#BestHalfTermDayOutEver

Life has been so busy these last few years, I honestly thought my days of mum blogging were behind me. But sometimes, a particularly fine gem of a day out with the kids, when you’re stuck right in the middle of a dreary February half-term, just screams out at you, saying, ‘Blog me! blog me! – and so here is my latest offering:

Trigger alert: vomit, cat castration and more vomit 

The day starts at around 12.25 am the night before – Child #3 is calling me from upstairs. She can’t sleep and her tummy hurts. I cuddle her and assuming all is okay, head back downstairs for some more late-night reading and Netflix. 

Twenty minutes later she’s crying more pointedly and is now green of pallor. I drag her with unexpected ferocity (think: save my carpet) to bathroom to stem already-emerging tide of vomit and shover (shove her) head over the toilet bowl. 

Vomiting frenzy ensues. 

(Bitterly resentful) cleaning frenzy follows. 

Some ten (twenty? fifty?) more times in the night, child awakens me for more crying or more vomiting or more of both. I’m no longer used to this hellish nocturnal party central with tiny infant. She’s meant to know better – she’s 7 years, not 7 months, old. 

Official day then starts (again) at around 7am. Bleary with fatigue, we have to panic-dress and rush out of the house as we need to get to the vet on time to get our two kittens neutered. 

 As with a previous blog post from a few summer holidays ago, in which I naively hoped a pet-related activity would pass for a passable school holiday “outing” – and was proved spectacularly wrong – this outing promises to fail dramatically even before it’s begun. 

We put kittens carefully in pet carrier and head off. Child #1 and Child #2 complain vociferously that I’m rushing them out of the house before they’ve eaten breakfast and that they’re !!!#STARVING#!!! Child #3 cries weakly that she feels too ill to leave the house and then promptly proves this to be true by turning green of pallor again before we’ve even exited our very short road in our battered Honda.

I shover – and myself – swiftly out of the car and she throws up, on the pavement. (So far, I’ve been remarkably successful at avoiding vomit landing in wrong places; let’s hope my luck continues.) 

I deposit her firmly with dad and the remaining five of us (me, two human children and two felines) trundle off up the A41 and A1 to picturesque Borehamwood (‘Bore’ promises to sum this whole day up in one) to drop kittens off at vet’s. One child continues to rail loudly due to hunger-related woes. 

Kitties safely deposited, we trundle back down the A1 and A41 and start considering breakfast needs. We land on Brent Street, London NW4 – arguably the grimmest, most soul-destroying, most down-at-heel, most in-need-of-spontaneous-self-destruction high street the leafy suburbs of North-West London have to offer – hunting for a decent breakfast joint.  

Inexplicably, I find myself sharing a slice of very rich Sacher Torte with Child #2 in an over-lit cafe before it’s even 9.30 in the morning. Not satisfied with the menu, Child #1 appropriates my bank card and goes foraging in nearby Tesco Extra for other breakfast items.

Inexplicably too, as we munch on over-sweet cake, Child #2 and I feel called to look up full lyrics of a terrible, sadistic, bad song playing on loop on Capital FM at the moment, which is painfully stuck in my head, with lines that seem to speak of “whips and chains” and did I hear something about “choking”? (Yes, Google confirms there are indeed repeat mentions of choking – “I’ll choke you, but I ain’t no killer, baby” – in this delightful ditty, but it’s okay because: “you can whip your lovin’ on me, baby, whip your lovin’ on me, baby.“)

Should I worry that my three primary-school-aged children, along with most under 18s in the nation’s capital, are listening to this fine artist’s material on loop all day long?

The day has already felt very long, I observe, as 10 am slowly creeps up on us.

Where else to go in the rain when we have one hour spare before we need to reunite with greenish Child #3?  

You guessed it (again): that retail mecca of NW London: grey-of-hue, boxed-in, brutalist Brent Cross Shopping Centre located at the positively bucolic intersection of the North Circular Road and the A41.

We buy Child #3 a Snoopy keyring as a get-well-soon present; we then waste plenty of money buying various overpriced edibles that Child #1 and Child #2 still apparently NEED to satisfy their hunger: Bubble tea, warm pretzels, and the like. We then fritter away lots more money buying specialised haircare products that both Child #2 and I apparently need to “unlock our curls”.  

Still only around 11.30am and we’re back home with Child #3. How, oh how, will I fill the day? I ponder to myself. 

Child #3 picks up a bit in shade of physiognomy and eats a crust of dry toast. Emboldened, I rush her off to Dunelm with Child #2 for another spot of retail therapy, pushing down threat of inevitable existential crisis this homeware mecca brings out in me as soon as I step foot inside. (What’s the point of lampshades? What’s the point of 375 types of fitted sheets? What’s the point of dog-shaped umbrella stands? What’s the point of 87 different shapes of raffia storage solutions? Why is this shop so idiotically named? Who am I? Why am I here?) 

We leave Big Child #1 at home for a short while for his “screen-time” (in italics and with quotation marks to highlight the “who am I kidding?” aspect of calling this screen-time, and in so doing, keeping up the pretence that this is an activity with a tightly controlled start and end-time).

We make it over the threshhold of Dunelm. My mood starts to marginally lift. I put Child #3 in trolley and we wheel around ground floor of store, looking at sheets and dog-shaped umbrella stands. Suddenly, you guessed it…..green pallor……….. 

We charge out of store. We make it but not quite in time to avoid splashes of vomit landing modern-art-style on the large mat at the store entrance. (I did let a shop assistant know, in case you’re wondering if I’d stoop low enough to ‘puke and run’. I’m of high moral standing, you see.) 

Back home far too soon – and I’m not even looking at the clock. I give up on life, rain, half-term and everything and crash into bed with inclement child. We nap blissfully for some time. Vaguely hearing two loud screens blaring in other parts of the house, I put thoughts of being a terrible parent out of my mind and slumber some more. The afternoon slowly rumbles along.

The vet calls and all is well with two kitties. We’re instructed to collect them at 17.00. 

Some time later: it’s back up the A roads to Borehamwood, this time armed with sturdy sick bags. We pick up neutered, shorn, but otherwise quite perky, kittens and head home.  

Traffic, rain and general malaise accompany us as we head back along the A1/A41 for the fourth time today.  

We nearly make it into the general area of Hendon Central (as also discussed in a previous blog post) when, you guessed it again, sick bag is urgently required. 

Back home; supper, mess, laundry, more mess, hunger, no more sick (hurrah, but am I speaking too soon?), hunger finally abated, haircare products tried out and bedtime finally puts a close to the longest day recorded in human history. 

Signed: A tired parent at 23:11 of the same day.  

Picture of the two feline protagonists of the tale.