When we were given a 6-month break between appointments for Martha back in April, one of my first questions to Dr. Starling was if we were OK to take her on Holiday overseas. We'd re-negotiated a new mortgage deal earlier in the year and free'd up some cash each month, if we didn't book a holiday now - we never would.
The next morning I was at the Post Office picking up passport forms and within a month I had booked our first family holiday abroad.
I was 12 when I went abroad for the first time, I went to the South of France with my best friend and her family for 10 days crossing the Channell in a Ferry. When I was 17 we went away together again, this time it involved my first ever flight and we went to Crete. Holidays with my own family were spent at various Haven resorts around England and Wales and I loved them. I never felt that I was missing out on going abroad, not even when a school friend went to Florida for four weeks when we were 8 years old. Hubby, on the other hand, enjoyed the annual two week holidays at various resorts around Europe and even a trip to Florida.
I have always been happy with the idea that we'd not take "abroad" holidays, that Martha was un-insurable so we'd make do with stay-cations. But Osh is going away with School in October, to Disneyland Paris.
Something about that got to me; he is 12 years old and his first time out of this country will be with his friends and not with me. He is 12 and he's never flown in an airplane, never swam in the sea where the water was warm, where it was hot enough that you could swim in an outdoor pool. I wanted the three of them to experience the excitement of a week in another country, and I wanted to share it with them.
Whilst I was nervous about the flight, the kids were amazing and took it all in their stride. When we began our descent on to Majorca and we could see the beaches from the plane window, their faces lit up and I knew we'd made the right choice by bringing them away.
We had a wonderful care-free week in the Sun; the only decisions we had to had to make was what we wanted to eat and drink at meal times (and in-between meal times) The kids enjoyed the all-inclusive life, Osh more than made sure we got our money's worth as we was rarely without a snack or a drink.
The weather was a tad hit-and-miss for our first three days; the odd thunderstorm and bouts of rain here and there cut our time at the pool short on a couple of occasions. But by day four it was glorious from first light until sundown. Our day's started with the kids waking us at 8am, breakfast at 9am and we'd be at the pool by 10am. We ate our lunch on our sunbeds, taking it in turns all afternoon to get more drinks and ice cream to keep us cool.
The resort was nicely busy, enough that there was a nice atmosphere but not so busy that we struggled to get a sunbed or keep tabs on the kids all day. The three of them played nicely together and even made a few friends poolside. There was the occasional "she/he splashed me!" moan, but they got on a lot better than what they usually do at home.
As it was our first foreign holiday, we didn't venture out of the resort much. We spent one afternoon walking along the promenade at Can Picafort and another full day at the beach, the Hotel ran a shuttle bus to the beach which was perfect for us. As we were all-inclusive they even put together a picnic for us to take with us, so we didn't even need to worry about leaving our sunbeds on the beach and finding a cafe for lunch.
The water in the sea was so warm, it's been years since I've experienced that. I'm not sure if you can tell from the photo's but the waves were quite high on the day we were there. Mark and Osh loved seeing how far out they could go and letting the waves crash over them but the girls weren't too sure. To be fair the girls were quite happy paddling and building sand castles.
When I started the countdown app there were 118 days until we went away; now we've already been back home for a week and a half. I'm sitting in my living room now and it's wet and windy outside. My summer wardrobe has been put away and I've brought out all of my autumn/winter clothes. Once Martha's next appointment is out of the way - I'll be getting ready for Christmas.
The memories we've made are ones I'll treasure forever. If I never get to take the kids away again, I'm happy that I got to experience Majorca 2018 with them. But if the opportunity ever presents itself again, I'm going to grab it with both hands and book another family holiday with my little gang.
GM
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