short a time, too expensive, too something. It was hopeless, I was hopeless. I could easily have just stayed at home with my dogs and pondered buying more chickens.


So I took Friday off from touring the world and ignored all destination questions until Friday night. The four of us sat down to a nice quiet dinner, my neck was just about tolerable when I moved my head up and down, and I was just tucking into my first bite of food when Rooster opened his big mouth-So where are we going? Considering all the options and the work I put into Thursday and all the negative feedback I got from the Rooster and Chicks, I nearly spat out my food.


But I didn't, I quietly got up from the table and got his laptop out, opened it and put it down in front of him then did the same with the chicks and the other laptop. "First one to find a place that we all agree on, I will book tomorrow. Ready, go". And I left the room with a big class of wine.


It was actually my sister who had a good idea and I showed the boy on Friday just to see what he thought. He googled and 'youtubed' it and was hooked but I told him to keep it hush until after dinner. 
In the Bahamas there is a place call The Atlantis. There is also the same resort in Dubai. It is big and loud and wet. Boy doesn't have to swim, all's he has to do is float down 51feet of slide into a shark infested tank (inclosed in a clear tube of course for 3-D viewing) and come out the other side and do it again, all day if he wants. He is thrilled. Hotel has 1500+ rooms so I can't imagine that there will be too much over crowding, there is shopping , sun (38c plus degrees but it's a dry heat) and sand and not too far away from wet England.


I secretly thought it looked like great fun but knew that daughter and husband would question my sanity. Really I like a bit of fun and water parks, white beaches and an all contained resort suit me and the boy. I let them all play around searching for holiday spots and they din't do very well in the couple of hours after dinner. So I quietly told boy to pull up our secret hot spot and show them.

I booked it up Sunday morning and never want to have to do that again.

There are hundreds of places I want to to for different reason. Iceland, Sweden. Sri Lanka, South Africa, Mongolia, parts of South America, parts of America, parts of England and Ireland and most recently, Zanzibar. That looked perfect and would be my secret hide a way. The world is huge and full of fantastic places but it's really hard to narrow it down. I am really pleased to have finally done my job, holiday sorted.

Camping

Where have the last couple of weeks gone?

The other weekend was particularly enjoyable.

We had a very full hen house but not actually in our house.

We filled our far field with friends and their children for a camping overnight.

The weather was iffy to start out with but then dried up a treat.

There is nothing worse then putting up a huge tent with no instructions, in the rain.

But that wasn't the case for all five families. 

We pretended to be very organized while 22 children romped and played along the river.

We never ask them to help prepare the tents because that's when extra poles  are left out and air 

mattresses get exploded.

The chicks  try to change the sleeping arrangements which is always amusing. 

Nobody wants to sleep with their perspective parents no matter what age and usually all the little girls cram into one little two man tent. 

That happened this past time and five girls woke up wet from due and lacking sleep. 

Their tent cover had slipped off in the night to expose them, poor chicks.

Though I'm not sure the odd older brother wasn't some how involved.

Dinner is always a treat on a campfire.

We've had butter-flied  lamb, salmon, pork fillets and more.

This menu consisted of kebabs.

But not ugly one, beautiful marinated pork ones, chicken satay ones,thai prawn ones and beef and lamb ones.

Couscous and tomato salad and little bakers warmed in the fire finished off the meal.

We even tried some tear away bread with success.

Camping puddings are the best. 

Lots of sticky finger food and chocolaty,gooey smores get served up way past sunset.

There is something so enjoyable about popping up chairs and sitting around a blazing fire with friends, sipping champagne or wine out of plastic cups or cold beer from a huge iced bucket. 

Children screaming, teenagers brooding and adults ignoring the lot.

We were all pretty smokey by breakfast but eggs and bacon sandwiches cooked over and open fire pretty much 

sums up a great camping weekend.

If the birds didn't start chirping at 4:15am that would have better but I'm not complaining.

Schools out and the chicks and I are off on holidays,best part is we get Dad with us too!

It will be nice to escape the English summer here even if we get a bit of rain where we're going, at least it's warm and I can leave my cashmere cardies at home!