holidays for the pale & interesting

And so we're back! We had a lovely holiday firstly going back to Scotland, then England, and then Spain. And now, we're shattered and could do with a holiday. The first thing I noticed when we got to Scotland was that it was such a relief to not have to translate everything. Oh the ease of being able to read signposts and posters saying "Want to earn £500 per week in your spare time?". And so I read, and read, and read everything from the backs of cereal packets to, whisper it very quietly... The Daily Record (god knows it comes far lower down the literary scale than cereal packets). We need never talk of this again.

The other big thing for me was that I hastily took myself off to a supermarket (not straight away you understand. I know I sounded desperate but I think I waited a day) and rather than going "Wow!" and crying tears of joy as I had expected I might (remember the crazy way I acted when Stevie went back to Derby?), I was just indifferent. It was just, well... normal. On my second visit to a supermarket where I went to just pick up a few things to send back to myself via Parcels Please (only £11.75 to send 30 kg to Europe!) I did manage to spend £100 in about 10 minutes. I was in a rush as I needed to drive back to Stevie's parents house so it was a bit like a mini trolley dash, and now I can hardly remember what I actually bought. I do remember though that I did manage to buy 'Nigella Express' which should give me a few quick recipes and get me out of the pork ditch that we've been stuck in.

The kids loved seeing all their cousins, and by the end of our 4 days in Scotland we realised that we really could have done with more time there. The weather was also pretty great which made Stevie happy, as normally he likes to have a good moan about the wind, rain, temperature difference that we normally find in Scotland.

We then had a day and a half in Derby staying with my friends, and the kids loved being back and playing with their friends. So much that they didn't want to leave and spent much of the time in Spain saying they wanted to go back. I really enjoyed seeing my friends, and I do thoroughly miss them, but I don't miss living in Derby at all. We drove past our house and I didn't feel in the slightest sad that I wasn't living there anymore, which I thought I would. Stevie on the other hand got angry about the fact that the tenants aren't weeding our newly block-paved driveway. I suspect they care about that as much as I did. I have resigned myself to expecting the house to be a mess when we finally return to it, and am at least pleased that we didn't rent it out with our furniture getting trashed as well.

We had a great time in Spain, and the kids loved being in the pool and at the beach every day. I managed to get a wee bit of a tan, which if you've seen how pale I am is quite remarkable. Stevie managed to get food poisoning on about the second day and never really recovered from it until they day we left.

Last night Orla couldn't get to sleep and I lay in bed with her and told her just to close her eyes and think of nice things. I asked her what she was thinking of and she said "Cake", and I said, "Well, ok, but why not think of all the nice things you did on holiday?" and went on to list them for her. A minute later I asked her what her favourite bit of the holiday had been, thinking it might be playing with her cousins, or going to Vincent's, or even swimming on her own with her rubber ring for the first time. Her response: "Eating crisps". Next year we are holidaying in Tesco.