Summer hols

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks trying to organise our summer holidays. I thought we might go abroad, somewhere nice and sunny, but the recent heat wave and the severe grumpiness that it induced in my lads told me we’d be better off somewhere cold and miserable, so we’re staying closer to home.
Now that my older boys can speak up and tell me what they want in a holiday I’ve really had to work hard at finding something that suits everyone. I made them all write me a list of things that would make their idea of the perfect holiday come to fruition.
The lads list of demands went something like this:
The destination must have.
1 A gigantic toy shop
2 At least 20 sweet shops
3 A Playstation or Wii
4 An abundance of muck
5 A bit of a beach so we can dig gigantic holes to bury the dog/Daddy/the car in.
6 Chocolate on tap.
The destination must not have…
1 Vegetables
2 Homecooked dinners (We want beans every twice daily for a week)
3 Naggy mas telling us to go to bed before 9pm.
Unless Willy Wonka’s gone into the self catering business and is renting out his chocolate factory complete with computer suite and manmade beach I doubt we can meet all their demands. Donegal will have to do.
Now I have had problems before going on holiday with my kids. Last year we went to a B&B which professed to be kid friendly then turned out to be the complete opposite. Regular readers will recall that on that occasion we were asked to keep our small children quiet. Apparently the sound of children laughing hurt the only other two guest’s ears. These people also took exception to rock music, thought disco smoke machines where the work of Satan and that people who hung around outside chip shops where devil worshippers. We left after one night.
This time I have been really careful about where we will stay. Self catering seemed to be the best option for us, because of the fact that my children are insane.
I have trawled through self catering websites for weeks trying to find somewhere really perfect.
I’ve sent hundreds of emails, sounding totally neurotic. I’ve asked if the properties were anywhere near lakes, ditches, rivers, caves, mine fields, shooting ranges, nuclear waste dumps, warzones etc etc. Anyone who knows my middle child Caolan will attest that he is no ordinary child, indeed he has aspirations for a career in stuntmanship and is a magnet to disaster.
So I got a variety of answers and was laughed at frequently. One man told me that his property was beside a lake with gigantic crocodiles. I professed I wasn’t aware that crocodiles were a native species to that region.
Another woman told me her property was the most child friendly place in the known universe and when I looked it up on the net it was perched on the edge of a large cliff. I don’t know about you but having a 200ft drop to the raging ocean just yards from your front door doesn’t scream child friendly to me.
We eventually found somewhere Caolanproof and we’re currently in the process of wrapping them all in industrial-strength cotton wool.
Happy holidays!!