Don't get me wrong, I love travelling. I have been lucky enough to have done alot of it over the past 40 years, from campsites in France to amazing business trips to ski holidays to Caribbean beach holidays. I am priveleged to have seen an awful lot of the world.
Indeed I lived in Saudi Arabia for six years (going out initially on a three month contract two weeks after marrying and coming back with two children and pregnant with number three). Seeing things in the Arab world that were often not possible to a westerner. Let alone a western woman. Being in Dubai when it was still a dusty city in the desert and not the neon and concrete monstrosity that it has become today.
I love Tripadvisor. I love travel brochures and I love Lonely Planet books. As soon as we think about the next trip I buy a city guide and devour it.
Finding hidden gems in a city: a really great bar or restaurant or a secluded beach to listen to the waves crashing is my idea of heaven.
We are just back from a weekend away in Paris that was our Christmas present from my mum and dad. They paid for our Eurostar tickets and the hotel for three nights. We picked the Royal Wedding weekend, not because we are anti-royal, far from it. But because we wanted to make the most of the one-off Bank Holiday.
After a stressful year that has been a real struggle it was much needed. Just to be the two of us, walking in the sun and stopping for coffee, it felt more like a second honeymoon than a Christmas present.
We found many hidden gems, took hundreds of photographs and made sure we stopped every now and again and just said "look at this and remember it". "Making Memories" we call it.
But as much as I love being away. I love getting home.
There is nothing like sleeping in your own bed.
Nothing like being greeted by three children that have missed us (or are just desperate to see what presents we have bought for them). Or a dog that thinks "oh yes, I remember you".
A proper cup of tea. One tea bag in a pot of boiling water and having to ask for milk, which is invariably hot, is just not tea in my opinion.
Catching up on all the TV that Sky+ has saved for us.
And then you see a pile of post. All bills. And a VAT return form. A pile of flyers for shops that I no longer shop in.
Voicemail messages and emails that demand our attention.
And then a major row breaks out over grated cheese. Yes grated cheese. Proper full blown row. Tears (mine). Door slamming (other people). Storming off to seperate rooms. All eating our beef casserole (prepared and left by my mum and dad who had been house / child minding for us) seperately.
And I think "hmm... am I pleased to be home?"
I haven't answered that question yet.
Nor have I unpacked my suitcase.
Just in case.......
If I had a holiday that didn't include tears, either in the 24 hours before, the 24 hours after, or during the holiday, I wouldn't call it a holiday. On holiday, you are who you WANT to be, not who you HAVE to be, and that doesn't always gel with what other people want. Then you get home and beef casserole rears its ugly head (or not so ugly, depending on where you stand on the cheese issue) and all of a sudden you are all who you have to be again. With the added bonus of resentment from certain parties who may have been left behind.
ReplyDeleteTea is the answer. When getting home from holiday, it always is. Unless you've been to New Zealand where they know how to do tea.