Why it feels as if Father Noel Furlong has moved in at the moment..
School holidays nightmares... I hate school holidays. They feel like a personal attack on those of us who are reckless enough to have more than two or three kids. I don't quite know who is inflicting this attack -- I haven't thought it through that far -- but probably some kind of 'one-child policy' conspiracists ...or rather, 'two-to-three-child-policy' conspiracists, who disapprove of the four-or-more brigade). I say this because, when I had just a couple of kids I quite liked the school hols; for one I could snooze late by locking the bedroom door so the children couldn't escape (they all slept in my bed anyhow), putting on a Little Mermaid DVD, and throwing brioches, muffins and milk at them so that I could snatch an extra hour of semi-dreaming, albeit with a Disney soundtrack. We'd eventually get dressed and venture out to a play centre or park for a couple of hours, followed by baby-bowls from Bewley's (ah for the days when the kids w...