Dancing Queen...

So the pre-holiday countdown has started.  I have stopped saying that I 'wish it was this time next week' because this would mean fastforwarding some of my precious holiday, and who wants that?  Surprisingly, this is the first holiday where it has been the six of us for almost eleven years.  There have been skiing holidays where I have been missing, and larger family holidays where we've been altogether, but just us six?  Turkey 2006, that's when.

The holiday in Turkey was a last minute panic buy. The husband, who likes to think of himself as a cross between Grizzly Adams and Bear Grylls, loves camping and back in the spring of 2006, we booked a two week camping trip to the Lake District.  We'd been before, and it was a success, so why should that be any different now that the children were slightly older?  As we got nearer to the day of departure, the kids got more and more miserable, and daughter number one started to get very antsy about going.

Sitting at the computer on the Thursday before we left, I was looking at the weather forecast for the next two weeks.  Three words could sum up what we had to look forward to while under canvas (or the 21st century equivalent).  Wet, windy and cold.  I looked at the husband, and said in a very quiet, apologetic voice...

'I don't think I want to go camping - it looks awful'.

He looked at me and said nothing, and I could sense that perhaps he was a little disappointed that he wouldn't be able to justify carrying his Swiss Army knife everywhere for the next two weeks.

Putting his pen down (he'd been mapping the route up there), he said,

'Thank *"^* for that.  Get on that bloody internet and find us somewhere warm to go'.

And so it came to pass that I managed to find a 3* hotel, all inclusive in Turkey.  The husband called daughter number one and had a glorious ten minute wind-up along the lines of 'are you sure you don't want to come away with us?'  

So all the suitcases were unpacked (this will teach me for packing too soon).  Wellies, jumpers, thermals and hand warmers (daughter number two loves these) were replaced with bikinis, shorts and flip flops.  We also managed to lose two holdalls in the process as there were less layers to pack.

When we arrived at the hotel after a long and stressful journey (four teenagers - try it) the hotel looked like it had seen better days (these would have been circa 1873 I think) and as we walked into the hotel foyer, the husband muttered under his breath, 'Where have you brought us?'

Well it turned out to be one of the best holidays we've ever had, notwithstanding the fact that daughter number two got stuck in the lift, I slept on a fold up bed, daughter number one nearly got traded for a camel, and the husband and the two boys ended up with exactly the same haircut (a number 2 all over) because that was the only style the hotel barber (who doubled up as the barman in the evening) could do.

This year, we're going a little up market.  There are going to be lazy days by the pool and a night clubbing with Fat Boy Slim. The kids are mildly embarrassed that we will be joining them at this club, but guess who's paying?

There'll be no complaints, I'm sure...