Tomorrow we leave for Vancouver. Oh the joy of the prospect of a 10.5 hour flight with two children under 5 with one who will be confined to my lap. And the one confined to my lap has been ill all day - the 7th nappy full of poo has just been changed and it is just gone 5 pm. We have been inside all day packing "light". Except it isn't light and we still aren't finished. We now have the prospect of going to the other side of London for a family wedding in the pouring rain after which my parents, sister and nephews are coming to camp out in our house.
The house is a tip because I have been frantic at work. In my business August is supposed to be the month when nothing happens - court is shut, parliament isn't sitting and everyone relaxes. Except it isn't true because July is hell as everyone wants everything finished before the carriages turn into pumpkins on 1 August and then it transpires that the message that August is the month of nothing happening hasn't actually got through to the people who create work for me. So the last few weeks have been a nightmare plus I have had to pick up stuff from the people who have been on holiday already on the basis that August is dead. I now get my own back by dumping a hideous job on my manager.
We will need this holiday I tell you.
It is coming at a good time as our lovely nanny left on Friday to go home to New Zealand to retrain as a midwife. We were all really upset. I was surprised at how hard I took it when she announced she was going about 6 weeks ago. I invested a lot of emotional energy into hiring her and feeling able to leave my children with her for 3 days a week. I panicked about whether the other mums at the pre-school would let me know if anything amiss happened. It didn't and in fact she was always in demand for babysitting and doing the odd day here and there for them. We had got used to her as part of the family. She is the only alternative caregiver my youngest has ever known. I just didn't want that to change. He is totally oblivious I think to the fact that there will be no more "E** days" but the elder one isn't and that makes it harder to be upbeat about the replacement who seems lovely too but just won't be the same. Nothing like this kind of upheaval to bring down a severe case of working mother angst. I hope that nearly 3 weeks away will make them ready for new things when we come home.
Next thing is to work out how I am ever going to keep up with my blog reading whilst I am away. I might even try transatlantic blog entry posting to get me up from my once a month average.
Happy summer holidays!
