Where's my holiday gone?

Recently Betty Friedan has been much invoked in  multiple articles about our over-devotion to our children, the "trafficking in exhibitionism" that is Facebook and our tedious 'Real Simple' stylista ways which compel us to perfect the minutiae of our lives -  and how Betty must be rolling in her grave at what disappointing female revolutionaries we've all turned out to be (although Betty would have been the first one moralising on Twitter, m'thinks).

I'm guilty on all accounts of the above (and since you're reading my blog, I suppose so are you) but I do agree with Katie Roiphe in the FT when she says that although our parents loved us as much as we love ours, we played around the margins whilst they got on with their lives as opposed to this slavish scheduling we grind our way through with simmering resentment (well I do anyway) which is contemporary parenting. With school starting again on Tuesday I'm working on reinstating Sixties-style parenting  techniques which saw my parents, for example, moaning about having to occasionally drop me off at Sunday School (I wanted to go to church, they didn't) as it interfered with a leisurely Sunday breakfast, a spot of lawn mowing and some newspaper reading.

So I'd like to apologise unequivocally upfront for yet another set of beautiful photographs of our perfect summer holiday featuring happy children, relaxed parents, white sands, aqua sea, cocktails, lobster, boats and tropical islands. I did try hard not to glamorise anything although I do admit to deleting a few that showed too much cellulite and double chins - but the resulting album is pretty much the way it was.

I'm not exaggerating when I say it felt like the Smite Button had been pushed as we battled tropical depressions (mine) and storms, cancelled sailing boats, delayed flights, flat tires (both cars simultaneously) flat batteries, new businesses and a few other minor things which we steadfastly ignored in our determination to have one week of holidays with our visiting friends. Although we lost out on our sailing holiday on the floating gin palace (which went off to the hurricane shelter and never came back) we were able to revert to a mixture of Plan C & D, which saw us going off in 'Grace' (the boat not the cat) on Sunday morning. Although we had a very bumpy Channel crossing, the minute we hit the Baths the sun burst out, the clouds disappeared and the sea dropped at least 2 feet. Everyone was happy. Me most of all.

We trawled around the North Sound visiting Leverick Bay, Oil Nut Bay, Prickly Pear (for a spot of camping again) and then on to Anegada which was perfection itself.

The boys swam and snorkeled, guzzled coconut water, went night fishing, charged up and down coral beaches, jumped off jetties and had a wonderful time. The parents, in true Sixties-style were able to ignore the kids focusing instead on whether to have a Painkiller or a Dark & Stormy as we devoured our Kindles and occasionally flopped into the sea to cool off.



Despite the logistics of moving this tribe around, the gross amount of wet towels which were generated (and now have to be washed) and the continuous stream of "Mommy where's my snorkel/shoes/hat/rashie/sunglasses/camera/baggies/flippers?" etc it was a wonderful holiday. The stars seemed to align, everyone got on with having fun and it all just fell in to place for a few glorious days.

My remaining question is "where's my holiday gone then"? It's all over so quickly. Susan & the boys have gone, Kathy has gone and we open the bakery on Wednesday. Whoosh. Just like that. Summer gone. Holidays over.

 So here's a slice of it - a Flickr stream of happiness.