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We are back from our hols, the tan has faded to a rather wishy washy beige, there are still empty suit cases to put back in the loft and a monster pile of ironing so instead of doing any of that stuff I thought I’d write a little diary of events, well its a great ironing avoidance technique and some quite kooky things did happen so here it is…..

Thursday 14th Jan…. Mad Plane Dash!!

2am. Me, big J, Jack, Ellie and baby Milly piled in the car with a large amount of suit cases, I was already praying would not over load the very mean 15 k luggage allowance.

We, at this point were already a whole half hour off schedule. Twitchy big J was not happy, most of the lateness was due to my checking and re checking my make up bag… whoops!

And then came the snow, thick and fast. Our progress was forced down to a slooow snails pace.

Lots of nail biting and clock watching later we arived at the junction we were suposed to get off at to get to our airport parking for the week. We were asured it was a mere 10 mins from gatwick.

looking eagly for our exit we started to get excited, as long as we found our parking soon we could head off to the airport and off to sunny egypt! woo hoo!!!

But after going around the roundabout a dizzy sick inducing 5 times no exit for the car parking was to be found…eeekkkk…time was running away fast and we were in some horible ground hog day nightmare!

We found somewhere to stop, big J punched (nearly literally!) the post code for the parking place into the sat nav and waited….ok…… the place we were surposed to park our car was a full 45 mins away apherently! OMG!!! no time for that, we would miss check in, and the flight, and our holiday!

My mum was waiting at the south terminal for us to arrive (she’d already had coffee and bacon sarnie… and a look around the shops) So I gave her a ring, she suggested we just pelt it to the airport and find parking when we got there.

So thats what we did, we found a car parking space about what seemed like half a mile from the airport bus stop and me, big j, baby milly, jack, ellie , 4 suitcaces and a baby buggy all headed in the snow, in our holiday clothes for the bus stop. Onto the bus and to the checkin desk.

With just 2 minuites to spare we checked in our bags with a rather sulky monarch clerk and away we went!!!!

Off to sunny Egypt!

Friday 15th jan…. A whole new wooorld…..

Egypt is lovely, and the hotel is gorgeous.

Jack says the buildings look like jasmine’s palace from Disney’s Aladin and he’s right, its really impressive, lots of white stone and marble and arch ways and pots full of vivid flowers, and blue blue sky, not a snow flake in sight…bliss!

One strange thing though…no english folk, just lots of Russian’s and a few Germans. I am not complaining, the Egyptians seem to love us and our englishness! especially baby Milly! everyone is waving and holding her hand, she thinks she’s famous and has even taken to waving in a kind of regal fashion.

Saturday 16th jan…we are on hols with the mafia..no, really?!

Spent the day at the hotel beach, ordering chips and beer from the hotel beach bar and generally living it up! lazy ‘n’ fab!

Also got to talking to quite a few of the hotel staff (they really seem to like us, but they do keep calling Big J Mr Romaina which is a bit odd?!)

Anyway they say most of the guests are Russian mafia! They certainly look the part, with the men all big and middle aged with teany tiny speado’s and all the women young and super skinny with long hair and longer nails! ohh exciting, better not push in at the hotel bar, don’t want to make any enemy’s, or i may be swimming with da fishes!

Sunday 17th Jan…. Shit trip man,

Another lovely sunny day, this time by the pool, just for a bit of variation! So far we have been accosted daily by Egyptian folk trying to sell us trips to different places, its not bad though as they are such charming freindly people we just end up chatting to them.

That is up until “shit trip man” , he anonced himself as Mr Omar Shitus (I am not kidding you here) and proceeded to ask us wether we wanted to take one of his lovely shit trips, his words!

When we politely declined he started getting all shirty, saying that  English women were ugly and how my mum was about 300 years old (charming!) and there wernt enough camels in the whole of Egypt to make him marry her,(as if she’d have him?) very strangely he finished off his little speech with the statement that he was a great sales man and then kind of skulked off! A little weirded out by this, and with some clouds circling our heads we decided to head back to our rooms for a siesta.

Then we headed for dinner in the lovely hotel restaurant, it looked really pretty but  served mostly what looked like little boys willies ( sorry, but its true!) and beetroot soup. I think the menu was not really meant for the english guests (us) as everbody else seemed to be loving it.

We didn’t let it get us down though, as it was all-inclusive so there was always the wine, and the puddings and bread were out of this world!

After dinner Ellie , Jack and granny headed back to their room.

Leaving me, big J and Milly to party it up in the hotel bar, Milly found a little friend in a charming 2 yr old german boy called Raphael and me and Big J got chatting to the very freindly staff and some lovely Germans. Again Milly was the centre of attention with the hotel staff treating her like royalty and even asking to take her picture!

Then there was this almighty bang ….and the rain came. The thunder and lightning was amazing! The sky seemed so big and bright and full!

The hotel folk looked worried though as they hadn’t had a thunder storm in 40 years and this one was a full blown extravaganza.

Milly was getting tired and Big J was getting merry so I left him and his new freinds to watch the rest of the storm while we headed back to the room.

The walk from the bar was quite long, up a stone outside staircase and along quite a few corridors and the floor was already deep with puddles of rain…and then the light went out! ….trying not to panic I hugged Milly close and kept on walking, then from deep in the shadows 3 men I had never met said, “ahh Amelia, we take care of her….”

In my slightly tipsy, wired by the massive storm state I got scared by this and started to walk faster. The foot wells were now 3 inch deep with water and a slipped and fell on my bum! I still had hold of milly and in the near pitch dark a found my way to my mums room.

The kids, my mum and I stayed huddled up on one bed in the pitch dark, worried sick about J and totally freaked out.

We needn’t have worried, Big J wandered back at 2am all fine and very “merry”.

Some of the large hotel reception now had no roof because of the storm and everybody in the bar had been barricaded into the bar, while the hotel staff tried to sort out the rubble.

The night just kept getting weirder though, as quite a few Germans had come up to Big J convinced he was a famous musician! He had had a great night with everybody thinking he was famous, and every time someone asked a him difficult question he just raised his glass and said “to the future!”

Monday …. Where’s the beach?

The bad news…The pool is just a mud bath, and the beach is gone! as it was man made its just kind of slippped away into the sea! whoops!

The good news…. the sun is shining! and there is a free bar! I am, at this point very easily pleased.

Tuesday… And then the sun shone!

Amazingly the pool and beach are back. Everybody at the hotel worked through the night bringing more sand and there was lots of men by the pool cleaning it with this giant squedgy thing that could have been from JML!

I can’t help feeling slightly sad though, that all this effort by these really lovely people is just so we can sit our fat arses back on the beach and order another drink! hmmm…

Wednesday… mystery solved!

Another sunny day, and I solved the mystery of the strange 3 men who wanted to “take care” of Milly.

It was the hotel owner and his sons, Big J had meet them the day before with milly and they had all had their picture taken with her, they just love the baby’s here. Anyway nothing sinister, I feel quite silly, to many horror movies I think!

Thursday… Home time…sniff…

Time for home…. Five and a half hours on a plane with terberlance, no air con and more leg room in a can of beans and we are back in great old blighty.

Its cold, everybody looks glum and despite all her royal waving, nobody notices poor little Milly. She looked a little gutted to be honest. I think we all are, it was a strange old holiday, but the place was beautiful and the people are the friendliest most genuine folk I’ve ever met…. Missing it already! PS. If you have had any unexpectedly  “interesting” holidays I’d sooo  love to hear about it, maybe we could write a alternative family travel guide, wink xx

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