Those were something we took regularly only when the children were smaller. We didn't have much money, and stayed with family or friends. When the money situation improved, we went camping, including up to Scotland (Aberdeenshire), and to Skye as well. Down to Dartmoor, down to friends in the New Forest. Mum was at home to look after the cats for us - with 9 of them, we couldn't just up sticks.
I've not done much travelling abroad. A business trip to Belgium (can't believe I drove my car over there - the mini roundabouts - oh my goodness, I'd never seen them before and only passed my test the year before! Everything that Charlotte Bronte wrote about the Belgian people she met rang true . . . I've sailed in a friend's yacht to the Channel Islands and France, fishing for herring on the way. Flown to Guernsey from Bournemouth - no sooner up than coming in to land! Tam took me to Florence (somewhere I had always wanted to go ever since seeing a version of Romeo and Juliet filmed there) about 9 years ago. It was amazing and I would love to see a lot more of Italy.
When mum had died we didn't get much opportunity to get away. Keith and I were going down to North Devon and then Dartmoor, called in to see our little Itsy pony who we had (foolishly) loaned to a forum friend down there. I didn't like the way she was being starved (because she was "too fat" - no, she was Section C and they are built like tanks) and so we had one night down there before coming home, and used the holiday money to bring her back home. Money was tight - and Itsy's care took priority.
Keith and I managed a few nights away down around the moor around 2018 I think it would have been. Not long enough but it was lovely to visit our old haunts. Then he became ill, and Covid came, and I've been nowhere since. I always wanted to travel abroad, but Keith wasn't keen - ok for him, as he'd travelled the world when he was in the Army . . .
So Jordan really IS the holiday of a lifetime. I am slowly coming round to the idea it really IS going to happen. To me - who never thought I would go there in a million years. The Isle of Man seemed about as exotic as it was likely to get . . . I have a mental list now, of places I'd love to go, but with 4 cats, it would cost a fortune to have them in a cattery, and the boys would have to have jabs (the girls have them annually). At least I can plan some more lengthy days out this spring and summer.
I hope it is sunny there - I need a bit of sunshine more than anything. It has been grey and gloomy (and often wet) for so long.
