leave the kids behind

I think its been nearly a whole two years that Husband and I went away together, without the kidlings (although we've been to a wedding and had a night 'off' when the kids have stayed with Granny but we'd been under orders to be back at her house for breakfast - which sort of defies the purpose of leaving them with Granny in the first place... but mustn't grumble because we're JOLLY LUCKY to have such a lovely Granny who has them to stay at all... etc etc. don't look a gift horse in the mouth - another weird and idiotic phrase - don't look ANY horse in the mouth frankly, unless you want green spit in your eye or worse) so this weekend has been trez-spesh as the French would say. Trez spesh indeed.
Starting on Friday which was a day like that scene in the film Goodfella's when, near the end, the paranoid coke addict is cooking a tomato sauce but also trying to sort a massive drugs trade and also has to collect a granny or disabled sibling from somewhere whilst trying to deliver the coke to another venue all the while a helicopter is following his car and he's getting more and more psyched out with all the things he has to do before dinner - too much to do, too little time? I felt a bit like that on Friday. Too many things to do before I could get to where I really wanted to be: Beaulieu, with my Husband, away from it all.
8am - the plumber comes by (had already forgotten he was booked in)
8.45am - get the girls to school
Then spend 2hours packing cleaning tidying emailing administration making tea for the plumber thinking of an excuse to get Mol out of school 1/2hour earlier than normal pack the car up make sandwiches for Liz's lunch and for the girls 'tea' in the car later
11.30am collect Kid 1. Pay the plumber shit loads of cash for 20minutes work. (Make note: investigate plumbing college for girls - seems like a lucrative career...)
12pm go visit latest addition to the world in N16 (ah, sweet little baby!)
1pm go visit less recent addition but still pretty new to the world in N16 (ah, another sweet little baby!)
2pm Liz does huge poo in someone elses house - make a sharp exit and hope they don't need a plumber recommendation
3pm collect Mol
3pm hot-foot it to Hampshire
6pm and 68miles later 2 girls asleep in the back of the car after 2hours of solid fighting and Mother totally loosing her rag at 90mph on the A3 telling them the teddies will be chucked out of the window RIGHT NOW unless they SHUT UP and SHARE THE BLOODY THINGS
7pm say goodbye to suddenly extremely cherished girls breath enormous sigh of relief wish my parents best of luck with Liz and her not peeing in her bed 9 times in the night hot foot it to Winchester to collect Husband off train and then hot foot it even faster to Beaulieu - land of the free parents, home of the beer and wine, shelter to the on-verge-of-collapse-due-to-exhaustion Londoners.
We arrived eventually - sucked up most of the bar and a wheelbarrow of chips and then passed out in a coma for 10hours, waking up in that fug of 'huh? where are we? why is there no child by my bed whinging? why can I hear ducks instead of sirens? is this actually heaven?'.
Heaven indeed. And my, how time flies when one is in heaven. And oh - here's a novelty: conversation! uninterrupted conversation with the man I married 10 years ago. Fancy that? Oh yes please! None of Liz's endless drivel or Mols moody glares - just whole conversations that have a start, middle and end. It was like a miracle. But I guess when having a temporary residence in Heaven, then Miracles can be on the menu.
Anyway. its all over now. No more ducks. Tonight I go back to sleep in my less expensive bedlinen and will wake up to the sounds of the 141 breaking at the bus stop down the road and an ambulance/police/fire-engine siren belting down Green Lanes at sparrows fart. Usual noise of urban life.
But it was super-great having a wee reminder of what made me and Husband well, me and Husband, I guess - its easy to live with someone day in day out and completely lose touch. And these little snippets of time away from the every day - well, as the French absolutely don't say, trez-spesh indeed.
(PS just had a message from my mum: "love your kids. have necked a bottle of white. will survive.")