R&R ??!!!

The family (well me and the boys at least) are getting ready to head back to England for a bit of a jaunt. For long, boring and now annoyingly unnecessary reasons we had to go back for the whole of May so we are leaving tomorrow, flying via Budapest and by Saturday night I shall be eating marmite toast, Thai food and sipping dark ale. Maybe all at once.

Preparation and packing are not going so well.


Status Update:

Youngest Boy, Luke: Currently being sick and with a nasty old bout of diarrhoea. Not at nursery. When not being sick is being pretty perky and wanting to play, unpacking as fast as I pack.

Eldest Boy, Adam: Quite jolly. At nursery. Will obviously get exactly the sort of sickness and diarrhoea that you do not want to get on a plane on the plane.

Packing: Not yet

Packing of day packs for the solo trip with 2 small boys to take on the plane: Now includes many changes of clothes for inevitable sickness combo that will hit at 35,000 feet.

House: Despite being cleaned top to bottom yesterday is now trashed. Again.

Washing Machine: Never knowingly quiet, it is now dancing across the room in an attempt to get rid of the pile of dirty washing before we go and to sort out the vomit covered bedding that wasn't in there when we went to bed last night.

Weather: Tuzla - has been grotty. England - has been lovely.

Weather Forecast: Tuzla - lovely, England - grotty. (Damn it - I always travel the wrong way round - once had a year of 3 winters as I didn't pay attention when I was booking the flights)

Estimated Time of Departure: Way too close

Fraught Mummy: weirdly calm. Keep thinking how much easier it is now Luke is 2 1/2 so don't need to pack things like buggy, bottles, sleeping bags, cots. Will panic shortly but feel that denial is a better state to be in right now as I can't keep up the level of panic required for the next 48 hours. Besides, I'm going to a place where there is CBeebies on TV and Mothercare. However bad my packing is, I can bounce back.

Fraught Daddy (Dave): Is 3 weeks away from sampling his first pint. Is regarding the chaos with a degree of calmness, but he isn't the one on the plane with 2 potentially vomiting children with not enough to do.

Not Very Fraught in fact rather calm and serene Granny (My Mum): A legend in her own time. Has decided that a day trip to Hungary is just the thing and is flying from Heathrow for a coffee in Budapest before meeting her fraught daughter off the flight from Sarajevo in order to accompany said daughter and the whirlwind dervishes from Budapest to London. I may lie down and weep in gratitude on the floor of Budapest airport. Calm and Serene Granny has obviously had a rush of blood to the head in coming up with this plan and is obviously quite mad, but her fraught daughter is eternally grateful.


They call the period when the expat takes a break from being foreign, R&R. I'm not totally sure what it stands for - Rest and Recuperation? Rest and Relaxation? Either way, we need it. The build up to getting some is killing me.