Organised Fun

I am a walking paradox. Actually, I am such a rare species that I should probably be stuffed and put on display in a natural history museum: I absolutely hate flying but I absolutely love travelling.

This curious paradox has marked my life for a good number of years already, and looks set to continue.
But, perhaps even more than travelling itself, I love PLANNING to travel.

To be honest, if pressed to put a statistical figure on it, I'd estimate that planning is 30% of the fun (that's allowing for the fact that another 30% of the fun is "looking back on the trip": I'll let you do the math on the rest).

So, here I am, mother of a child of school age, and suddenly, a whole new world of planning opportunities has opened up.
This is a most unexpected and rather thrilling consequence of the rigidity of the school year, and the fixed holiday slots. As FH and I discuss the long stretches of school holidays that will rise to meet us over the course of the year, he utters those seductive words: we'd better plan ahead, you know... and a tingle of excitement ripples through me.

Christmas, February, April, July, August.... a host of days and weeks to fill, a bubbling cup-full of plans to be fine-tuned, journeys to be booked, hotels to be snapped up (before they are overrun and over-priced). Days off to be juggled - that too, of course - but even this takes on the appearance of a jigsaw puzzle to be solved: a fun game in which we're all winners.

Yes, it's uncool. I know that. But us organising-types get our thrills where we can: we muse and research and question and reflect... and boy do we feel happy when all that spontaneous fun happens exactly as we planned!