Family Affairs and other matters

I may have just found the perfect solution to single parent holidays.  Instead of taking them away for an expensive 7 day trip,  take them away for 24 hours and then go straight back home – much better all round. My kids didn’t get bored,  I didn’t get stressed about being somewhere on my own with my children and in my head it was a much less expensive holiday and so I could spend a bit more than usual on staying the night in a hotel and having a meal out with them without having a major problem about how much it all cost.

We have just come back from 24 hours in Oxford.  It was a chance to do something all together after Christmas and it wasn’t too far away from home.   We stayed at The Randolph Hotel in one large room which is incredibly central and impressive in a slightly faded sort of way.  The plan was always to eat at Jamie Oliver’s Italian restaurant because to my food obsessed youngest son, Jamie is the biggest celebrity on the planet.  Even though we kept telling him he wouldn’t be there he kept saying “just imagine if he was there’, to which his older brother just kept saying “well, he won’t be”,

“YES, but just imagine if he WAS there, I’d like go completely MAD, how great would it be to ACTUALLY meet Jamie Oliver”,

“well, he won’t be there….”

“YES, I know, but JUST IMAGINE IF HE WAS….”

…and so it went on, all the way from London to Oxford in my teeny weeny car, with limbs and luggage oozing out of all the windows.

Sadly, he wasn’t there, but it didn’t matter. We had to queue to get in for about 15 minutes and then wait at the bar – the restaurant was packed.  But we had a really good meal and enjoyed every minute of it.  We then all went to bed early ready (unfortunately) to hit the shops running rather than the quadrants and university buildings and beautiful architecture that Oxford has to offer.

My kids were all on a mission.  Christmas money coupled with Christmas returns AND the sales meant that there was no way I was going to get them to do the cultural tour of Oxford.  Generally speaking it is not at all satisfying shopping for three huge children.  No tiny weeny not very expensive baby-grows anymore.  Full size, full price garments, seemingly every three months.  ”STOP GROWING” I want to shout at them.   They all have bigger feet than me.  There is nothing more depressing than having to walk into a lovely shoe shop, spend ages and a fortune in there and come out with three big bags, in the style of Carrie from “Sex In The City” BUT NONE OF THEM ARE FOR ME.

In addition, my daughter has the annoying habit of making anything I like look 1,000 times better – if I try a hat on, I look like a knob.  If she tries the same hat on she looks completely stunning.  Effortlessly so.  She does a “this is nice, why don’t you buy it thing..” when what she really means is “I love this and it really doesn’t matter that you are going to look awful in it, because once you get it home I’m going to steal it from you anyway and because it looks so much better on me you won’t want it back”.   Looking at make-up with her is even worse – she says things like “oh you should buy some of this, it’s really good, it’s cream eyeshadow that is crease free and it really works” and then I point out that she hasn’t got any “creases” so of course it “really works” and then she tries it out on me and goes very quiet as she realises it clearly doesn’t work on my way-too-many-creases-eyes.

Anyway, even after they had sucked the life out of my wallet and I had to wander round with rubbish eye make-up stuck in “creases”, we all had a really brilliant time.   We all stayed together which is rare these days – my children giving each other their valued opinions on various outfits such as “that makes you look gay” and other equally helpful comments.

I tried to fit a bit of culture in – but my kids are not very good at trying to feign interest in something I am pointing at.   The closest I got to germinating a flicker of interest was when I showed them a Pret-a- manger coffee shop housed in a tudor building.  Quite by accident I managed to get them to climb the tower in the church (127 steps) and whilst I silently tried to stop myself from having a heart attack at the top, we surveyed the gorgeous ariel view of Oxford and I hoped that although I was unable to speak, they were drinking in all that history and beauty from our birds eye view – however, the only comment my son made was  ”I can’t see Primark from here though, can you?”:-