The car is bursting at the seams. We look as if we are off on an overland trek lasting several months, not a week’s holiday in Wales. The boot is full of suitcases crammed with clothes for three small children, allowing for numerous daily changes due to regular yoghurt spillages. There is an assortment of buckets and spades and a basket full of emergency rations such as coffee, olive oil and loo paper. Draped across the top is bedding for everyone including my own essential feather pillow. I also spot my husband’s laptop carefully hidden behind the pile of coats.
The children sit shoulder to shoulder, car seats crammed together in the back. Just as we start the engine, the usual demands for music begin. In the absence of any childrens’ CDs, due to my complete ban on Humpty Dumpty, Little Bo Peep and the like, they shout out, “Christmas carols.” I tell them that Father Christmas hates having carols played before December. Unable to agree, we begin our journey out of the village in silence. Suddenly a small voice from behind me says, “Are we nearly there?”
We drive on with next to no wrong turns but then enter unknown territory and grope for the sticky old map that lives on the floor under the childrens’ feet. Part of the crucial page we need has been torn. I try to make sense of it, whilst also passing back bottles of water and digestives to the now apparently starving starlings in the back. One wrong turn and we end up in Bristol, hitting its ring road on the day that they have closed one of the two lanes to strim the middle stretch of grass on the dual carriageway. Inevitably, this causes a huge tail back of cars like us, bulging with luggage and families on their way to enjoy the Bank Holiday weekend. My husband is losing his temper as we sit watching the merry strimmers. The quantities of water have taken their toll and our four-year-old declares he needs to stop. The queues of traffic stretch out beyond and behind us so we have no option but to pull over onto the hard shoulder. “Oh well, at least it takes people’s minds off the traffic,” mutters my husband. We creep along another half a mile and our daughter pipes up that she also needs to stop. I draw a line at the hard shoulder and our eyes are peeled for the next service station. The noise level in the back picks up as our son thinks it is hilariously funny to lean on The Baby, revelling in the inevitable high pitch screeches. It is time for bribery. “If you all be quiet, I’ll put the carols on,” I say. Finally, we pull into the service station and screech to a halt with the children belting out ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’.
