London - At first, I blamed a five-day-old boiled egg. After all, I was the only one in the family wallowing in bed with what seemed to be food poisoning on our Cornish holiday.
In a foolish and misguided attempt to avoid snacking on biscuits, a healthy friend advised I boil some eggs to nibble instead. I like eggs, but they aren’t really the same as a chocolate Hobnob, so I obviously ate both, it being the holidays and all.
I started feeling queasy around 5pm on Saturday afternoon and soon had to retire to the bed nearest a loo in our holiday cottage. The following morning I was still unwell, exhausted by a night of vomiting.
There was little empathy from the family - our four children are particularly sympathy-free on holiday.
Mabel, who’s four, wanted to know if I would die and if they would set me on fire when I do. “Poor eggy Mommy,” she said.
To keep everyone occupied, Mr Candy decided to take the children off to the local strawberry farm for the morning as I lay there, unable to organise the troops.
“Make sure they have coats and wellies on,” I shouted downstairs to no one in particular. It’s frustrating, this rare handing over of parental control.
I remembered the farm has a zip wire in the playground and that on two occasions during our previous trips there the air ambulance has landed in the nearby field to tend to children with injuries.
“Don’t let them go on the zip wire,” I yell urgently, fearful of Mr Candy’s disregard for health and safety in these situations.
“Take water, wellies, maybe a sun hat for Mabel,” I croak, making my way to the window to watch Dad put them all in the car with the little one still wearing her PJ bottoms. They are a coat-free jumble of mismatched Crocs and unbrushed hair.
Then it is silent. No sound in the cottage by the sea where we always come on holiday every summer.
Apart from wishing there was a zip wire to get me to the loo quicker, it is a strangely alien feeling: relaxation, perhaps?
First, I feel guilty enjoying the calm. Then I realise that I am feeling too ill to do anything pleasurable, so no maternal guilt is needed.
Next I wonder if this is what people without children have when they go on holiday. Maybe this peaceful silence is the holiday part of a holiday.
I lie in bed listening to the melancholy sounds of the beach wafting through the open window: some children playing, dogs barking, the waves rumbling on.
I am so used to the frantic comings and goings of a larger family, marshalling them all to and from the beach every day, that I had forgotten there is an alternative way to holiday.
I put the radio on for company, so weird is the quiet, and then try to catch up on sleep as I still have more than a decade of broken nights to bank. Before I know it, they are back from the farm and descend on me with bags of over-ripe strawberries and what I hope is chocolate ice cream smeared across their jumpers.
“We stroked wallabies and guinea pigs,” they tell me, “and went on the zip wire.”
It’s clearly been a good family outing, despite the predictable soggy Cornish weather.
The following night it becomes clear my healthy eating fad is not the culprit for the nausea as, one by one, the children succumb to the vomiting bug.
Mr Candy and I have to work shifts, moving from bedroom to bedroom with bowls and towels, administering Calpol and changing PJs.
“Holiday” is not how I would describe the next few days of our trip. We’re on the parenting frontline, and everyone is worn out by the time we leave. We’ve run out of clean clothes and get into the car for the long journey home looking as if we have been living on an island with Bear Grylls for three months.
I open a thank-you card which a friend who visited us in Cornwall has left. “It’s been a blast,” she writes. “I have been battered by waves and rain, survived a storm and witnessed some impressive projectile vomiting.”
Ahhh, the British staycation at its best!
Daily Mail
* Lorraine Candy is editor-in-chief of Elle magazine.