Holiday highs and lows

jane horrible for you.
I'm already off men and I've had measles!

Unreasonably stubborn, I should say.

Indeed, janer, how awful! Puts me right off measles and stubborn men.

Oh jane, what a terrible time you had. Put me right off narrowboats!

I just remembered my worst holiday ever - I think I had pushed it to the back of my mind, it was so dreadful. It was with Ex, who hired a canal boat for a week one half term and said our daughter, aged eight, could take two friends. He hadn't asked me first. I saw how excited she was and bit my tongue. I didn't feel all that well, he said I was being awkward because I didn't want to go. I felt worse and worse, he was having a lovely time doing all the steering while I was having to open the locks and jump back down into the boat and my bed, which was the dining table by day, collapsed in the middle of the night so I got no sleep. The following day I was covered with a rash but he refused to turn around and let me go home.

We had to pass through a low tunnel and got jammed against the walls, he tried to push us away and fell in. My, how I laughed - inwardly. He was livid and in a foul mood all day after that. I somehow managed to keep smiling for the kids, stop them pirouetting and doing handstands on the boat's roof, keep us fed, and continue to feel dizzy and headachey without killing myself as I opened lock gates and clambered on and off the boat. He refused to let me steer, despite my having been brought up with boats.

On day three we were nearing a weir and the boat suddenly stopped. We were in the middle of the river, to veer away from the weir, but were being dragged towards it. The engine wouldn't start. We were so lucky, we were almost on the weir when a larger motor yacht arrived and pulled us clear. We moored up and called the boat owners, who came to see what had happened. Someone had drained off all our fuel during the night.

I asked for a lift home with the girls, which I got, and Ex had to pack up all of our belongings while he was waiting for the owner to return, and help him to take it back to the boatyard.

I had measles. I left him a year later.

I like a mixture of both. In the past year we have been on a cruise, waited on hand and foot and paid handsomely for it and on a cheap and cheerful caravan holiday in Spain.
There are pros and cons to both.
I like the flexibilty of self catering, the maid is not itching to clean the room and you can eat when it suits you and not have to dress up!
We try to go somewhere sunny as I think you can cope with much more if the sun is shining! We love to try the local food and our favourite meal is local bread, meat, cheese and wine eaten alfresco. Keeping cooking and washing up to the minimum is key. Luckily my OH will shop and cook and PAY and I clean up...fair division of labour I think.
We also like our holidays to have a focus. Somewhere we want to visit to tick off our list. I don't think anyone would go away if it was just the same as being at home but less comfortable

Sorry about the duplication - the Post Message does not change colour, so I get impatient and hit it again!
I think husbands who want to do self-catering holidays or camping should remember the 'self' bit and do their share. My selfish s*d left me every night in a tent with two young children , just a camping stove and a paraffin lamp, while he decamped to the pub in the lovely village of Plockton. All the gear got sold as soon as we came home.
I wouldn't go on any holiday where I could not have an en-suite bathroom!

When I was 5 we stayed in a caravan in Wales...the weather was so bad the roof literally blew off, traumatized...never stayed in a caravan again! Ever! When I was 17 I camped in the lake district with my boyfriend, it rained a lot...we lasted one nite and moved to a B&B, I'm not cut out for the wilderness! We did glamping in south africa, it was'nt real..just a hotel room under canvas, very nice with a bath! Electric storms a go go!

DH and I go on hotel hols now and BB basis.. so we can eat out or in as we like. If we go away with the kids and g-kids then it is self catering: caravan, chalet, house depending on what we can find! Building myself up for a week at Camber Sands at the end of July!

We always went on camping / caravan hols when I was a child and also when or kids were primary school age. Took them on a couple of hotel trips as they got older.

Loved holidays in France camping with the girls..lots of happy memories but funniest was when DH & I stayed in a tiny tent on a hillside in rural France and woke in the night feeling as though we were on a water bed. The rain was so heavy it was running like a stream under the tent and lifting us up! The well organised Germans in the luxury tent next to us lent us a spade to dig a trench to divert the water!

I'm very fed up with self-catering. OH likes it, but we will be touring around France this year for three weeks in four different places and the thought of packing and unpacking all those boxes is driving me mad before we have even started - washingup liquid, washing stuff, plus all the dried goods that are cheaper over here. He does somehow seem to think I can rustle up a meal 15 minutes after we have arrived, but it takes that long to work out how to use the cooker sometimes. We go away for weekends to hotels, and I love that. All the time that I would have spent cooking is spent on me instead, so that I can eat looking presentable, not flushed and flustered. Luxury. I think I am just getting fed up with cooking, if the truth be told.

So, the low is when we arrive and I am knackered and have to rustle up a meal whilst trying to unpack at the same time, as it is usually very late and miles from anywhere.

The highs are the few times I have managed to have a hotel holiday and know that someone else will get the blame if the food isn't good, and I get to wear nailvarnish and know it will last, and that my hair won't go frizzy in steam.

OH does do some of the cooking, one or two nights usually. Maybe I could break an arm this year...

We seem to have Greatnan in duplicate at the moment!!

Numberplease - you must have been very stoical - my imagination ran riot at your description.
(Don't know why my last post appeared twice but I am in my hotel room).

Numberplease - you must have been very stoical - my imagination ran riot at your description.
(Don't know why my last post appeared twice)

High - today, snorkelling three times, over four hours all told. Some lovely new soft corals and I saw a lion fish very close. MY calves are like rugby players' calves and my shoulders are a little sore after all that breast stroke swimming - but it certainly firms up the arms!
Low - paying a mint to go to the Maldives and finding the coral had been bleached by El Nino.

High - today, snorkelling three times, over four hours all told. Some lovely new soft corals and I saw a lion fish very close. MY calves are like rugby players' calves and my shoulders are a little sore after all that breast stroke swimming - but it certainly firms up the arms!
Low - paying a mint to go to the Maldives and finding the coral had been bleached by El Nino.

Highs: caravanning hols with the children when they were little - I loved it.

Lows: terrible self-catering on Pembs coast (a few weeks after I had had a hysterectomy!) with a gang of teenagers (mine and friends) - the beds were so filthy that even the scruffy teenagers opted to sleep on the floor rather than in them! It was revolting, and embarrassingly had been rented from a person local to us via an advert in the parish mag. I did alert the mag as to what they were advertising!

We always go self-catering as it is easier to have a lie-in! - and to scruff about in jarmies if you want to. Some of our home improvements have been as a result of the self-catering accommodation being so superior to our own home that we felt shamed into making some improvements at home.

I always finish up cooking as OH is very reluctant to go out to eat because of his swallowong problems; but I don't mind cooking. I always think the best self-catering cottages have cooking oil, spices, herbs etc. - otherwise it is a bit of a pain I agree.

AND it`s easy to clean.

We lived in a 12` touring van when we first moved over here, the two of us, 5 kids aged from 13 down to 6, and a cat. The idea was to live there till we sold our house and bought another over here, naively thinking it wouldn`t take long! We were in the van for 15 months, including a very cold, snowy winter, no heating, we`d light the cooker then stand on the seats to feel the heat! When the snow was right up to the step, we didn`t go out unless we had to, used to fill a pan with snow to melt and boil, to save going to the tap. It was an experience that I don`t want to have again! After that, going on holiday in a caravan is a doddle!

My caravan was called Tudor Queen because I reckong that's when it was made. Either that or it was named after a spam like food at the time.

Oh, I lived in a caravan for a while, but that was so cosy! It had a gorgeous little fire with a hot water tank above it. That was the only heating apart from a paraffin stove. The bed dropped down out of the wall.

Happy days. Just me and my cat.

I used to live in a caravan. When it was really cold me and my flatmate [or should I say caravanmate] used to soak our feet in a bowl of hot water with mustard to warm up.

But you have to clean the caravan when you get back. And the seats are just not comfortable. Scatter cushions can't make up for those awful backrests. And feet are always cold in a van.

We use our caravan for storage.

I love going away with our touring caravan, no packing, just take everything to the van a couple of days before we go, and store it all away. The bit I don`t like is all the hassle of making sure everything`s set for daughter staying behind. She`s disabled, can manage on her own in a limited fashion, but we have to make sure everything is as she needs it to be, and I always have a feeling, as we`re driving to our destination, that I`ve forgotten something. I also hate the 2, sometimes 3, binbags full of dirty washing that we bring back with us!

The past three years I have joined DS1 and family in their caravan. This year we are going again to Provence. DS is a trained chef and can rustle up a good meal very quickly. The kitchen and the barbecue are his province - nobody dares to interfere. In France I eat loads of fruit - peaches, nectarines and apricots - and salads. I am very happy in my favourite greengrocer's shop! My DiL keeps me well supplied with liquid refreshment. There's a house in a local village where the owners run an occasional restaurant in the garden - rustic cooking! And the same village has an annual soirée du vin which we all enjoy, even the children who are supposed to sample only the various fruit juices.

Tegan we do caravan at least once a year we just had 4days in Suffolk I'm just more comfortable if its just 'us' didn't do much cooking this trip though. I'd love to go to Crete but OH won't/can't fly so we holiday in the UK , but I do get the odd trip abroad to visit family.