Fiona writes:
On Sunday Alex woke up early and cried so I had to go in because he was cold and “couldn’t find his blankets” (they were about 2mm away) and then I stayed in with him for the last hour and he alternated between kicking me violently and chatting amiably about how many more minutes before he could get up and I knew that Sunday was not going to be a Funday.
Alex
When we got up we packed and packed and packed and packed, and left for Auckland at 10 o’clock and got to our B&B at 1.30 with innumerable stops en route for people to wee on the side of the road because they can never give us more than three seconds notice that they need to go and met up with my friend kelly who had some stuff for me to take back to ham library and fought our way through two different motorways and lots of Auckland traffic and I knew that Sunday was not a Funday.
We got to our b&b and unpacked and went out for a special treat berry icecream and the berry shop served enormous icecreams and was perched picturesquely on a hill which meant we sat outside in howling gale struggling to finish icecreams and I had to get the kids’ jackets from the car so they could huddle in them and it was less a special treat than a special ordeal and we went back to the b&b and forced them into their wedding clothes and rushed off to the wedding arriving at 4.25 and it started at 4.30 and when we snuck in a side way it turned out to be the processional aisle and everybody turned to look and I knew that Sunday was never going to be a Funday.
During the wedding ceremony, Alex and Holly rampaged around the beautiful grounds throwing their hats at each other and crying and after the ceremony they rampaged around the grounds getting in the background of the official photos and I kept them under (semi) control with lots of bribes and took masses of photos and then Alex was bored and asked if he could take some photos which he often does and when I got the camera back he had DELETED all my photos and replaced them with seven wonky close-ups of grass and I could not have been more devastated than if he had casually plunged a butter knife into my heart and I spent the next hour dejectedly picturing all my lovely photos while the refrain from Someone Left The Cake Out In The Rain And I’ll Never Have That Recipe Again played mournfully in my head and Alex went behind the gazebo to cry and although I had not won Lotto the previous night, if I had, I would have cut him off with a shilling and I knew that Sunday was never EVER going to be a Funday.
And this morning we got up and discovered that the b&b did not take eftpos so we had to detour ten mins to atm and back and although we postponed our departure til after 9am in hopes that auckland school/work traffic would have dissipated, the NW motorway was gridlocked to such an extent that it took us twenty minutes to travel 500m and we were all hot and tired and grumpy and fed up. Monday was not a Funday either.
And then later from Fiona:
Well, I’m sorry to inform anyone who thought they might be married to the World’s Best Husband that you can’t be, because I am. Yes, my photos have been restored to me, through the magic of Greg and the internet! I believe he googled “Sharper than a serpent’s tooth +camera” and found a website that promises to restore photos from your memory card. They are called something like The Happy Extortionist, and their motto is clearly “We Can Undo What Your Child Has Done (camera cards and mother-in-law’s-cream-couches a speciality)”.
So, Alex is in debt before he even starts earning pocket money, because we had to pay through the nose. But he is, at least, likely to see his fifth birthday, a claim I would not have guaranteed yesterday.