Where's my holiday gone?

Recently Betty Friedan has been much invoked in  multiple articles about our over-devotion to our children, the "trafficking in exhibitionism" that is Facebook and our tedious 'Real Simple' stylista ways which compel us to perfect the minutiae of our lives -  and how Betty must be rolling in her grave at what disappointing female revolutionaries we've all turned out to be (although Betty would have been the first one moralising on Twitter, m'thinks).

I'm guilty on all accounts of the above (and since you're reading my blog, I suppose so are you) but I do agree with Katie Roiphe in the FT when she says that although our parents loved us as much as we love ours, we played around the margins whilst they got on with their lives as opposed to this slavish scheduling we grind our way through with simmering resentment (well I do anyway) which is contemporary parenting. With school starting again on Tuesday I'm working on reinstating Sixties-style parenting  techniques which saw my parents, for example, moaning about having to occasionally drop me off at Sunday School (I wanted to go to church, they didn't) as it interfered with a leisurely Sunday breakfast, a spot of lawn mowing and some newspaper reading.

So I'd like to apologise unequivocally upfront for yet another set of beautiful photographs of our perfect summer holiday featuring happy children, relaxed parents, white sands, aqua sea, cocktails, lobster, boats and tropical islands. I did try hard not to glamorise anything although I do admit to deleting a few that showed too much cellulite and double chins - but the resulting album is pretty much the way it was.

I'm not exaggerating when I say it felt like the Smite Button had been pushed as we battled tropical depressions (mine) and storms, cancelled sailing boats, delayed flights, flat tires (both cars simultaneously) flat batteries, new businesses and a few other minor things which we steadfastly ignored in our determination to have one week of holidays with our visiting friends. Although we lost out on our sailing holiday on the floating gin palace (which went off to the hurricane shelter and never came back) we were able to revert to a mixture of Plan C & D, which saw us going off in 'Grace' (the boat not the cat) on Sunday morning. Although we had a very bumpy Channel crossing, the minute we hit the Baths the sun burst out, the clouds disappeared and the sea dropped at least 2 feet. Everyone was happy. Me most of all.

We trawled around the North Sound visiting Leverick Bay, Oil Nut Bay, Prickly Pear (for a spot of camping again) and then on to Anegada which was perfection itself.

The boys swam and snorkeled, guzzled coconut water, went night fishing, charged up and down coral beaches, jumped off jetties and had a wonderful time. The parents, in true Sixties-style were able to ignore the kids focusing instead on whether to have a Painkiller or a Dark & Stormy as we devoured our Kindles and occasionally flopped into the sea to cool off.



Despite the logistics of moving this tribe around, the gross amount of wet towels which were generated (and now have to be washed) and the continuous stream of "Mommy where's my snorkel/shoes/hat/rashie/sunglasses/camera/baggies/flippers?" etc it was a wonderful holiday. The stars seemed to align, everyone got on with having fun and it all just fell in to place for a few glorious days.

My remaining question is "where's my holiday gone then"? It's all over so quickly. Susan & the boys have gone, Kathy has gone and we open the bakery on Wednesday. Whoosh. Just like that. Summer gone. Holidays over.

 So here's a slice of it - a Flickr stream of happiness.

Happy Days

Amazing he could see where he was going with that hair

I think if I had any lingering doubts that the move here had not necessarily been the smartest thing ever, then this weekend has killed them for good.

Anegada was really magical and more so as it was  shared with a good group of new friends and fellow Tortollans, many of whom were carrying even more toys and clobber than we were.

In just one day, we (as in the royal 'we') managed to do a 2 hour round boat trip, a 22 mile mountain bike race, kitesurfing, paddleboarding, snorkelling, waterskiing, Bloody Marys at 10am,  2 hour Lobster Lunch, some lolopping around tepid bathwater playing 'Lobster Touch' (similar to tag) and even just some hanging out limin' (doing very little).

We are now on a 7 day count-down to the end of school. Tempers are short, mothers are frazzled, it's freaking hot and we're all just clinging to the cliff with our finger nails.  Then it's the new phenomenon of 10 Week Summer Holidays to get used too.

"Sittin' on the dock of the bay".... Dawson/Haycraft Boys

Lunch washed down with lots of chilled Pinot Grigio

Paddleboarding.

BVI Mountain Bike Club: "The Cadet Pelaton' (thanks Sally & BVI Local for photo)

TGIF

Cow Wreck Beach  - where we will be paddleboarding on Sunday

Sometimes things just get a little bit too pioneering here for a suburban girl like me. Another grumpy, sweaty mother muttered this week about how men are really happy here but that women were not quite as keen (I'm putting this very politely). I made this observation in one of my earlier blogs, but didn’t quite realize that we would be fixing our own car using the Internet. for example. The Ford had a hissy fit this morning and shut down. Mechanics wielding monkey wrenches wern't going to work this time, so we were left with Google. Just what you need after a long week. A look at the 'history' information on our internet researches for this week reveals such fascinating subjects as 'household mould', 'swelling caused by injections’, ‘why hens don’t lay eggs’ and ‘weekend breaks to NYC’.

We made the difficult decision this week not to go back to South Africa in July, primarily because - frankly -  I’m exhausted. So it’s a 'staycation' for us (trendy Recession-speak) and the slightly daunting prospect of 9 fun-filled weeks to organize for the children.

We’ll both take August off, and maybe do a bit of island-hopping and Puerto Rican shopping. Just how Robinson Crusoe we are with the island-hopping (ie camping on the beach) will depend on the budget, but I’m hoping for a little bit of R & R (ie boutique hotels with hot and cold everything).

Lesley Styles - see blog link

Sunday is a huge day for us, as Tyler has his first Sunday off for the year. As it’s Fathers Day, a big group of us are off to Anegada, a beautiful coral island which is part of the Virgin Islands, but about an hour away (all the other islands take about 20 minutes). James is riding in a bike race, we’ll do some paddleboarding and snorkeling, but Anegada is really famous for its lobster – so I’m mainly looking forward to lunch!

Have a good weekend everyone.