Key Moments on Holiday!

We’ve just returned from five days’ holiday.

The magnitude of this statement will be lost on many, so to explain.

Firstly, managing to get away at all when you own a business is problematic in itself, but to plan and implement a getaway with an ADHD mid-life man and two teenage boys with The “Tism, it is close to impossible. It takes at least 3 months of intangible slippery and swervy, highly-adaptable planning and a massive run up, whilst avoiding bold statements and descriptions of any activities that could cause meltdowns and/or refusals. More than once the words, “Oh for f … let’s just not go!” escaped different sets of lips. Plus you never really switch off if you do manage to pull it off if you take your phone with you, which of course you have to these days as it contains your life, your brain and money!

A week before we were due to leave we had staffing issues, delivery issues, cat and guinea pig issues, gardening dilemmas and car trouble! Logistics were dealt with one by one, (thank you Team, vets, neighbours and Lol’s Paws and Sparkles), and we decided to take two vehicles with us as our rather large dog was coming too and she takes up the whole boot. We once toyed with the idea of a ‘grockle box’ * on a previous adventure, but it was so noisy, unreachable for 75% of us once in place and as we couldn’t fit much into it, it ended up as a smelly storage for damp wetsuits. It was the opposite of the Tardis being much bigger on the outside than the inside and it took up so much room when it wasn’t on top of the car, that it unceremoniously ended its life at the tip. I don’t think it even made it the recycling shop as we’d lost all the attachments by then too! So two vehicles in convoy it was.

The bar was set 5 minutes after eventually leaving our house. All packed up, we stopped at the garage as Joe wanted to put air in the tyres of the van. The ‘people car’, driven by me, stopped by the pump in the shade as it was already 30˚C. As we waited for Joe to pump, I noticed that one of the ladies who works in the garage was making her way determinedly towards us with an A4 sheet of paper flapping menacingly in her hand. She caught my eye and mouthed something at me and pointed. Puzzled I leaned out of the open window for her to tell me that I had driven off without paying!? “Eh?” I countered. She repeated her accusation, waving the confirmatory paperwork at me.

But I hadn’t gotten any fuel, and last time I did, I definitely paid. I glanced over towards Joe, who now had his head in the van engine, and realisation washed over me. My eyes rolled and I smiled back at her cross face as I visualised the earlier scene of Joe trying to get everything in order for the business whilst we’re away, whilst simultaneously packing his clothes, filling both vehicles with fuel, shopping and organising a whistle-stop tour of The New Forest taking in a visit to his Mum in Gosport and an evening meal with his brother’s family. This massive, undulating swirl of thoughts and cornucopia of responsibilities meant that his brain was too full and he had accidentally driven my car off earlier without paying for the fuel he’d loaded it with whilst attempting to be extra-organised!

I nodded my head towards the figure now almost in the engine and strangely accompanied by another unknown tall, skinny guy adopting a similar pose in our van engine. I frowned momentarily in confusion and wtf’edness? before calmly saying “Him” to the woman currently stood beside my car, visibly revelling in her own cleverness for catching a dumb criminal returning to the scene of the crime. She, of course, had no idea who Joe was, so my totally understandable and reasonable explanation to me and his two sons of “Him”, didn’t cut it with her. It was now her turn for puzzlement as she frowned even more and shot her eyes back and forth between our two teenage sons in the back and front seats, who were obviously too young to drive, and then me, not understanding I meant the man with the van behind us.

“Who do you mean?” she asked crossly. I pointed towards Joe, who was now lying under the van whilst the other man was shining a pathetic torch no brighter than a match into the engine that did little to illuminate anything other than an inch of engine in front of it. “What is he doing? I muttered under my breath. “HIM” I reiterated with a more fervent nod of the head and an extended point. “Speak to him”.

She waddled off towards Joe and we watched the scene as a fervent conversation with exaggerated body movements turned into dissolved laughter. “What is going on?” I thought, and then she too started looking in the engine!

Joe walked sheepishly towards us, grinning in the hope of disarmament as he clocked my non-grinning face with eyebrows both knotted and questioningly raised.

“You’re not going to believe this,” he calmly giggled through an idiotic smile. “But, I’ve lost the keys!”

“How?” I asked incredulously and he explained that he’d looked all over the inside of the van and underneath, but somehow between getting out of the van and putting air in the tyres, he’d lost a big jangly bunch of keys! He thought the only place they could be was inside the engine having possibly dropped into the engine when he went to check the water level.

He then came up with a plan that the boys, dog and I drive back to the house to get the spare van key so he could jiggle it back and forth to see if the keys fell out of the engine. “Ok-ay” I tentatively agreed, but inwardly thought it a ridiculous plan. “But the only house key is on your bunch as I gave mine to Lol’s Paws and Sparkles so that she could keep the cat and guinea pigs alive whilst we were away.

My Mum and Dad used to live in a house just down the street from us and they had had a spare key to our house and we to theirs. We’d kept hold of it by accident when they moved out, but it had come in handy when the new occupants locked them selves out not long after moving in! They had asked us to keep hold of it in case of future lockouts, and I was pretty sure that they had one for our house too. Plans made, a vehicle technician had now joined the skinny man in readiness to dismantle the engine if Plan A failed.

We raced back to Appledore and luckily our neighbour was in. Unluckily, she didn’t have a key to our house. We decided to break in, and without telling you how just in case we ever go away again, but it involved our younger son climbing dangerously over a scorching hot roof and some ingenious lock-picking. We got in. Just as we were about to leave victorious, Joe phoned to say that he’d found the keys in a inside compartment inside the van under a cloth to keep them safe while he put air in the tyres!!

We were staying at a caravan site in The New Forest courtesy of Joe’s brother’s partner who was the big boss there. (Can’t beat a bit of Nepotism for a cheap holiday :)) We got to the caravan site eventually and enjoyed a couple of days of doing very little, mainly because it was too hot to do much and also because any normal holiday activity like swimming, walking or beaching was not on the Autistic-friendly agenda. It also turned out that Joe’s brother and his family were snowed under with work and school, so unfortunately couldn’t see us, and Joe’s Mum tried desperately to put us off seeing her because of the Sahara-like temperatures!

We insisted though, and drove the very sticky drive to Gosport, picking her up from a hospital appointment and then on to lunch. We found a place that was agreeable and innocuous to all (i.e. caters for vegetarians, has somewhere quiet to sit, wasn’t too generic and not on a previous blacklist of places). It was even cool enough to sit outside under a canopy by the water and was surprisingly tasty for a well-known large chain. Success!

Satisfied we went leave. Our car is quite old with no air con and the boot doesn’t open. Whenever the dog has to come with us, she has to get in through a collapsed down back seat! The thought of travelling back home in it was quite unappealing to Joe’s Mum, and she tried to insist on getting a taxi, but Joe was having none of it, quite determined to drive her home, dutiful son that he is. Secretly she was really looking forward to a taxi with a working, cool air con, but kowtowed to his chivalry, the disappointment thinly veiled on her face.

“I gave you the key didn’t I?” Joe said to me. “Did you?” I countered. He checked his pockets in vain, so I checked every inch of my bag. No car key!

Joe went back to the restaurant to check and his Mum took it upon herself to go around all of the nearby shops just in case someone had handed a car key in, cane in hand, limping round in a surprisingly sprite manner considering she had just been for a consultation on replacement knees and cataract treatment! She also chatted up a couple of security guards too and had given them her number, just in case a small miracle occurred.

When we had first arrived at the complex for lunch, I had been desperate for the loo as I’d already consumed four cups of tea before leaving and I am a woman of a certain age, plus mother of two, if you know what I mean. I had gone into an empty pub to use their loo. It was an empty pirate-themed place that looked like it might get busy at night, but during the day was dim and uninviting. In the ladies cubicle it had a really disturbingly close-up picture of a pirate’s dark and dirty face with piercing bright black eyes that followed you around the small room. I had commented on it when I had left and thanked the Front of House guy. As a last resort, I thought I had better check in there too. The same guy with the same humouring manner was still there, overseeing their only two lunchtime customers, and he shook his head when I asked if anyone had handed a key in. He would have remembered too as they’d had no customers apart from the current two women chatting over a glass of wine. ‘Last of the big spenders’ was written all over his face as he nodded towards them. I asked if I could check in the loo, and lo and behold, there it was by the sink being guarded by the scary pirate!

“Found it!” I shouted when leaving the establishment towards Joe and the boys who were waiting fifty yards away and devising plans. His face broke in to a very relieved smile. Thank god I hadn’t given him a load of schtick when he lost his keys I thought. One all!

The journey back to Joe’s Mum’s was hot and uncomfortable, and she was justified in her reticence to travel en famille. By the time we’d got back to her flat, everyone’s patience was thin! Luckily, the flat is right next to the water and six floors up with a lift and a balcony, so we all cooled off with a fresh breeze and a calming panoramic view stretching from the Spinnaker Tower and all around the coastline. We said our goodbyes and then the four of us sweated our way back to the caravan in stifling heat and traffic jams with Sonny wanting the windows closed because his hair and the noise was annoying him! Oh the joys of Autism. It was difficult to convince him that he needed to come on this holiday in the first place. “What’s the point when we live next to the sea and everything I need is in my room?” he reasoned. He only concurred when I explained that Dad really needed a holiday. If it had been me that needed one, his retort would have been, “Why, what do you do?” !!

One this journey though we stumbled across some graffiti artwork done by a very old friend of mine from our Exeter College days, and now a well-known international artist, which was a bonus.

The rest of the holiday was thankfully and restfully uneventful. The Internet on the caravan site was brilliantly appallingly bad, so the boys had to talk to us and watch the same as us on the non-smart TV. Sonny’s face when we said we couldn’t rewind or pause the programme was a picture, and I loved having to subject them all to The Sewing Bee at the actual time it was on! We also played a game I had bought on a whim called Okay Genius, which I heartily recommend, and Joe insists that I include that he won. We actually played for a couple of hours one evening, which is absolutely unheard of in our household.

We also managed an activity as family, Archery, which somehow we won against the other team. I say somehow as I still have no idea how or what I was supposed to be aiming at, so most of mine went sailing over the top, but at the time that counted, I scored a bullseye?! Sheer fluke, but Mum points awarded, so I’m claiming.

We unfortunately had to slum it on the bread front though! We had, fantastically, sold out on the Saturday before we left and I had forgotten to reserve any or remember to pack the half loaf I had in the bread bin! Not saying where this one is from, but every small thing can aid.

Just reminded us how good and tasty our bread is. Thanks to the Team for coping brilliantly without us. Thanks to good old Nepotism and, well, just thanks really.

* Grockle Box: A car roof rack box usually attached for extra storage whilst on holiday and affectionately named after the colloquial term for a holiday maker in Devon.