holidays

We have had fun
We have fitted an awful lot of things into the six weeks.
It has rained on us and I have visited A LOT of toilets. Three little girls aged between 5-10 cannot synchronise their bladders and cannot be expected to go for more than 50 minutes without needing the loo. This may be why it took 7 hours to get to Devon at the start of August.
It may be why I have visited every toilet on the south bank between The Tate Modern and The Houses of Parliament ( sometimes doubling back to revisit!)
It is part and parcel of every summer holiday since having toilet trained kids - hunting for baby change facilities is now a distant memory.
So we have packed every bit of excitement we could, making sure that every day there was a plan for something to take place.
The first weekend grandparent had them as Mummy and daddy escaped to watch Monty Python at the O2, then the local church ran 4 days of holiday club, then they were whisked off to Granny's in outer Wales, followed by a trip to Harry Potter, which could have been blindingly expensive if i hadn't assured them before hand that I would not be buying ANYTHING from the gift shop. Also it was extremely hot that evening and the family room booked at nearby hotel was unbearable without air conditioning so a very polite and British criticism saw us with a full refund. This week also included trips to the library and art gallery.
The end of the week involved play dates followed by a weekend of packing as eldest was off on choir tour. Bereft of one child, I hijacked my Niece for a sleep over and day at soft play place. Then more packing for our epic trip to the toilet - I mean to Devon and a lovely caravan just as the weather turned not so hot.
We left a day early, having reunited with the eldest half way through our stay and drove through rainbows all the way home.
This was supposed to be the quiet week, just packing and unpacking, school shoe buying and washing and ironing, but I decided to enrol middle child into intensive swimming at a local baths. I had play date pencilled in mid week but Grandpa had a fall and we had emergency sprint to the hospital A & E two hours away from us.
We ended the final week on the  North Wales coast listening to commentators on the weather assure us that Autumn had come early - I packed fleeces, thermals and wellies to put over bikinis.
We came back on the sunniest day of the weekend. But we did not stop for the toilet - not once.