The very best of friends…

Children…

They are super little things, bringing so much pleasure and pain to each day.  One moment you want to hold them forever, breath in their smell, immerse yourself in their cuddles.  Then the next, you want to emigrate to a country far away to shelter yourself from the ongoing squabbling that siblings create.

I have heard that it is bad practice to emigrate without your children.

Instead, opting for a break is often a more ‘legal’ way of escaping the little darlings.  (Let me highlight here that you need to leave the children with a grown up that they know. Again, it is frowned upon to simply leave a loaf and some water on the table with a see you soon note propped up on the breadbin).

Before BB was born, and when my waistline was slimmer, I had the most delightful long weekend away with two of my oldest and bestest friends.  In those days, my worries were more simple but still created a desire to escape, my main hardships of parenting fell to woes of nighttime waking, toddler terrors and fussy eating.

I had no idea of what a real panic or parental worry was, I had never seen a child in the throes of an eplieptic seizure, I had never even dreamt of injecting my daughter daily, I had not even considered raising a child in a spica cast.

Yet, without any of these additional parenting joys, two years of parenting twins had left me desperate for a break, and a break they say, is as good as a holiday.

My two friends and I, planned a weekend where we could be us, where the title of mum would apply to dad for three whole days.  Where we could recuperate, relax, and miss our family, making us all fresher upon our return.

Perhaps I should confess here, upon our return, when we were greeted by our spouses at the airport, it was remarked that we looked several years older and four times more tired than when we left the UK.  It would seem we don’t have the drinking prowess that we used to.

We escaped to a fantasy land, dripping in snow, high in the mountains.  Two of us taught the other to ski, we nearly killed her in the process, but she was dashing down blue runs by the end of the stay.  By day we marveled at the freedom of not being with the children and as the sunset we clutched our drinks nostalgically to our chests and proclaimed how much we missed our little ones.

We didn’t catch an early flight home though…

We left the airport, after calming our emotions with a quick beverage (at 8am).

Then we arrived in France and hit the slopes.

Once we had taught the third one to ski, we flew over the mountains, tore down Marvel, and then in a moment of woe, stopped for refreshments.

After months of exercise being a mums and baby yoga class, we found ski-ing to be quite challenging.

 

 

We also found another way to banish the aches from our joints.

 

Day two on the slopes seemed much harder than the first, we put it down to the tiredness of being mothers.

However, we battled on, skied through the sickness that threatened to spoil the day and conquered more mountains.

 

But when nighttime fell, we sadly realized that we just couldn’t do two nights out in a row anymore…

 

It was the best of times, time spent clutching sides because we were laughing so hard, we smiled even when face down in the snow.  We did spend a fair bit of time, face down in the snow.

It was our first holiday abroad and so far our last, distance and time and more children has made meeting up harder and holidays on mountains nigh on impossible.  We now live in the north and south, and one of us in Australia, with eight children between us.

Words cannot describe how much I miss my best friends.

But…

I have memories tightly wrapped in a box of our fabulous weekend away, I still giggle at the recalled sight of a hungover friend snoozing on a table after decorating a mountain.  I can still see our trainee skier coming close to the edge and hurtling to stop her.  If I close my eyes, I can almost taste the Corona on my lips and hear their voices chattering around me.

It is only our last holiday for now, I am sure there are more to follow…

Cosmos Holidays commissioned me to recall my favourite trip and this one sprung immediately to mind, if you crave holidays like I do you may want to have a look at their new app on facebook and see if you are a snow personality like me or a sun seeker.  It takes less than  30 seconds to complete and you could win a snow or a sun holiday.

Good Luck.

(And to my lovely friends, thanks for letting me share the pictures on here – Love you always.)