Clocked up some miles

Since last touching base here, we've been a fair few miles and past through a few countries too. My New Years resolution was to take the kids to at least one different country every year for a holiday as, since moving to France, we had slightly neglected the requirement to escape from time to time. If ever there had been a great time for escapism and time to reflect, this was it.

Unfortunately our original plans fell at the first hurdle because my abilities outside of organising a piss up in a brewery are slim to none. Instead of Switzerland, which we hope to visit in 2014 now, we headed to Denmark to see the Danish side of my family. They say that you can only really appreciate someone else when you have lived life in their shoes. Having finally driven to Denmark, I have the greatest respect for my family who have made the numerous trips down here to see us in France. Sixteen hours of driving, including a loss of direction and sense of humour failure 7 hours in when the motorway junction was closed that we needed to get on and there was no diversion and the Sat Nav just kept sending us back to the same junction. We arrived in time for a great party with lots of people who knew me but I didn't remember them from 30 years ago when I was a pageboy at my Aunties wedding. This didn't really matter though as everyone spoke very good English and we talked about all sorts. Not that I remember much having been awake for nearly 40 hours and consumed copious amounts of alcohol since arriving.

Although some days I can be a control freak, on this break I was happy to take a back seat, Linda had everything sorted keeping us suitably entertained for the duration of the holiday. Fishing, beach dinners, picnics, theme parks, visiting family and generally having a brilliant time. I can't thank Linda and Jan enough for making us feel so relaxed and stress free during our stay. If only we didn't have to go home. It's probably no surprise that it 16 hours home too. Also it was the first time I'd been in Antwerp sober which my softball friends will appreciate having been there so many times with me. Anyhow we had a safe trip back and can't wait for the next holiday.