Holiday.

Everyone loves a holiday (I assume). To be honest anyone that doesn’t appreciate or need a break once in a while is obviously having far too much fun in their day-to-day life.

For the most-part of my childhood a big gang of my family and close friends would go to Center Parcs at least once a year and it was fantastic!

Spending whole days swimming, racing down the rapids and trying not to drown, hunting for abandoned bikes in bushes rather than hiring them and cycling through the forest in the dark every night to get back to our lodges.

These brilliant memories fuelled my dream to take my own kids one day and finally, now we can!

So we took Flo back in February and it was great. But to be honest, she was so young still it wasn’t like we had a participating child, it was more like just having another bag to remember when moving from pool to restaurant to bar to another restaurant etc. And I mean that in the nicest way, I don’t always compare my daughter to a backpack.

This time though, 9 months on and in full toddler mode things were completely different.

As you can imagine, 5 days with your girlfriend; Emily, 1 year old daughter; Flo, girlfriend’s sister; Sophie, her little boy; Eli (also 1) and the entire world’s population of fucking squirrels is always going to be eventful. They weren’t literally fucking by the way, there was just loads of them.

Seriously though, we laughed a lot and sometimes I feel like it was just so we didn’t cry at how ludicrous the situations that we found ourselves in were.

Our first night of the holiday we thought we’d treat ourselves to a meal out; we kidded ourselves with the notion that we’d have one meal out and then cook healthy balanced meals for the kids and us on the other nights… yeah, turns out we’re not those parents.

So we went out, great restaurant, the brilliant staff sat us next to a soft play area. I could see Flo having the time of her life right through my pint of Peroni. Amazing.

Credit to Sophie for spending most of the night sat on the floor surrounded by giant spongey bricks and other peoples crazed children, whilst Eli knocked down towers built by Dads that really wanted to go back and finish their beer.

Halfway through demolishing our meal a waitress came over…

“Sorry to interrupt, are you the Gibbon family?”

Looking around at the state of our table, in that second yes, we were indeed a family of Gibbons, Chimpanzees, massive “don’t shit with me” Silverback Gorillas, any primate you like because we may as well have thrown faeces about a bit to smarten the place up.

After clarifying that we were not the Gibbon family, Emily took Flo to play in an attempt to stop her eating the crayons the waiter gave us – more on this later – and I listened to the family next to us.

They had exceptionally behaved twin girls who politely waved at Flo every time she glared at them – Not maliciously, she’s just a very inquisitive child.

“You can have vegetable sticks for starters, not breadsticks”.

They were that sort of family.

We however had just discussed that surely our kids had had at least one of their five-a-day in the tomato sauce on the pizza they’d shared… Top parenting.

Anyway, they were about to order dessert and the twins got a choice this time.

“Girls, what do you want for dessert?”

“We want Ice Lollies please.”

“IT’S PLEASE MAY WE HAVE OR WE WOULD LIKE!”

The Dad erupted like a hypocritical but well-intentioned volcano.

Anyway we carried on, gathered our shit up; leaving Flo’s bib behind in the process we now realise. As we left the twin girls waved and said goodbye…

“That little girl’s going home to bed now because it’s very late.”

Me and Emily both heard it. Not one of us saying anything until we got outside.

Now just to clarify…

1. It wasn’t Flo’s bedtime yet. In fact, we still had a full 15 minutes until bedtime.

And 2. We’re on holiday. As a family. Flo’s on holiday! Bedtimes can be relaxed. She won’t implode and we might (we wont) but we might get a tiny lay-in.

The next morning, we didn’t get a lay-in, we did however go swimming, the part I was most looking forward to and it didn’t disappoint.

Both kids were confident in the water. Flo was loving the jets and streams shooting in her face, splashing us and anyone else in close proximity, whilst Eli insisted on going deeper and deeper into the wave pool. They had no fear. I even got to escape to the slides and release my inner man-child! Success.

Now an essential stop on any Center Parcs trip is the Pancake House. So much so that we queued in the freezing cold to get in at opening time.

Who opens for breakfast at 9.30?! We’ve been up since 6.00AM!

We needn’t have bothered. Both kids were on top form. Eli had a meltdown over the lack of Gingerbread Men available and Flo, once again, decided to consume every crayon in sight. We didn’t even notice until she had half a yellow crayon hanging out of her mouth. Again, top parenting.

After waiting for what seemed like a lifetime we inhaled our pancakes and waffles and headed for the door with two irritable children, leaving a trail of Pom-Bears and mini marshmallows behind us. Little did I know at the time that a clump of chewed marshmallows had attached themselves to my leg only to be discovered hours later. Nice.

On these types of holidays there are loads of paid for activities available but obviously due to the kids ages there were restrictions on what we could do, so we booked them onto Balance Bikes… They had no interest whatsoever. In a class of six children I think there was one that actually made the most of what was on offer. The others, ours included, just dismantled the track whilst insisting on wearing the helmets provided because you know, safety first.

The other activity that the girls booked was Pottery Painting under the pretence that it was totally for Flo and Eli. Seriously, Emily and Sophie were a lot more excited than any one year old was ever going to get over decorating a pissing ceramic dragonfly.

“I’ve booked you on aswell!”

Thanks Em.

So the girls chose baubles, what with it being November, for “the kids” to decorate. They meticulously planned their designs, colours etc and off they went.

To set the scene, five of us squashed around a table no larger than a post-it note and were surrounded by very serious artistes that had probably come to relax and release their anguish that they’ll never quite be Grayson Perry. It was uncomfortable and things were about to get a whole lot worse…

“Flo do you want to do some more painting?”

“No.”

“Eli don’t touch the water pot!”

SPLASH!

On the floor, on Eli, on Sophie, on the table. Everywhere. The water pot went fucking everywhere.

I darted across the room to grab paper towels. Sophie attempted to get Eli out of the puddle he was currently swimming in and Emily tried to calm Flo down who was having a shit-fit because for some reason she now hates it when people laugh, all whilst trying to protect their precious bloody baubles!

It was actual hell and we were at the very ceramic heart of it.

The following day we packed up, grabbed a coffee, collected the baubles and had one last wander around the complex. Walking around we talked about the week, everything we’d done and everything we hadn’t done but decided we’d do next time.

Next time. Because after all of the packing, the meals out, the swimming, the bloody activities and the multiple trips back to the lodge for forgotten scarves, dummies, dignity etc; we had one of the best weeks ever and even better than that, the kids did too.

Every second of disapproving looks, stress and cursing (under our breaths of course) was worth it.

So yeah there will be a next time… but maybe we’ll eat in once or twice.