Anyone who knows me personally will know that I’m a complete control freak. It should therefore come as no surprise that this applies particularly to holidays. I like to know where I’m going, when I’m going, how I’m getting there and what we’ll be doing, and every holiday we have is organised predominantly, if not exclusively, by me. Lee’s boss has found it funny that Lee asks for leave so far ahead, and that I have the year’s holidays mapped out already, but that’s partly what comes from working as a teacher (and having kids in school): you basically know years in advance when you’re going to have holiday time (that’ll be Christmas, Easter, summer and half-terms). You also know that school holidays are the busiest (and most expensive) times of year, and the sooner you book up the better, in terms of both availability and cost.

So I like to book ahead. I like to shop around to find the best prices. I like to check Trip Advisor reviews to find out whether it’s somewhere worth staying. I like to find out travel times and options – do we need to book airport parking? Is there a train station nearby? Do we need to break up our journey with an overnight stay? How long will the journey take? I also like to investigate what there is to do nearby – is it child-friendly? Are there restaurants in walking distance? Do we need to pre-book any trips? In theory (although you’d probably never believe it, reading some of my blogs), all this organising should make sure that everything goes to plan – that we like where we’re staying, that there’s plenty to do and that we can get there okay. And, on the whole, it works. We have, without a doubt, had our share of holiday disasters, but rarely are they down to lack of planning. We’ve never stayed somewhere we didn’t like, we’ve never been bored and we’ve never found ourselves stuck somewhere without knowing how to get home/back to our hotel.

I also like to organise everything because then I can look forward to it. Part of the excitement of a holiday is looking forward to it and planning everything. I like to read reviews in the run up to our trip, to plan activities and to look at photos of the area – it cheers me up, especially on a cold and miserable day!

So you can imagine how hard I’m finding it not being able to plan for my next holiday. So far removed from the planning am I, in fact, that I don’t actually know where I’m going. I’m referring to wherever Lee is taking me for my 40th birthday next month. It’s not a complete surprise, obviously – I know I’m going somewhere. Poor Lee knew he had to pull something out of the bag when I took him to Rome as a surprise for his 40th (Surprise 40th (a Sennett Holiday Disaster story)) and I told him he had six years to plan mine. I also knew I’d be going somewhere when all our holiday plans for the year studiously avoided mentioning February. Plus, what else would you get a holiday-obsessive for her 40th birthday?! In the end, I had to find out the dates of when we’re going. Being self-employed, Lee could hardly arrange leave with my boss on the quiet – instead, I had to ask Lee when I’d be away so I knew what to tell clients. But still, other than the dates, that’s pretty much all I know.

So, I can’t read reviews. I can’t look at photographs. I can’t plan what we’re going to do. I can’t even write a list of what to take and/or wear. However, I’ve found a new obsession – guessing where I’m going on holiday. I’m trying desperately to come up with suggestions and get them proved or disproved. A couple of destinations have come up on my Facebook ads, making me wonder whether maybe that’s because Lee’s been looking at the same places. I’ve tried to think about places I might have mentioned I’d like to visit that Lee might have picked up on. Lee’s dropped me a few nuggets – I know which airport we’re going from, which airline we’re using and the very rough times of day at which we’re travelling. I know that Lee has considered hiring a car, and that it’s apparently somewhere I won’t guess. This certainly enables me to rule out a few destinations, but the possibilities are still endless. And, of course, he could be telling me a bunch of fibs just so I can’t work it out!

The really funny – and slightly surprising – thing is, though, that I actually don’t want to know. A few times, Lee has asked me if I just want him to tell me, after I’ve been winding him up trying to get it out of him. And the truth is, I don’t! I can’t pretend I haven’t done a tiny bit of detective work but, in reality, I’d be gutted if I found out. I’m actually enjoying the excitement of having a surprise – probably because I’m such a control freak that it’s very rare that anyone manages to surprise me! I feel like a child again, getting excited about my birthday for the first time in a very long time, and I’m thinking about it constantly. And I honestly won’t be disappointed wherever we go (okay, within reason) because I love pretty much every type of holiday – plus it’s a few days of ‘us time’ without the kids, which will make it special wherever we are.

Today I surprised myself by just how much I genuinely want it to remain a surprise. Getting back from the school run, I picked up my phone to see I’d had an email from Holiday Extras and a text from Lee, which read ‘If you get anything from airport parking DON’T OPEN IT!’ He’d booked the airport parking via a discount code I’d forwarded him, so the booking email – complete with flight details – had gone straight to my email address. So there I was, confronted with the opportunity to find out exactly where I was going. And I amazed myself by covering the email with my hand so that I could forward it to Lee, before deleting it from both my phone and the PC. I actually didn’t want to know. It’s true, honestly – amazing restraint! I can’t pretend it’s not killing me slightly, knowing the answer is there to find in my deleted folder, should I so wish. But somehow it’s made it even more exciting, knowing how close I was to finding out.

So the subject of my next blog is a bit of a mystery to me too. Hopefully, it’ll be full of tips about hotels and things to do in Florence/New York/Vienna/Budapest/Hong Kong/Vienna/Lake Garda/Dubrovknik/Copenhagen/Reykjavik/Berlin/Madrid* (delete as appropriate)!

*My final guess is in that list somewhere. I’ll let you know if I was right!

With my own 40th looming (gulp!), I got to thinking about the surprise trip to Rome I planned for Lee’s 40th six years ago. We had visited Rome very briefly as part of our honeymoon, and I knew Lee wanted to go back and see it ‘properly’. I arranged for family to look after the boys, and I found a lovely, reasonably priced B&B near the Vatican (Romantic Vatican B&B – although I should add they seem to have had a makeover since we went!) on the recommendation of a friend who’d been shortly beforehand.

Keeping it secret, however, wasn’t easy, as we had a joint bank account and (at the time) a joint email address. I opened a new web-based email account with which to book everything, and I got my mum to pay for the hotel on her card, while I siphoned off small amounts of money from the account to pay her back in cash bit by bit. The flights were more difficult. Not only were we not exactly flush but there was no way I could extract that much money from the account without Lee noticing. Then I hit on a genius idea – Nectar points. We had loads saved from our weekly Sainsbury’s shopping and no way was Lee observant enough to notice them missing. I booked the flights.

One evening a week or so later, Lee came into the lounge clutching a receipt and with a face like thunder. ‘Sainsbury’s have cocked up,’ he said. ‘We should have thousands of points but this says we only have 200!’ Why the hell was he examining old receipts for Nectar points?! I tried to look unbothered. ‘Oh, it’s obviously a mistake,’ I replied. ‘I’ll sort it out tomorrow.’ I wasn’t overly worried – Lee always left sorting out things like that to me (the ‘advantages’ of working from home!), so I had nearly 24 hours to think up an excuse. A few minutes later, Lee walked back in with the phone attached to his ear. ‘I’m still on hold – this is ridiculous!’ he muttered. It certainly was. ‘Don’t worry, hang up. I’ll sort it tomorrow. Get on with your work.’ I took the phone from him and ushered him back into the study, feeling more worried by this point. ‘It’s okay,’ he shouted back, a few minutes later. ‘I’ve opened up a chat with customer services.’ There was nothing I could do. I marched into the study and told him to close it down. He protested, confused. ‘Just close it down. Trust me.’ I glared at him. He complied, with a grin, as realisation dawned about roughly where the Nectar points had gone to. Okay, so he didn’t know where we were going or what we were doing, but the surprise value had somewhat diminished!

Still, he was suitably pleased and surprised (I hope) when he found out we were going to Rome (by way of the guide book I’d wrapped up for his present). We spent a pleasant night at the airport hotel before travelling (without the kids to keep us awake all night). We had a pleasant flight (without the kids driving us mad with bickering). We navigated our way through the public transport and found the hotel without any problems. That’s when things got difficult. A very nice man greeted us but, after the initial pleasantries, told us that he had expected us the previous day. At first, I assumed he had made a mistake, but no – I had. Somehow, I had managed to book us in for three nights starting the day before. To this day I have no idea how I managed it – I am usually meticulous with planning and organising. I can only assume I got confused with the date of the airport hotel. Whatever the reason, it didn’t change the situation – I had just paid for a night we didn’t use and, far worse, we now had nowhere to sleep for our last night in Rome. I felt sick to my stomach. Luckily, the nice man explained that, although our room was already booked by someone else for our third night, he had one other room free. We could remain at the B&B – we’d just have to move rooms. The nice man even proved how nice he was by not charging us for the extra night. In fact, it actually worked out pretty well – the room we moved into for our last night was the four-poster room I had originally tried to book but which had been full for the dates I (thought I) wanted. It meant we got a bit of variety without the hassle of moving hotel – crisis averted!

Thankfully, to the best of my memory, there were no more major disasters. The only real issue was the time that Lee managed to break the key in the lock of the front door to the B&B. Trying to explain what happened in pidgin Italian to the caretaker, who didn’t speak a word of English, was… interesting – although I think Lee was as much chuffed by the sheer strength required to break a solid metal key as he was mortified by the incident…

So, the morals to this story. Check, double-check and triple-check your dates when booking anything. Turn keys gently. And complete surprises are bloody difficult to pull off. (Especially when someone asks if anything’s happening around the time of their birthday so that they know whether they’re free to take on a job – eh, Lee?!)

If you’ve never been to Ghent, then I definitely recommend it as a mini-break destination. Those of you who are regular readers will know that we visited last weekend after winning a Facebook competition run by P&O Ferries and Visit Flanders (yes, people really do win those competitions!). And while winning anything is amazing in itself, this was extra nice because it led us to visit somewhere we’d not considered before. The Lonely Planet quote on a Ghent tourist board leaflet sums it up: ‘the best European city you’ve never thought of visiting’. It’s true – it hadn’t really been on our radar before. Ghent’s neighbour Bruges (with which it shares some rivalry, judging by some of the comments on our boat trip) attracts all the attention, but this is doing Ghent a major disservice. The two cities share many similarities – quaint medieval streets, canal network, impressive historical buildings – but Ghent is larger, with a more modern side in amongst its more historical appeal. It’s safe to say it has something for everyone, particularly at Christmas, when it’s transformed into a magical winter wonderland. And at only an hour and half’s drive from Calais, it’s perfect for a weekend break.

We stayed at the Novotel Gent Centrum, and couldn’t fault it. It’s about as central as you can get, situated right between the belfry and St Nicholas’ Church, with a tram stop and St Bavo’s Cathedral a couple of minutes’ walk away. We stayed in a suite, which is perfect if you’ve got children. Regular readers will know my husband and I have spent many evenings sitting in the bathroom playing cards after the children have gone to bed – because where else can you go when you’re all staying in one room?! Here, the children had their own room with bunk beds, while my husband and I got to relax in a comfortable bedroom with a choice of bed, sofa or armchairs to sit on – makes a pleasant change from the toilet seat!

One point to note about this hotel – and many others from the research we did – is that parking is a problem. The hotel does have a car park, but it charges a whopping 30 Euros a day – not only that, but there are far fewer spaces than rooms. Parking is not cheap anywhere in Ghent unless you use some of the park and rides on the outskirts of the city, most of which are free – however, we weren’t overly comfortable about leaving our car there unattended for two nights. In the end, we parked at the Savaanstraat car park, which has security and cost around 26 Euros for the nearly-48 hours we were there. This is not the closest car park to the hotel, but the closer car parks are all far more expensive. However, it was still only a ten-minute walk – not a problem unless you come loaded with cases!

We arrived in Ghent at around 9pm on a Friday. It was fairly straightforward to find the hotel – what was less straightforward was finding somewhere for something to eat. At this late time, we didn’t really want a sit-down meal, but this is what all the restaurants in the area seemed to cater for. The more ‘snacky’ places (Subway, Pizza Hut) were already closed. We finally found a pizza/pasta cafe near St Bavo’s, where we were able to get something to eat (although the proprietor had clearly been hoping to close up!). We later discovered there was a McDonald’s just around the corner from the hotel in the opposite direction – and while we normally prefer to eat somewhere more authentic, it would have been perfect on a Friday night when we just wanted to fill a gap!

Struggling to find somewhere to eat proved to be a bit of a recurring theme throughout our weekend. Ghent is packed to the rafters with restaurants, but most of these (apart from the aforementioned chains) are sit-down, three-course-meal-type places. And, much as I’d like to have two main meals a day (we’re on holiday, right?!), prices in Ghent are pretty high and this just wasn’t feasible. We finally found somewhere for lunch called Le Chat Noir – in fact, we liked it so much we came back the next day! Located at the Vrijdagmarkt, the interior is cosy, quirky and typically Belgian. The service was friendly, the drinks well presented (the kids were gutted when they saw the chocolate peanut and mini muffin that came with the hot drinks!) and I can wholeheartedly recommend the chicken and pineapple panini. (I later noticed it has fairly poor reviews on Trip Advisor – I have no idea why!) Dinner was a whole other issue. We spent much of Saturday keeping an eye out for the perfect restaurant for that evening – specifically, we were looking for somewhere child-friendly, not too extortionately priced and that served waterzooi (first tried in Brussels fifteen years ago and never forgotten!). We narrowed it down to a few choices and came back to our first choice at around 6.30 that evening – completely full, no reservations. Oh. We tried our second choice – same story. This continued as we walked our way around Ghent – everywhere was full. We soon stopped caring about child-friendliness, prices or waterzooi – we just wanted somewhere to sit down and eat dinner – but nowhere had space. We had been walking around for an hour and a half, ready to give up and go to McDonalds, when we finally found the Brasserie Borluut just around the corner from the hotel. In fact, it had so many empty tables, we thought we must have made a mistake – and then, when we were able to sit down and order, we worried everyone else must know something we didn’t. We needn’t have worried – it was friendly, reasonably priced (for Ghent!) and the food was delicious – they even had waterzooi! Anyway, the moral is, if you are planning to eat out in Ghent, book ahead!

As far as attractions go, there are plenty of things to see and do in Ghent, and we barely scratched the surface in a weekend. We spent Saturday morning visiting St Nicholas’ Church and St Bavo’s Cathedral, both well worth a visit and both free (although there is a charge to see the famous ‘Adoration of the Mystic Lamb‘ painting by the Van Eyck brothers, which is situated at the cathedral).

We also went to the belfry, where the views from the top are amazing. Unusually for an old building, you can take a lift to the top if you fancy taking it easy – in fact, this is probably safer than using the spiral staircase, as this is very narrow and it is a tight squeeze when passing anyone going in the other direction.

In the afternoon, we went on a boat trip. It has to be said, even with the blankets they kindly provided, this was COLD in December – so cold, in fact, that we had to go back to the hotel to warm up afterwards. Temperature aside, this was a pleasant and informative way to see and learn a bit more about Ghent, and I’d recommend it – particularly in the summer!

On Sunday morning, we got the tram to the modern art museum (SMAK!) – this is a nice size, with enough to keep us and the children interested but not so much we got bored. It’s also situated on the edge of a park, which made for a pleasant wander (even more so in the summer, I would assume).

In the afternoon, we visited the Castle of the Counts – sadly, our visit was somewhat rushed, as we had to leave to catch our ferry home, but the building is very impressive and the views from the top are beautiful.

As part of our competition prize, we got given free City Cards, which gave us free access to various museums and attractions, as well as free tram/bus transport and a free guided boat trip. If you are planning to visit more than a couple of attractions, I’d imagine these are well worth investing in – the only thing we had to pay for (other than parking!) was our food. However, children are free to most museums and attractions, so it would probably not be worthwhile purchasing City Cards for children. It must also be said that, while the tram was very handy for getting across to the other side of the city, Ghent is easily walkable – in fact, wandering around from place to place is one of the most enjoyable things you can do while in Ghent.

While there are probably a few attractions that are far nicer in the summer (the boat ride for one!), there is no more magical time to visit Ghent than at Christmas. Sadly, we arrived the weekend before the Christmas markets and festivities started, but they were setting up around us and we could see how magical it will be. With lights, stalls, rides, an ice rink and a huge big wheel, it really is the perfect Christmas destination. And now that we’ve discovered Ghent, it’s safe to say we’ll be coming back again one year when the Christmas markets are in full swing!

2016 has not been a brilliant year. For me personally it’s not been great, for several of my friends and family it’s been downright horrible, and even globally (dare I mention Brexit and Trump?!) it’s been pretty depressing for many. Normally when I’m feeling down I like to book a holiday. Well, okay, that’s not strictly true – I don’t book a holiday every time I’m having a sad or stressed moment (I eat chocolate instead). But I do start planning ideas for holidays or looking at pictures of places we’ve already booked to go to. It’s simple – I get my kicks from experiences rather than material things, and having something to look forward to cheers me up. 2013 was a particularly nasty year for me, and I made up for it by booking loads of amazing holidays for the following year. 2014 became known officially (by me) as The Year of the Holidays. It was bloody wonderful.

When we got back from our Tenerife holiday last month, several people asked me when the next holiday was booked for. I don’t think they quite believed me when I replied ‘October’. But it was true – the only holiday we had actually booked was for next October half term (booked in September because it was so cheap we couldn’t not!). There are a number of reasons for not having anything else booked. Lee’s holiday allowance is one; he gets a pretty decent allowance in his new job, but no particular time is guaranteed – he has to book the time off work before we can risk booking a holiday. And given that there are many ‘crucial’ times when he’s not allowed leave, it’s proving a little difficult. Another issue is my sister’s engagement – she was looking at possible venues for next year but hadn’t yet set a date, so we were trying to keep all holiday periods free to avoid clashing (this problem has now been solved by a provisional date for the year after). Another factor is my all-too-quickly approaching 40th birthday – I know Lee is planning something but I’m not sure what, where or when. And while I really love the idea of a surprise, the one downside is that you can’t look forward to something you don’t know about. And, of course, money is always a problem – with a credit card bill to pay off Tenerife looming, we can’t really afford to book anything else just yet. Of course, I know we will be going on holiday somewhere earlier than October – we have several ideas in the pipeline – but unless I have definite dates and destinations, I can’t really look forward to them. Not properly. And the bottom line of all the above is that, despite having felt pretty miserable lately, I haven’t been able to think about holidays to cheer myself up.

November is always a particularly tough month for me, and last week I got home after a difficult morning feeling rather stressed and down in the dumps. My phone buzzed with a Facebook notification and I glanced briefly at it, assuming it was relatively unimportant. I then had to look again. This is what it said: ‘P&O Ferries has replied to your comment on their post.’ I instantly knew what post it was (funnily enough, I don’t often comment on P&O Ferries’ posts). The post was a competition to win a trip to the Christmas markets in Ghent. To enter, you had to comment on the post, describing your dream European Christmas holiday destination. As I often do when I see Facebook competitions, I entered, writing a sentence about wanting to visit Lapland, with a humorous aside (at least, I thought so) about visiting Ghent being a close second. And, as I often do when entering Facebook competitions, I then thought no more about it. Until, that is, I read the Facebook notification. It’s usual to get a notification that the page has commented on their post – this is where they detail the winner(s). But why would they reply to my comment? Surely they hadn’t got time to reply individually to everyone? I tried not to get too excited but, sure enough, when I opened up Facebook, I read ‘Congratulations, you’re our Christmas getaway winner and have won a magical trip to Ghent!’ To say I was surprised would be an understatement!

So, just when I least expected it, and had given up on thinking about holidays until next year at the very earliest, here was one being handed to me on a plate. It put a huge smile on my face on a day and at a time when I really needed it. Not only did I have a little holiday to look forward to (and soon – it needed to be taken by 20 December!) but I’d actually won something!

As I sit on the plane to Tenerife, having recently listened to the safety announcements, I find myself reminded of an incident that happened a couple of years ago…

A couple of friends have pointed out there are relatively few disaster stories in my blog. And when I say relative, I mean in comparison to the amount of disasters we actually have. It’s a fair point. I’ve written reviews, I’ve written tips, I’ve written general musings, but apart from a few examples (Those without a strong stomach, look away now; The phone, the kayak and me; The time when The List didn’t work; Sick of holidays?) I’ve not covered a fraction of the holiday disasters that we actually have. And we have many. To be clear – and without wanting to jinx myself – I’m not talking major disasters here. We haven’t been caught up in a hurricane, our passports haven’t been stolen, none of us has ended up in hospital (and it’s really difficult to type with your fingers crossed). But we are somewhat renowned for having lots of mini, sort-of-funny-when-you-look-back-on-it disasters, to the point that when anything goes wrong on my friends’ holidays, they tag me on Facebook and refer to it as a Sennett Holiday. So I thought maybe it was time to go back over a few such incidents…

It was August 2010. My eldest was four and my youngest still a baby. We were off to Spain for a fortnight in the sun. We had a hideously early flight the next morning so, as we often do, we’d checked into an airport hotel the night before. Now Thomson had recently started a new initiative where you could check in for your flight the night before – and I don’t mean just an online check-in, where you get to choose your seats; you could physically check your luggage in at the airport. This seemed a great idea to us. How many times had we been stuck in the longest queue ever to check in our luggage, worrying about whether we’d have enough time to then get past security and catch our plane? It’s pretty standard these days to check in online at home, but you still have to join a queue at the airport to get rid of your luggage. This was genius – we could check everything in the night before, knowing that in the morning, when our alarm went off at the ungodly hour of 4am, all we had to do was drag ourselves out of bed and straight to security. No extra queues, no suitcases to carry, no brainer. I used The List to ensure everything we’d need for overnight and the journey – toothbrushes, change of underwear, books, nappies, etc. – went into the hand luggage and everything else went into our suitcases ready to be checked in. So that’s what we did. We checked into our hotel, walked across to the airport, checked in our cases and then went to find somewhere for dinner, baggage-free and boarding cards ready for the next day.

After dinner, while walking back through the airport to our hotel, it happened. ‘I need a poo!’ announced our four-year-old. ‘Okay,’ we said calmly, ‘can you wait until we get to the hotel?’ He shook his head. ‘Okay,’ we said, still calmly, ‘we’ll go and find some toilets.’ ‘I need a poo NOW!’ he wailed, a look of terror on his face. Now realising the urgency, we had similar looks of terror on our faces as we ran aimlessly around the airport looking for a toilet sign. And as we found one, and I grabbed my son’s hand and ran towards it, I turned to look at my husband and saw from his face that we were already too late.

I led my son into the toilets, a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Once safely locked in a cubicle, I surveyed the damage. It was carnage. I stripped him off and used baby wipes to clean him up, thankful that we’d have a hotel bathroom to wash him properly in afterwards. I rinsed his jeans as thoroughly as I could in the sink, apologising to the lady who came in to clean and then thought better of it, and then tied them tightly in a nappy sack, wishing we didn’t have to take them on holiday with us but refusing to throw away a perfectly good (if somewhat soiled) pair of jeans. I was less precious with his socks and pants, which went straight into the nappy bin in the toilet. ‘But those were my favourite Buzz Lightyear pants!’ he wailed. I’m sorry, but Buzz Lightyear was well past saving.

So there I was, stuck on my own in a toilet with a naked-from-the-waist-down four-year-old and a rather unpleasant nappy sack. I phoned my husband. ‘Can you get him a change of clothes please?’ There was silence, and it didn’t take me long to realise why. We didn’t have a change of clothes. All our clothes were in the suitcases. The ones we’d checked in just an hour or so earlier. We hadn’t even packed pyjamas, as it was only for one night. ‘Can you buy him a change of clothes, please?’ I asked. And so I waited nervously in the toilet cubicle, trying to ignore the whimpers from my son and the conversation about the ‘awful smell’ between two women who’d just walked in. Finally I received a text. ‘Everywhere’s shut’.

What could I do? I could hardly walk through the airport with my son’s backside (and frontside) on display for all to see. Suddenly I had a brainwave. I phoned my husband. ‘Is Boots open?’ I asked. ‘If so, buy some pull-ups!’ Five minutes later: ‘Boots is open. No pull-ups.’

We had only one option left. Some minutes later, I emerged from the toilets with a four-year-old in trainers, a T-shirt and a nappy. And I don’t mean a toddler-sized nappy – I mean a little nappy borrowed (well, okay, stolen) from his baby brother. It didn’t fit. It looked wrong in every way. And have you ever tried putting a traditional, non-pull-up nappy on a child that’s way too big to lie on a changing table? But at least it (just about) covered his dignity. We put him in the pushchair and carried his brother, hoping it would look slightly less weird. But as we walked through the airport, the enormity of it hit me – he wasn’t just travelling through the airport and back to bed in the hotel wearing a nappy. He would also be queuing up and going through security in a nappy – if no shops were open in the evening, they sure as hell wouldn’t be open at 4 in the morning. And if we didn’t have time to find something in the departure lounge (where the shops surely would be open), he’d be potentially getting on the plane, going on a coach and arriving at the hotel wearing a nappy. He may only have been four, but he was old enough not to be happy about this situation – not to mention the fact that he was still inconsolable about the Buzz Lightyear pants.

Suddenly, as we neared the exit, salvation dawned. ‘Monsoon!’ I shrieked. ‘And it’s open!’ I should point out at this point that I’m a Primark girl, and anything more than £7 or £8 for kids’ clothes makes me cry. ‘£17?’ cried my husband, in horror, as he picked up the only pair of shorts in the shop that would fit my son. ‘You’ve got to be kidding!’ I might add that this was six years ago, and £17 was even more then than it is now. But right at that moment, I would probably have paid £70. I grabbed them in delight, handed over my money and was soon back in the toilets making my son look decent again. To say I was relieved would be an understatement.

I should probably note that my son was long past the potty-training stage and was not in the habit of having accidents of either type – he clearly had a bug of some sort and was just unlucky. But still – you’d think we’d have been a bit more prepared and had at least one change of clothes for the kids, just for all eventualities. You’d also think we’d have learnt our lesson from this, and always carry spares with us, but we still didn’t (and have been caught out since, if not quite as dramatically). We did, however, learn just how important your child’s favourite Buzz Lightyear pants are – my son took most of the holiday to get over their loss. I too, was slightly traumatised for a while, if for different reasons. I at least now know to run the minute I hear ‘I need a…’!