OK, so I might be Mrs R now <eeek!>, but rather than marrying into the sensibleness and grown up-ness I thought I had, it seems I might have just dragged Himself deeper into the world of Pog.

Let me tell you about it…

Mr R has two children.  Which means I am now an actual step mum.  I was a bit naive about how that whole thing would work out, but maybe we’ll talk about that another day.  I used to call the boys Smaller Boy and Bigger boy, but at 13 and 16 I’m not sure that’s particularly accurate anymore, so we’ll go with the marginally better Little R and Bigger R.

Himself takes the boys away on holiday every year – as he should.  I’ve been on a few with them, but over Covid times a tent was bought and a love of camping discovered.  Their love, not mine.  Definitely not mine.

On our one week holiday to Devon after countless incidents including a storm that took out most of the tents in the field, but ‘just’ flooded ours, I actually spent a morning working out how to get home via the eleventy billion trans it would take.

So, since then it’s been easy: Himself and the boys pack up the car, drive, pitch the tent in a field with as few facilities as possible and I…I stay at home with a flushing toilet, warm shower and no need to traipse across a wet field in the pouring rain for my middle of the night wee.

It turns out though, that things are different now.  The world has opened up and the boys don’t have to stick to the tent, and now we are an actual legal family, I don’t have a get out clause anymore.  So, I started a search.  I based it on going abroad but not needing to fly so we didn’t get caught up in the overselling issue, being somewhere warm, and somewhere that had access to a beach, a barbecue, stuff for teens to do and wifi  (obviously).

Somewhere came up that was fully booked other than the week we can all go.  It was meant to be.  We booked in a flurry of excitement.

And then we read about the wildfires.  Which are very, very close.  We’re not going for a few weeks though, and the situation seems to be improving so it might just be a bit…smoky.  But then we discovered the big issue:

Little R’s passport has gone walkabout since his school trip to France pre Covid.  And I’m not changing my passport before we go (despite the story in my last post) as there is an up to 10 week turnaround time.  But Himself said that was fine because Fast Track only takes two weeks so we could at least sort his out.  I pointed out that fast track requires an in person appointment – usually in some God forsaken place if you left it late –  but Himself was pretty sure the rules on that had changed.

The rules on that have not changed which is why tomorrow Himself will be doing a day trip to Durham for a 30 minute appointment to get Little R a new passport so we can all go away together, wild fires and ferry queues permitting…

So there you go – a Pog escapade and we’ve not even left yet.  And did I mention that as we’re driving through France and it’s a rather long way I need to do some of the driving?  Which means after only driving teeny tiny cars my entire life, I now have to learn to drive the monster of a car that Himself has?  And I’m not sure who is more scared about that…him, me or the boys…