Croissants and ‘Salade Erotique’

No tasting milk at security. No mad dash underneath the ropes to grab Baby P’s hood,choking her. No missing the pre-boarding slot whilst the boy has a last minute wee with the boarding passes in his pocket. No heaving handbag,weighed down with snacks,water bottles and take-off sweets. No little hands in my hand. Yip,that’s right. A long weekend in the sunshine with the girls. No children. Oh. Yeah.

With seven children between the four of us there was a fair amount of guilt as we checked in our small bags. It’d been planned for ages,we badged it as a hen weekend but really it was just the perfect excuse to get away for a few nights. Naturally we felt guilty. It’s in the job description. One had even cleaned her house from top to bottom before she’d left. After a leisurely dander round the shops and a coffee it started to fade. Boarding the plane I asked my friend whether she still felt guilty. ‘Na,I’m over it now.’

Looking round the plane we were hoping to see a few families struggling with kids,a harassed Mum,maybe witness a tantrum or two? Look,there’s a child. Hang on a minute. Is that white linen he has on? And he’s just sitting still. Behaving. The little soul looked like a paige boy,all blonde curls and angelic. His Mum had clearly read her ‘Top Ten Tips on How To Travel With Children Without Sacrificing Your Style’.

1. Cashmere twin set

2. Linen trousers

3. Nude ballet pumps

4. Facial mist and multi-purpose wonder balm

5. Home and Garden magazine

6. Lightly curled hair that can be pinned up in a singular motion

7. Oversize handbag

8. Aspinal Leather Passport Cover

9. Diamond ring that fills the space between where your finger starting and the first knuckle. Look at your ring finger now. It was that big. Honest.

10. Compliant,well behaved child who says ‘Excuse me Mummy’ before speaking.

There were no ‘Mr Sick Bag’ puppet shows for him during the flight.

My sister met us off the bus in Nice and she looked like her brain had been frazzled. Frazzled by teenage chat. She’d spent the week with my 15 year old niece and her friend. A week of incessant,loud chat in an adolescent language from the year 2010. Aunty Lou spent her week with bleeding ears and being used as a cash machine.

It took me a while to relax. Cliched as it sounds,I had the feeling that I’d lost something. Or I’d left the grill on. It wasn’t unpleasant,just new. No dinner,bath and bed routine for three nights. No need for putting on a watch. I wrote about this here,do you remember? Dreams can come true.

We did whatever we wanted.

We got out of bed when we woke up naturally. Tasted the coffee that we drank. Walked out the house with only a bank note in hand,bought pastries from the Pattisserie. Lay on the beach,did nothing but sunbathe and doze off to sleep. We swam to the floating pontoon,chatted,read whole books.

I’d love to say that I went to nearby Monaco and had champagne cocktails,danced till midnight and skinny dipped under moonlight. But I really couldn’t be bothered,I was pooped. All the sleep and relaxation sapped me of energy. How does that work? It’s like our over-loaded mum brains,normally too busy rushing about,multi-tasking and forever planning,were empty. Re-charging maybe.

On our last night we went for a pizza at a local restaurant my sister knew. Here you can order a ‘Salad Erotique’. A simple green salad with shrimp and avocado. But the waiter serves it to you butt naked behind his apron. Perfect hen weekend finale. Lady S was dispatched to place the order unbeknown to the bride to be. Using only exaggerated eye movements and lip reading my sister and I got the message that the waiter had understood and the order had been placed. Cameras at the ready. But he only brought the pizzas. Sans salad. We ate our pizzas with one eye on the bar,waiting for the show to start. Nothing.

Poor Lady S then had an exchange with the French waiter who looked bemused at the Scottish woman using the art of mime to communicate,slapping her bum and shouting ‘Erotic? Yes?’. Exasperated,she gave up,a little unsure whether she’d just arranged to meet the waiter at the kitchen door for a spank after service. Whether we were in the wrong restaurant,or they just didn’t like the look of us,we shall never know.

When I arrived home I crept down the steps and got to watch my lovely boy play with the girls,chucking them about,laughing. After delicious kisses and hair sniffing Miss L asked whether I had brought something for them. A present maybe? With hindsight the stones I picked them from the pebbly beach at Villefranche weren’t so clever. Miss L’s is a perfect circle in two colours. Baby P’s is larger so she couldn’t swallow it. The down side,blatantly obvious now,is that it’s used as a baby weapon. Perfect for bashing windows,sisters,toes etc.

After bath Miss L told me she’d missed me. ‘But,you know what Mum? I had fun too.‘ That makes two of us. Perfect.

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