Summer Holiday Time!

I know that most people are turning their thoughts to Christmas, in blogland there seems to be lots of posts about crafty Christmas decorations. I know we have Hallowe'en and Bonfire night before Christmas but everywhere I look there are signs of Christmas festiveness!

I refuse to even think about anything Christmassy; I haven't had my summer holiday yet!

Due to the cricket overload from Easter to September when no one in this house (apart from me) will consider going more than 10 metres away from the nearest pitch we only manage holidays during the cooler months - despite the abundance of indoor net cricket, indoor tournaments, practice sessions and of course the County trials (a little more about that later). And holiday time for us starts on Friday, hooray!

We are driving up to Manchester after school on Friday and fly to Cuba on Saturday morning, to the sunshine - and I can't wait!  Number 2 son has a 2 week half term but the other 2 children are taking a week off school and college - yes we are in trouble with the college about time off at the start of his A level course. It's very difficult to explain to the school that we're unable to go away in the summer school break due to our cricket commitments. They don't seem to understand that in this families list of priorities cricket is much higher up than school and therefore it's more acceptable to miss some school than miss some cricket! It's probably the last time we'll all go away together anyway so a bit of family time lounging on a beach (playing beach cricket no doubt!) is called for.

I can't wait to be on that beach with a cocktail in hand, I love the heat and hate cold weather. One day I will spend all of the UK winter somewhere hot, not everyone's cup of tea I know.

However until they take our bags at the airport and we are sitting in the departure lounge I will be a nervous wreck! We have travelling history you see......

We're lucky enough to have been abroad quite a few times but it is rarely without some sort of catastrophe!

I've been stuck in flash floods and missed the plane

We almost missed our honeymoon flight due to M25 traffic, had security been as it is now we wouldn't have made it - the staff allowed us to bypass all security checks and board the plane minutes before it took off!

On our 3 city honeymoon (flights between each city) - our luggage was lost, there was no reservation for one of the connecting flights and there was no record of the booking at the final hotel.

On the return flight from our honemoon someone had a cardiac arrest and we touched down in Moscow (not allowed off the plane) and the journey became a 36 hour flight!

We booked an ocean front hotel in Florida which turned out to be several miles from the ocean when we arrived. We quickly moved out of the hotel, the toenails on the bedspread being the final straw!

We arrived at Gatwick to find number 2 son's passport had expired and he was not allowed to fly - that is a whole story of it's own as I had a fear of driving but had to bring him home with no map or SatNav and then organise a new passport and fly out to Turkey a few days after the rest of the family! I drove home and cried all the way, it was a great diet though as I lost 6lb's in 3 days!

We had a weekend in Dublin, flying from Norwich - they cancelled the flight so we stayed in a hotel 8 miles from home for 2 nights as we had a babysitter in place.

We attempted a second trip to Dublin and got there, but they cancelled the flight home! We flew into Birmingham and were bussed back to Norwich, not great for me as I developped 'flu and a sickness bug at the start of the journey!

We have had numerous delays on flights but once we actually arrive we have the BEST holidays - well apart from the fly drive in Florida where we squeezed 3 arguing kids into the back of a tiny car and attempted to drive to the Keys - I will never repat that trip, we very nearly dumped all 3 of them at the side of the highway and drove off!

So wish me luck for Friday, if it's an uneventful trip it'll be unusual. I'll look forward to catching up with everyone when we're home, and then we can think about Christmas - not before then!

Ps - just an update about the County Trials for both boys which I mentioned here - it's all going very well & I want to thank everyone for their good luck messages. Both boys are through to the second round of trials which is usual for number 2 son but not for number 1 son who apparently played amazingly well in the net session. So keep everything crossed for them both, I don't expect this year to have a different outcome than previous ones but you never know....