Diary of an Office Kitchen - Holiday Special

(What day and week is this? No idea…and who cares)

Monday - Travel in style without a mask

Dear Diary,

3.15am - Alarm goes off, hit snooze button

3.25am – Alarm goes off, hit snooze button

3.35am – Alarm goes off, hit snooze button I could go on like this for 10-minute intervals, however at 4.15am I get up after discovering the snooze button has given up.

David decides, as we are about to leave the house, it would be a good idea to put timers on a few lamps. This, apparently, will convince the neighbours that we are at home when a light pops on at 8pm. All this despite the fact I’ve told most of them that we are on HOLIDAY! (when reading or saying HOLIDAY you must do this Madonna style. For those of you that don’t know the song ask your Mum/Grandmother.)

So off we head on our nine-hour drive to West Sussex to visit my sister and brother-in-law for our HOLIDAY! In situ are Maisy and George, Christmas presents, birthday presents, too many clothes, too many pairs of shoes and too much of basically everything. However, two hours into the journey I realise I have forgotten my toothbrush.

The journey goes without much incident, apart from the offering up of apple pieces to David and the dogs, all of whom literally turn up their noses. I mean what’s not to love about tepid brown apples. Yum.

We arrive in West Sussex, exactly seven hours and 30 minutes after we left Ayrshire. That is a record and I make a mental note to buy a lotto ticket.

My sister greets me with a glass of champagne, and I happily neck it whilst shouting orders to David to unpack the car and take everything up to our room.

This is the life…

Tuesday - Stevie Wonder eat your heart out (or blow the candles out in a safe Covid way)

Dear Diary,

So yesterday was spent opening belated Christmas and birthday presents, drinking too much, eating lovely food, (without a tepid brown apple in sight), and laughing till I cried.

At 9.00am I head downstairs to greet my brother-in-law who passes me a bacon sandwich and offers me a bucks-fizz. I consider refusing for a split second and then pull myself together.

So, after quaffing 2 glasses of bucks-fizz we all head out for a dog walk. Half way into the walk I regret drinking so early and feel I need a lie down. Poppy Posh Paws, my sisters dog, keeps looking at me worriedly whilst I stumble around the woods. I think more worryingly my two dogs don’t bat an eyelid whilst I stumble around, they are probably used to it.

At 7.00pm we all head out to a restaurant. The excitement between us all is off the scale! We are about to head into a real life restaurant! By 8.30pm it would seem that the staff have sang happy birthday to all of the tables. I do, however, think that most of them are pretending to celebrate a birthday for the free cake. I’ll be honest, I do feel a fraud as my birthday was last week but when you are on HOLIDAY all gloves are off.

At 10pm we are all back from a lovely evening out and after opening another bottle of wine, we reflect on how brave everyone was for eating a slice of cake that I had blown out candles over. My family are currently calling me “one jab” as I’m obviously far too young to have had both doses. I internally call them all brittle bones. Being the youngest has it’s plus points.

Wednesday - And the BAFTA goes to…

Dear Diary,

Had a dream last night that I was up for the part of Mare of Easttown against Kate Winslet. I was so upset when I heard that Kate got the part that I was shouting “Kate effing Winslet got the part over me?? KATE EFFING WINSLET???! It must be because she plays dowdy really well.” What was in that cake for my brain to conjure that up?

Shuffle downstairs to find my sister in a pondering moment. She is wondering what to do with the “top floor” that is very much under used. I mean, come on, isn’t that a dilemma that most people have???

After much deliberation she decides that a few house plants should be placed on the unused floor as this will give life to an area that’s hardly used. I thought I had problems not getting the part of Mare of Easttown. My poor sister is on a different level.

Once I’ve talked my sister down from her unused floor dilemma, we decide to leave the “men” and head out for shopping, lunch and drink booze (obviously).

At 5pm we all reconvene in the kitchen, on a floor that is very much used, and discuss events of the day. David and brother-in-law seem to have spent most of the day playing table-tennis and having a pub lunch that involved drinking port!??

However, me and sis spent our day having a couple of glasses of prosecco, eating triple cooked chips and shopping in all the twee interior design shops. I obviously ended up buying stuff that I don’t really need but desperately want. To say it was the best afternoon I’ve had in about two years would be putting it mildly.

At 8pm we have a kitchen disco. (Dogs have paws over ears)

At 8.02pm brother-in-law heads up to unused floor in the hope he won’t be found whilst we are belting out “No Diggity”

Thursday - Stalker alert…

Dear Diary,

Wake up gingerly to an expected hangover which I don’t have! I put it down to the good quality wine that I’ve been drinking (no supermarket special offers in this house)!

Spend most of the afternoon with Howard from Take That, yes that Howard. We all have a lovely walk, with the dogs in the woods and I managed to stay sober!

At 5pm an impromptu kitchen disco takes place with Howard encouraging me to be Lulu in a rendition of “Relight my Fire”.

At 6.30pm we kick Howard out and head to the pub for dinner.

Friday – FENTON!!!

Dear Diary,

Today is our last full day on our HOLIDAY so we decide to head to Petworth Park for the day with a picnic (and booze).

As we get out of the car Poppy Posh Paws elegantly exits the car and waits obediently for my sister for her next move. My two hooligans jump out of the car and head straight to a toddler who is eating an ice-cream.

Once we rescue the toddler and hand him back to his distraught mother we all head off for a walk.

My sister points out that there are lots of deer in the park so I decide the best course of action is to keep my dogs on their leads. After about 40 minutes we reach a section of the park that apparently has no deer in so it would be perfectly safe to let the dogs off. I decide that George is better kept on his lead, however David decides that Maisy is more than capable of showing off her obedience and frees her from her shackles.

Well, what happens next is a real Fenton moment (with ducks instead of deer). For anyone that doesn’t know what that is just goggle “Fenton Dog You-Tube”.

Maisy shoots off like a rocket and dives headfirst straight into a duck pond with the three of us all chasing her shouting MAISY STOP, MAISY COME BACK!!!! (my brother-in-law doesn’t run for anyone so he just watched open mouthed in horror, with Poppy Posh Paws at his side).

The ducks obviously all take off to the skies which leaves Maisy in the middle of a duck pond swimming in circles. Now picture the pond – I say pond it was more like a boating lake and had massive reeds around the edges. All of us are still shouting MAISY COME BACK whilst visitors to the park are all watching us and I swear that a few of them had their cameras out!

Once we had managed to coax Maisy out of the water we are presented with a very brown smelly dog. What is in that water???

At this point we decide to crack open the wine from the picnic hamper.

Saturday – until the next time….

Dear Diary,

I’ve had a lovely few days and don’t want it to end, however my liver needs a break so back in the car we get for our nine-hour journey back to Ayrshire. David wake me up when we get home…