Not a jolly holiday

It is that time of year again.  That time of year when we start to think about holidays.

That time of year when I get absolutely shouty and irritated beyond measure, and wonder whether it’s all bloody worth it.

The trouble is that I know the answer to this question is ‘no’. No it is not worth it.

Mostly it is aggravation upon aggravation with an added dollop of frustration and a large helping of irritation on the side.

Jason has insisted that we get on the ball holiday wise.  It was apparently up to me to sort things out last week.  I hate doing this so much I fussed and fretted and eked things out until last night when it all came to a head.

I am still of the oft repeated opinion that a holiday is not a holiday if I cannot have some relief from the daily grind.  We cannot afford five star hotels.  We always self cater.  This means a holiday cottage, and if it is not replete with what I consider to be the staples for my survival, mental and physical, I will not have anything to do with it.  You know this. I have whined about this on a yearly basis on this very blog.

We have, after last year, finally got over the burning need of my husband to have a private swimming pool.

I consider this to be a huge step in the right direction, and did have the totally erroneous belief that it would make my life easier this year.

Although he did tell me that he liked going to the Cotswold Water Park much more than me (last year’s summer fiasco), and he would happily consider it again this year.

We had words.  Mine were short,emphatic and riddled with expletives.

I won.

I understood that we were to be based in the UK once again.  Also that we were sticking to the school holidays (despite our inclination to sack off and run away).  I wanted a washing machine and a tumble drier (given the temperamental English weather), and some kind of outside space if possible.  Jason hates standard double beds, and refuses to countenance any master bedroom that doesn’t have a six foot bed or bigger.

Finding the right property was proving problematic even with these basic criteria.   The prices for the places I was finding were not acceptable to the husband.  He pointed out that I was being extravagant.  I admit that the £15,000 a week castle with its own helicopter landing pad and staff was probably pushing it a bit, but I do think it’s important to aim high.

I pointed out that at the time we needed, with the criteria we wanted we were going to be hard pushed to budget, even if I reined in my naturally excessive nature.

In response to this, he suggested we go abroad.  This boiled my tiny brain.

He said: ‘We can find somewhere cheaper.  We can find somewhere sunny.’

This is easier said than done. We do not do package holidays because we are so difficult to please and our requirements are many and complex.  So by the time we have paid for a villa, and flights and car hire, all to somewhere sunny, I could not see how this would be cheaper.

Plus, this was the first time that sun was being mentioned as a requirement.

I wept into my sleeve.

Asking for sunshine in these uncertain times is rather like asking for a holiday where you can access the Holy Grail 24/7.  It makes finding a house with a private swimming pool for under £1500 look like a piece of cake.

I had already spent several hours of my life wading through the small print on Cottages U Like and its ilk.  I would find a property. It would look fine, but on closer inspection it would prove to be on a flight path, or a main road, or have bedrooms in the shrubbery, or only be available in December, or be full of dwarf beds.

You get the picture.

Now, instead of making things easier, he was suggesting that we broaden the search.  I pointed out that air fares had gone up dramatically since we last flew together as a family, and that anything we saved on a villa would be swallowed up in exorbitant travel costs.  He refused to believe this was true.  We found somewhere tolerable at a price he could live with, in Portugal.  The air fares for five of us then took the price of the holiday out of the bounds of all reason, and that was before we looked at car hire.

By this time I was absolutely fed up with the whole bloody thing, and was beginning to harbour an entirely irrational hatred for the Portuguese just for  being there.

I refused to look any more until I got some helpful and positive input and could shake the sense that even trying to book a holiday was a gesture of futile, doom laden misery.

We are now working on things together, which makes me feel slightly less fraught, mainly because Jason is seeing how hard it actually is to find something that suits us all for a price that doesn’t makes us shriek at a time we can all go together.

We have not yet become hopeful about the situation, but at least we are now united in our misery.

Which is progress.