I was always a gung-ho travelling mum. With a sailor for a husband, you kind of have to be if you want to see them more than once every two months. Antigua with a baby hurling all the way? No problem. Dubai with three under-fives? Bring it. It usually required pre-Maria Captain Von Trapp levels of whistling, but was generally worth it. Until I overreached.
Christmas 2016: I had three small kids, a parent in hospital in Scotland and a husband working in France. I decided we would have a jolly Christmas morning at the hospital (it is possible my idea of hospitals on Christmas Day was informed by Noel Edmonds’ televised visits in the 80s), then fly to France in time for a slap-up feast of goose and oysters and a joyous reconciliation.
So I said the magic words – NO CHURCH! – and we all piled into the car and headed for the hospital. It was very early in the morning, so the smalls had their new reindeer onesies on over their pyjamas; we would change later.
“Oh, the consultant is here to see us; how lovely,” I thought as we entered the ward. I will skim over the next part; we have all had bad news, kindly but firmly given.
My dad drove us, shellshocked, to the airport – which, for the children, is where the real magic began. Or, rather, continued – the nurses had already given them free range over a large tin of breakfast Quality Street.
A lone stewardess walked past us with a smile.
“Ooh, I see we’re taking reindeer on the plane!” she said. “Would you like a chocolate?”
The only available flights were via Schiphol airport in Amsterdam. I had assumed that everything would be open on Christmas Day as usual; billions of people don’t celebrate, after all. We would go to the in-airport museum, the library; the five-hour stopover would go by in a flash.
This, much like my jolly hospital predictions, turned out to be nonsense. Schiphol looked like the aftermath of a mass-extinction event: polished, shining white and utterly, eerily deserted. The escalators were empty and everything was shut. This was going to be awful.
My father and I had agreed not to call my brothers; let them enjoy the day. My husband was inside a bilge. All I had to do was get through the next few hours with the children on my own.
“ME AND MY [new toy] DOG IS GOING ON FLAT SCALATOR,” announced the smallest, indicating the travelators, trundling to nowhere. “Sure,” I said, which took her by surprise and brought about open season – running backwards, jumping, climbing – from the other two. At one point, an official‑looking man approached and I rushed over to shoo them off – but it was only to offer them more chocolate.
The only place that was open was an uninspiring bar selling Heineken and Dutch meatballs. The sweet barman, clearly no stranger to weary travellers, ushered me in. “Sit anywhere,” he said, unnecessarily, as he brought me a large glass of wine and the children as much tooth-rotting fizzy pop as they could handle.
It was dark by the time we made it. Within his tiny quarters on the boat, my husband had done the best he could to string up a single thread of fairy lights and throw together a Christmas dinner that would make the arduous journey worthwhile.
“WE DON’T WANT ANYTHING TO EAT,” announced the middle one, the others nodding in agreement, as my husband looked askance at the dozens of unopened oysters (yes, sailors’ kids eat oysters) by the sink.
Somehow, we contrived to get three children and a robot dog into two very small bunks. “This,” said the little one sleepily – full of Quality Street and Fanta, wearing the same pyjamas she had woken up in two countries ago, which felt more like a different world ago, a world in which I still had a future with a mum of my own – “was the bestest Christmas ever.”
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