Walking the Tightrope: Holidays - And After
Sally Codman reflects on the fact that a Canadian holiday broadens more than the mind - then faces up to the harsh reality of returning home.
Being an avid reader of everything - yes, even cereal packets - my mind is full of quotations. Unfortunately these quotations, some of them quite famous, float around my brain without the author's name remaining attached.
As I've been doing a lot of travelling recently, to Canada and back - a major trek for someone who only gets as far as Huddersfield most weeks - two 'travel quotes' popped up.
I have to agree with the first; "Travel broadens the mind" ... but I can't help thinking that it also lightens the bank balance and broadens the behind.
Portions across the pond seem to be getting larger and larger and with the pound v the Canadian dollar exchange rate in our favour, we ate out a lot on holiday.
This 'huge portions' trend is one being adopted over here by many pubs and restaurants. Where plates are concerned, the attitude seems to be "pile 'em high and charge em more" - not very helpful when you're trying to stay healthy.
It's easy to tell yourself you won't eat everything - but harder to do.
Children's menus are another bone of contention. Once youngsters get to nine or ten their idea of a treat isn't chicken nuggets and beans, or fish-shaped batter and peas.
Of course it's us poor, impoverished parents who suffer - shelling out for adult-sized portions you know they won't finish. If any readers can recommend eateries with average size portions at reasonable prices - let us know.
As usual, I digress, back to my second travel quote:- "It's better to travel hopefully than arrive" - or words to that effect. I couldn't help reflecting that whoever wrote that had never been imprisoned for ten hours on a trans Atlantic jet with fidgeting children (my own) screaming babies (other peoples') and drunken adults.
Under these sort of conditions arriving anywhere is bliss.
Returning from any holiday is a mixed blessing. Initially, relief at arriving home safely, having a really good sleep and catching up with all the people (or in middle daughter's case animals) you've missed, is great. Then the jet lag, the dirty washing mountain and all the things you put off doing before the holiday catch up, and you wonder if going away was such a good idea after all.
I was just congratulating myself on escaping the jet lag when I awoke on Monday morning with a raging headache and felt worse than if I'd been partying all night.
That Monday Morning Feeling got worse when the new boiler decided it needed a holiday and began flashing a red triangle and a picture of a phone across it's smooth, digital display.
Even someone as technically challenged as myself realised this meant I should ring the plumber. I've been doing this ever since and waiting for him to ring me back.
Perhaps he's gone on holiday too.
After drinking several cups of builders-style tea and depressing myself by calculating that I had over 300 items of underwear to wash, dry and put in drawers (not to mention outer wear) I can tell you why I don't like Mondays.
My post-holiday blues didn't improve when Middle Daughter reminded me that she still didn't have any school shoes, a school tie which hadn't been severely mauled by the big cat, a blazer badge, or the sort of pen-pencil set which an architect preparing to design the CN tower in Toronto might envy.
Other parents of teenage daughters will instantly spot the real crisis here - school shoes. Memories of wasted weeks trailing round shoe shops on a quest to find the modern equivalent of the Holy Grail - school shoes that are fashionable, conform to the uniform list and are COMFORTABLE ENOUGH TO ACTUALLY WALK IN, raised their ugly head.
In the past I've spent what seems like years of my life on this quest, equipped, like the Knights of old, with trusty steed (dusty car), courage and patience (to cope with sulks, tantrums and exhaustion - mine and my daughters) and a desperate determination to succeed.
So you'll understand my trepidation as I set out with middle daughter on the latest search.
Amazingly, shoe designers have realised there is a market for shoes that you can actually walk in which also look good. We hit the jackpot in the first shoe shop and returned home smiling and still talking to each other.
Maybe I shouldn't grin too soon - after all they still have to pass the test walks. Meanwhile I'm off to ring the plumber again.
Copyright Sally Codman 2004 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
