Notes to self on booking next holiday...

We're in the south of france having a lovely time. The children are becoming water-nymphs, the accommodation is practically perfect, the wine is chilling in the fridge, and the sun is shining. But I imagine that the fact I'm having a good holiday is not something you want to hear about if you're stuck at home, so I've worked VERY hard to come up with a list of things that might help you feel better about that..

Notes to self when planning next holiday:

The night before leaving on holiday, do not allow your husband to eat Indonesian food left over from the day before.

Most especially, do not encourage him to have seconds.

But if this happens, make sure you are sleeping in a well-ventilated room and that you have packed diocalm in an easily accessible part of your luggage.

Do not blithely assume that the threat by EasyJet's board to make it change it's name if they don't improve their record of time keeping will have made any difference to their actual practices.

Do not bother to make arrangements to meet the family you are holidaying with at the airport you're flying to. See note above as to why.

Do not relax back into your seat once the airplane finally takes off, safe in the knowledge that nothing now will stop you arriving at your destination in 1 hour 40 minutes. You might, of course, but that's unlikely when your plane has to make an unscheduled landing at Paris due to another passenger being taken ill.

Do, however, rejoice that said passenger is not your husband who has been looking decidedly pasty since he got up due to excessive consumption of possibly dodgy Indonesian food the night before. (To the extent that when the paramedics arrive to check out the other passenger, they ask your husband if he would like to be seen as well, just to make sure...)

Do not assume once you've landed that all your problems are over. Not when you still have to pick up your hire car on the first day of the UK summer holidays in a hot-spot for 'discerning' travellers, anyway.

Make sure that if you are the designated driver (man, this is getting to be something of a habit - more of why another time), your husband reads the directions you've printed out correctly and doesn't miss out a crucial line instructing you to turn left rather than continuing straight on.

Keep a tight rein on your temper when still sickly husband's mistake is discovered.

And finally, think twice about the wisdom of buying your first bikini in 15 years when you have a) been somewhere without access to a gym for the last 6 months, b) have kept on what another blogger once charmingly referred to as your 'winter coat' due to lack of access to said gym, and c) are holidaying with one of your closest friends to whom 9 1/2 stone is a weight she only ever reached whilst pregnant and who is still on nodding terms with her hip bones. And who has brought a different bikini with her for every day of the week.

Will that do? Probably not...