Go Vomit On The Mountain

Traditionally, when it comes to packing for our annual winter holiday, we include some “special treats” to share with our good friends KC and MM. For example, we might pack some fine wine, gourmet chocolates, top shelf whisky OR we might bring along a sample of the latest rotarvirus. Yes, this year we gave the Gift of Gastro. 

For the record: this was supposed to be my first real winter holiday. After all, I was no longer pregnant or breastfeeding or even walking around with a child permanently grafted to my hip. The kids were all old enough to occupy each other for minutes at a time. Minutes, I tells ya! I had a good book, a 750-piece jigsaw puzzle and a ready supply of cheap fizz.  I had plans to relax, goddammit. 

However, when The Pixie vomited ingloriously on her younger brother’s head later that first night, that little fantasy was brought to an untimely end.  And, certainly, when she shat her pants an hour after that, it was a little like pissing on the still and lifeless body of said fantasy from a great great height. Or even splatter-crapping on it, just to make the metaphor more relevant and all.

Still, we forged ahead with our holiday. A couple of days later, when The Pixie’s relationship with the toilet was a little less dependent, we made our annual pilgrimage up the Big Mountain to go tobogganing. 

This, of course, sounds much more glamourous than it actually is. The People With Money go up to the actual resort where they ski and drink schnapps in their designer ski gear while the nanny looks after the children. In stark contrast, we slide up and down on off-cut bits of lino on the toboggan run next to the main carpark, wearing our make-shift snow gear comprised of rain coats, gumboots and trout-fishing waders.

Anyway, this year the snow trip started well: we didn’t need to pay for snow chains, the Love Bus passed itself off as a “car” and not as a “people mover” at the toll gates, and we got The Best Parking Spot Ever. Moreover, I didn’t have to carry anyone up the toboggan run or have to free my breasts Houdini-style from my snowwear to feed a screaming baby while sitting in a large pile of cold wet snow. Result.

As we paused for lunch in the tiny kiosk, I felt jovial enough to fondly recall a previous year’s visit, when I’d been breastfeeding a Baby McGee as a four-year-old Justice gleefully pissed a huge arc of urine out the front door while the sun glinted off his stark-naked buttocks and bus-loads of tourists drove by. Boy, was I glad to have left those days way behind us…

CUE: Tiddles McGee projectile vomitting onto the table. Which was all at once completely unexpected and yet entirely predictable. As I mopped it all up with KC’s help, I couldn’t help looking at the lady facing us, stoically eating her hotdog as if nobody had just emptied the entire contents of their stomach just metres from her. I guess, to her credit, she might not have noticed. I mean, someone else’s child might have been vomiting in that kiosk at that moment and *I* certainly wouldn’t have noticed, if only because I was too friggin’  busy catching my two-year-old’s vomit in my hands.

Still, how us grown-ups all laughed around the dinner table that night at my kids’ whacky vomittin’ ways and that Crazy Hot Dog Lady, all ha-ha-ha-ha-ha in that way that people who have NO IDEA what is ahead of them only can.

By morning, of course, we were a sorry shadow of our former selves, with another three of our number having fallen to the dreaded bug and McGee rounding up his vomiting spree with a burning fever. Those of us still standing began eyeing each other suspiciously, like characters in a slasher film, trying to work out who would be struck down next. But unlike those hapless slasher film characters, we managed to get the hell out of there and back to civilisation - albeit with a few emergency vom-stops along the way.

Of course, the grand irony in all this is that we’ve been in the market for some Summer Holiday Friends for some years now. Could it be that the Winter Holiday position, having been ably filled by KC and MM for the past five years, is now open too? Of course, KC and MM have yet to hand in their official notice, but probably only because they – and their legal team - and, quite possibly, their legal team’s legal team – are still vomiting.

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Mini-Break or Mini-Breakdown?

We simply should have known better than to try and enjoy ourselves. 

As we packed our bags to go away on a spontaneous mini-break – a night away from home – all three children were already in tears. Mr Justice was crying because we’d breached the Exclusivity Clause in his contract by telling The Pixie certain details of the trip before we’d told him. The Pixie was crying because Mr Justice had refused to buy into the fact her friend the Mermaid was already waiting at the Beach House we were going to. And Tiddles was crying because he had Genghis Cat’s jaw clamped on his left calf. 

We should have seen it as the sign it was, but we chose to ignore it and left on our mini-break anyway. 

The journey itself was non-eventful, if just long and less-than-helpfully punctuated by the question “Are we there yet?” from Mr Justice. The Love Bus, no doubt feeing rejeuvenated by its own mini-break at the mechanics, made good time and my husband and i enjoyed taking turns either driving in the school holiday traffic or fully-reclining the front passenger seat so that we could pass the kids an endless chain of crackers and drinks in the back.

Since it was still light as we neared the town where we’d booked accommodation, we estimated we had enough time to fit in the Real Reason for our trip: the inspection of a block of land my father had inherited from my grandfather’s estate. We’d been putting this trip off for a couple of years, mostly because my dad’s description of the land featured words like “steep incline”, “mosquito-infested” and “perilous coastline”. Still, for a piece of land that my grandfather bought off a plan without ever actually stepping foot on it and which lay on the wrong side of the state for us to get to easily, my father had a mysterious attachment to the idea of us getting some use out of it. Perhaps he just liked to imagine his grandchildren spending many a happy summer holiday there, merrily rolling down the incline swatting off mozzies or earning their stripes cheerfully swimming against the treacherous rips. 

As we navigated the gravel roads in the dying light using a map drawn some 40 years previously, for the first (and last time) in my life I wished we had a four-wheel drive with floodlights. By the time we’d finally sighted the plot of land, confirmed my father’s description (adding the terms “scrappy scrubland” and, looking at the neighbours, “Deliverance Country” to it), it was decidedly dark and already 45 minutes past dinner time. We decided we’d better hotfoot it to our accommodation. 

Now the inclusion of the word “Retreat” in our accomodation’s title – as found on the internet by my husband – might have warned him a little of its location. Let’s face it: retreats don’t tend to be within arm’s reach of supermarkets and restaurants. But then again, we are talking about the man who infamously booked a room at a hotel named “La Buffet de Rail” in France and was legitimately surprised when it was smack bang next to an all-night freight train line.

To my husband’s credit, the Retreat’s owner had explained that, while the accomodation was self-catering, we could “just pop over” to the pub for dinner. I think my husband can be forgiven for taking the words “just pop over” as any citydweller would: as a casual five minute saunter across a slightly busy street. But as we left the main road, some 10km outside the main town, and hit another seven kilometres of loose gravel road dotted with the occasional maruading gang of kangaroos, we began to realise that “just pop over” might have a very different meaning in the country. Unless we were able to find a way to crynogenically-freeze our rabidly hungry children for the journey back to the town, that pub-meal we’d been imagining was simply not going to happen. 

So when we finally stepped into our beach house, along with a small bag of canned groceries from the Resort Shop that cost us almost as much as the accommodation itself, we were feeling more than a little cranky. 

“Well, at least it’s tidier than home”, I said, in an attempt to rally. But somewhere between the word “than” and “home” our suitcase exploded and I soon found myself having to step over small plastic toys and sweep piles of paper off the couch before finally being able to sit down to my meal of fried Spam and instant noodles. It was almost enough to break a Not Drowning Mother’s spirit. 

Still, it’s hard to resist the enthusiasm of our children as they ran from room to room, gushing over small stuff such as the pink toilet seat and the flip top lid on the bin that actually works, and soon my husband and I began to shed our grumpy moods. We were, of course, vastly aided by the two bottles of wine I had managed to pack, even if I *hadn’t* managed to pack The Pixie any shoes whatsoever (Yes, that’s right, Mr DoCs officer, not even a single pair of socks to cover those precious pixie feet as she frolicked across the jagged rocks – but her parents were okay for a drink). Life started to feel not so bad after all.  

And then the worst thing of all occurred: we both went and had a good night’s sleep. Sure, we had to drive three and a half hours, pay at least $211 (plus petrol) and drink two bottles of wine to have it, but it was a Good Night’s Sleep nonetheless. Now, not only is my husband busy planning to spend money we really truly don’t have building a holiday house on a steep incline, but I also went and bought myself a summer dress that shows my arms. Which just goes to prove how mini-breaks should be avoided at all costs and how dangerous a Good Night’s Sleep can be to the perpetually sleep-deprived.

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