Anything, Anywhere But Under Sufferance

Around a year ago, as I stood in the school playground, keeping myself to myself and wondering just how many people lack clothes in sufficient quantity to force them to come to school in pyjama's, yet still have enough smelly make up, perfume and hair products on to floor a herd of Bison at a distance of three miles, one of my children's teachers came up to me and asked if I would be interested in becoming a parent governor at the school. "Is this because I am a bit gobby?" I asked. Instead of just agreeing and saying "Well, no fecker else wanted to do it and you look miserable enough to possibly say yes..." she was very nice to me, so I agreed and filled in the forms and within a few weeks, I was at my first meeting with absolutely no idea what was going on or being said or why governmental agencies have multiple orgasms over using acronyms for absolutely anything. By my second meeting, I looked bewildered enough to be appointed Vice Chair after the current...

DAY SIX THE BEACH The following morning we had all risen from our beds, breakfasted and gone about our daily ablutions with the general acceptance that today was going to be a “rest day”. This is a euphemism which basically means that we don’t do any driving on that day and we stay sat on our arses doing stuff around the house, or in the gardens or down on the beach. This was supposed to be what the holiday was about for all of us. While holidays where you go to places and do all kinds of crazy things every day may appeal to some, we all lead such hectic lives (apart from me who 'sits on my computer playing all day') that sometimes we just want to get away from it all, and that included doing things. Rest was the byword for the week and it seemed like finally, today we’d all get the chance to unwind in our own differing ways. By mid morning it was fairly evident what this was going to entail for the majority. My Dad had his nose in Kris’s DS and was busy playing some form of ...

DAY FIVE CLIFDEN 11am In all the kerfuffle over Pepsi (who was now showing signs of great improvement) we had forgotten to go into Clifden the day before to look for a wetsuit for Kris. He had braved the bitter cold of the sea with Jess and Josh again the previous day but only briefly and my mum, seeing how the wetsuits Jess and Josh had allowed them to stay in the water a good while longer, decided that they’d pick one up for Kris. However Pepsi’s veterinary visit had taken precedence that day and for reasons of canine concern and general bone idleness (we were on holiday), Kris’s trip to the shop was postponed until this morning. My mum and dad went with him along with Alex. They gave the shop with the expensive wetsuits a wide berth and headed into the sports shop that had been closed on the Bank Holiday Monday and quickly found some wetsuits that were comparatively cheap at 40 Euro’s, which were still four times as expensive as the ones we bought in Keswick, but given the price ...

DAY FOUR CLIFDEN VETERINARY SURGERY : 11am After the best night’s sleep I’d had of the holiday I awoke to find Pepsi still looking very unhappy with life. Thankfully her retching had stopped, but she still showed no interest in eating anything and remained entirely listless and lethargic. Despite this small improvement in her condition, we were all in agreement that we needed to take her the vets. Jon, panic stricken, had already dug out the number of the nearest surgery in Clifden and my wife called and arranged an appointment at around quarter to eleven. Jon, by now, was beside himself with worry over Pepsi. He had grown incredibly attached to both her and my original dog Foxy as soon as we had got them. Foxy was my first dog, a rescued collie crossed with, what one can only assume was, as her name suggests, a fox. She was a very intelligent dog, soon learning how to open the back door with her paws, to let herself into the house. Her only problem was that she didn’t like being alo...

DAY THREE COTTAGE : 10am The first glimmer of light of the new day broke through the curtains of our bedroom at around 5am in the morning. We know that because at that time we had been woken by the sound of Pepsi getting ready to be sick again. We quickly let her out into the yard where she dry heaved before coming back in and slumping rather pitifully on her cushion. My wife had decided to let Cookie out to do her morning ablutions and during the time we were checking on the welfare of Pepsi, we had forgotten to keep an eye on the Yorkie, who was now nowhere to be seen. Throwing on a coat over her pyjama’s and sliding on her flip-flops, my wife ventured out into the weak morning sunlight to find out where the little terrier had disappeared to. She walked down to the foot of the garden before catching sight of Cookie, who was merrily racing along the beach having a rather fantastic time of it. My wife believes that when people are in bed, it is possible to shout at the dogs by whispe...

DAY TWO CLIFDEN 10.30am After my usual restless first night in a new bed, a little personal foible of mine that I have always had an issue with since childhood, we heard the first sounds of life in the house around 7am as my dad descended the stairs to make his morning cup of tea. Rising this early was a normal occurrence for my dad whilst away as for many years he has got up early for work and it is a habit that he finds hard to break, even when on holiday. With him usually being up and ready for work at 5am most days, 7am is, in effect, a lie in for him. Shortly after my dad had filled and fired up the kettle, any semblance of continued peace was shattered as two things happened; firstly the children woke up, began to chatter amongst themselves and then proceeded to almost demolish the wall between them and the hallway, under the pretence of playing some game or other. At least that is what it sounded like to my wife and I as we lay dozing in bed. Josh and his elder cousin Kris were...

IRELAND DAY ONE HOME : BIRKENHEAD : 7.30am I am not the best person to ask to pack a bag if I am being brutally honest. My wife despairs of my lack of skill or care when it comes to placing clothes into a bag or suitcase in some kind of orderly fashion. The reason for her ire is that I am not methodical when putting things in a bag. I always assume, wrongly as it seems, that as long as I have the items I require, regardless of how the lie or are folded, then that is the essence of the job completed satisfactorily. This is, apparently, a dangerous and foolhardy thought. In our early days together as a couple, when we ventured to the Lake District for a week camping, my wife was aghast at how “poorly” I had packed my bag. Compartmentalizing things was an alien concept to me, as was folding them neatly. I was a firm believer in the “chuck them in and sit on the bag until it closes” school of thought and such was her low opinion of my abilities; I was summarily stripped of all bag-packing...