My Dog’s Anal Glands are Expensive. (No really!)

I need a holiday.  Really, I am exhausted.

This isn’t helped in any way by our house going up for sale, so as well as having to prepare for the important stuff, such as our trip, but I’m also having to cosmetically enhance the house to fool some idiot into thinking we’ve done loads of work on it rather than hand over all our renovation budget to the board of Disney.

A house has gone on the market down the road which Louise tells me we like and, therefore we are to see if we can off load our current one to secure it.

As you might expect last week at work did not fly by, but somehow the weekend arrived, with a slight sense of foreboding as I had an inkling of the amount of stuff we had to get done.

The weekend started with the revelation that the cheap as chips suitcase we’ve been using for a decade will not survive another trip.  Really, is nothing built to last these days??  Indignant at having to spend money after only ten short years of dragging our current case across the Atlantic, the first task of the weekend was to secure new luggage.  We also had a very brief discussion about buying a new rucksack.  Louise pointed out one that would be suitable, and I reacted like she had suggested I lopped off my left arm.  Ryan is getting on and he needs some work but if that were the criteria for being replaced I would have been gone long ago.

We left the girls at home getting ready to go out with their friends, (which worryingly takes forever these days…there will be trouble on holiday if I am denied early startiness) and Louise and I scoured at least two shops to find something suitable.  There wasn’t a great deal of choice if I’m honest, but the main criteria being, it is cheap, and it is well proportioned (hey, that sounds like me), we soon settled on the flowery affair you can see in the picture.

Size wise it fits the bill as either of the girls could get in it, which in hindsight could have saved me the cost of one flight!!

For the second time in recent history I then ventured to the Trafford Centre on a Saturday, as Louise “had no clothes at all” for the holiday.  I needed a couple of things too, and as I needed Louise along to let me know if I liked stuff, it was two birds with one stone.

As we got in the car to leave I spotted something on the roof the likes of which I have never seen before in this country.  As the photo shows, it is half dung beetle, half fly, and after snapping a quick photo I was glad to get into the car, floor the accelerator and see it be blown off in my rearview mirror, and that isn’t something you see every day, unless you go looking for it on the internet.

First things first, we had lunch.  Then we started the tour of every women’s clothing shop in there.  The day was full of ups and downs, with lows as “nothing looks right”, and then moments of elation as a triumphant Louise emerges from a changing room, garments aloft, wielding here switch card like a samurai sword.

I got some new trainers.  The whiteness of these new trainers you cannot begin to perceive.  They come with several sets of dark glasses to be handed out to passers-by.  They announce the fact that I have just purchased them like the brightest beacon on the darkest night.  Did I mention that they are white?

I also got some brown sandals.  Now, as I told the girls this on our return home, their faces reflected the horror that phrase could mean.  However, trust me they look very suave and sophisticated.  I like them because Louise said so, and she also said they are good as they hide most of my horrid feet from view.

Our return from shopping saw me go to the gym and the supermarket as is becoming my Saturday routine, and Louise, not yet fed up with retail establishments ventured out again to the Middlebrook retail park, next to the Reebok stadium, even though a match was in full flow.  She has no fear, having braved the Trafford Centre, she now struck out solo to face the traffic chaos that is the end of a match at the Reebok.

She returned with that holiday essential, a new phone!  Yes, that’s right, with mere hours to go until departure, she felt the need to replace our perfectly good phone.  I didn’t really pursue that for personal safety reasons, and she did seem to have bought enough clothes for the entire Magic Kingdom crowd, so I’m guessing she’s sorted now.

Now, a word of warning.  If you, like us, enjoy settling down as a family to watch a film, then don’t whatever you do, do so with one called “I Love You Phillip Morris”.

We are big Jim Carrey fans, so we were looking forward to watching this one, and the 15 certificate told us it was fairly sure to be OK for the girls, with perhaps a little swearing, which is nothing they won’t have heard anytime that I’m doing DIY.

I won’t go into details here, but the “bottom” line is that the girls quickly made their excuses and averted their eyes in a few “love scenes” as I quickly scrabbled around trying to find the fast forward button.

Don’t get me wrong, the film is very good, just not a family one!

Then, the day of rest dawned.  Louise had been up for a while, making lists!  I knew immediately I was in trouble.  So today I have –

• Hung a picture (minimum swearing)
• Mowed the lawn
• Cleaned the kitchen
• Dropped the girls off somewhere
• Popped in to see my Mum
• Resealed the bath
• Hung a mirror (maximum swearing)
• Made tea (putting that pizza in the oven was a tough one).

Louise was last seen in our bedroom somewhere under a pile of clothes.  I think I got the better deal to be honest.  Rebecca has just done the “try on” of stuff in her drawers and selected the garments that will make the Atlantic crossing, and Emily is now upstairs doing the same.  I suspect they will both return with more than they left with!

So we move into the last few days, and for once I am having to work right up until the day we go, as having just started at the new place, I have very few holidays to take.  So Louise is off Wednesday and Thursday to get stuff ready, and I shall appear on Thursday evening just in time to sit on the case, zip it up, and then unzip it again on Friday morning to force all the last-minute hair apparatus in.  I suppose I could leave my GHDs behind??

Emily’s idea of getting ready for holiday is to try on three T-shirts and then ask which take away we are having on Thursday evening.  For the record she wants a curry.

As I type I can hear a conversation upstairs centring around knickers, and thankfully the verdict is she has enough.  This is good news as this morning Louise took Henry to the vets.  The amount of money exchanged there was on a par with the holiday budget, so if we haven’t got something now we’re doing without.  Henry is fine by the way, apart from an infected ear, and issues around his anal glands.

Apparently, after a quick root around up there, and the appearance of some cottage cheese like substance from his glands, Louise almost lost her breakfast, and don’t forget Louise has worked in Operating theatres, and sees old lady boobs all day every day.

He seems much happier in himself now, and when Louise came home and described the procedures done by the vet, I sort of understood the amount of cash charged.

Anyway, he’s ready for his holidays in Yorkshire now, but the instructions for the giving of medication is longer than this here post, so the best of luck to Steve and Di, his carers whilst we are pet free.

So come on Friday, hurry yourself along.  I only hope the trip is a magical one, and gives a good return for the sheer amount of hours that have gone into it’s making.  For the record here are some of the milestones I am looking forward to –

• The airport
• Arriving at the villa
• The first “big shop” at the supermarket (cake, beer, crisps with perhaps some fruit)
• The walk up Main Street on our first morning
• Food, all of it.
• Hard Rock Hotel
• Harry Potter stuff
• Daytona
• The Beach Club
• and I even don’t really mind turning forty!

I will say goodbye for now, as I doubt I will blog whilst overseas.  I may manage the odd tweet/facebook as the girls will have their laptops with them, and I shall see you all back here in early September for more tales of household chores, shopping and my dog’s backside.  How could you resist?

Till the next time…..