Road
The camping trip that went sideways
One night. We booked one night, forty minutes from home, specifically so that it could fail — and it did fail, comprehensively, and we are going again in August.
12 Jul 26Anna
Notebook
Road
Two hours forty to my parents, four to Tom’s. Everything we’ve learned about doing that with a six-year-old, a three-year-old and a dog who is sick on roundabouts.
7 entries
Road
Staying at my mum’s, and the travel cot years
Three nights in a house that is not childproofed, with a three-year-old who sleeps badly anywhere new, and a grandmother who would like to help and mostly cannot be told how.
3 May 26Anna
Road
Presents for people who live two hours away
We see my parents perhaps eight times a year, and for a long time our presents were an attempt to make up the difference — bigger, posted, apologetic. The thing that helped was giving something that produced phone calls instead of parcels.
26 Apr 26Anna
Road
Car sickness: what we carry now
Two children, one dog, one A1. We have had four incidents in three years and the fourth one taught us more than the first three, mostly because it happened forty minutes from the nearest anything.
1 Feb 26Anna
Road
Two hours forty, with everybody
The drive to my parents’ takes two hours forty without children. With two children and a fourteen-year-old dog it takes three and a half, and the extra fifty minutes are entirely under our control, which is the annoying part.
2 Nov 25Anna
Road
Trains with two, and why we still do it
The train to my sister’s costs more than the petrol and takes twenty minutes longer, and we do it anyway, because two hours in a car and two hours on a train are not the same two hours for anybody involved.
10 Aug 25Anna
Road
Days out that don’t cost forty pounds
Six weeks of summer holiday, two adults working part time, and the discovery that our children were measurably happier at a river than at the place that cost £46 and had a gift shop at the exit.
6 Jul 25Anna