My Hellish Trip..

I noticed that for this month’s BMB Carnival over at Me, the Man & The Baby the theme is “Travelling with kids”.  So as I have done a fair bit of travelling I thought I would rack my brains for something to share with you.  So this is all about my hellish trip from 2009. 

In August that year we got the opportunity to go back to NZ.  We thought we would take it especially as Son No 2 was only 4 months old at the time so it would be a chance for the family to meet him.  The trip out was pretty uneventful, just the usual bother that flying long haul with children brings.  We finally got to Wellington without the loss of any toys, luggage, and children and thankfully our sanity still intact.

For the 3 weeks we were there I had what I thought was a really bad head cold.  I was taking a lot of cold and flu tables had a permanent high temperature, a hacking cough with night sweats thrown in for good measure.  But typically like any mum I just got on with it.  Well you do don’t you?  We had people to see and places to go plus the boys needed to be looked after.  Mr P was even thoughtful enough to go and visit friends for a couple of nights since it was only a cold!

Because I couldn’t shift it I decided I should go to the doctors as I didn’t really want to travel feeling like, well ‘shit’ to be honest.  The doctor wasn’t impressed that I had left it so long especially as I had travelled from the UK where there was the big swine flu outbreak!  Remember that?  He sent me off for chest x-rays and blood tests and it turned out I had ‘Pneumonia’ and advised against travelling back to the UK until it was all cleared.

So after lengthy and somewhat heated “discussions” with Mr P it was decided that he would go back with Son No 1 and I will travel back a week later with Son No 2.  A week later I was given the all clear to fly and that is when the fun really began.

You hear these fantastic stories of people travelling alone with children and the help you get.  Well that certainly didn’t happen for me.  I had a 5 month old who liked to have a cry before settling to sleep, which is okay when he is in his cot, with his door closed, but on a plane full of people staring at you it’s not.  So I had to hold him for the majority of the flights.  The air hostesses were less then helpful considering I was flying with an airline that is supposed to be the “friendliest in the sky”.  I had one offer of help and that is when I boarded.  Eating and going to the toilet was near impossible while holding a sleeping baby.  I even had to put him on the floor of the air tunnel when it came to collapsing the stroller before getting on the plane as no one was around to help.  Likewise when it came to collecting it once we landed.  I was even told at one point that they weren’t allowed to take the baby. Health and Safety reasons I assume!  With a six hour stopover in Singapore I decided to book a room so we could try and sleep.  Of course we had to go to one of the other terminals for it!  Heathrow was no better, struggling with two bags plus baby and stroller while porters stood by watching or zooming round in their little buggies.  I was so knackered that by the time I saw our cabbie I just burst into tears.  Which for me is something i don’t normally do?

So I left on a Friday night and arrived the following Saturday night in London, all up it took 38 hours door to door including a 6 hour stopover in Singapore.  Of course MR P maintains to this day that his trip home was worse than mine, yeah right!

I must have lost my sanity on that trip because I did it all again the following January.