All morning: Michael has attacks of vomitting and diarrohea.
15.15 Two taxis arrive to carry us to the bus stop.
15.30 We finish packing in our equipment and children.
15.40 We arrive at the bus stop. Load our stuff. Get on board. Mr. Waffle and the Princess go to get her a bottle of water. The boys howl and wriggle trying to go with them. The bus driver starts his engine.
16.10 The bus driver tells us that, as the bus is full, we will have to carry all our children on our laps. No one is very happy about this arrangement infringing as it does on safety, sanity and dignity. He relents.
17.00 We arrive at Charleroi airport in bucketing rain. Uniquely, in my experience, Charleroi airport does not have trolleys. I wait with the children in the heaving terminal building while Mr. Waffle ferries across the luggage and the three car seats. Miraculously, car seats do not count towards your luggage allowance on Ryanair which seems extraordinary. This means that, hurrah, we are within our allowance unlike the young man from Limerick in front of us who is resignedly putting on as many clothes as he can from his overweight bag.
18.00 We board using our exciting priority boarding cards because Ryanair will no longer call people with children first and we were worried that we might not get to sit together. Not only do we sit together but the only seat left empty on the plane is beside me. Double hurrah. Journey is uneventful but tiring because my children only love me at the moment and none of them wants to be with their lucky, lucky Daddy.
19.00 (Irish Time – 20.00 Belgian Time) : We land and go to seek dinner in Shannon airport. Everything is closed which we discover after an extensive search. We get some sandwiches in the Londis shop.
20.00 We get into our hired car and drive to Cork.
21.00 The boys finally fall asleep.
21.10 I fall asleep.
22.00 We arrive in Cork. The Princess who had been flagging is all perked up and rushes in to the attentions of her loving granparents. We unpack and put the boys to bed.
22.30 Kind nana puts the Princess to bed and we sit down to a well-deserved cup of tea.
22.35 Michael gets sick all over his bed. We clean up and lull him back to sleep.
23.00 We go to bed ourselves and aside from administering some bottles, the night is peaceful.
05.45 The Princess wakes us up and our holiday begins.
Did I mention that it’s been raining since we arrived and the forecast is for more. On the plus side, Michael appears to be well again. On the minus side, Daniel got sick at lunch time. Oh well, at least we have an army of loyal babysitters on call.
I am so looking forward to travelling to the US in August.
I never bother with the priority seating thing. I reckon that if they want to separate us from the children that’s fine. Someone else, preferably in a suit, can deal with the travel tantrums, food smeared seats, constant requests to go to the toilet, kicking of the seat in front, … need i go on?