How to survive 2 weeks, 2000 miles and 3 kids (part 1)

We’ve just returned home from the most epic of summer holiday adventures. We left 2 weeks ago by car (a 7 seater Kia sorrento) from our home in Hill Head -Hampshire. Our first port of call – Fishguard in Wales to catch the afternoon ferry to Roslaire in Ireland.

The journey started out well, luckily the space in our car meant that we could easily fit everything we needed and the kids would still be comfortable in the back! iPads were charged, colouring and sticker books were at the ready a long with drinks, snacks, baby milk and food.

However, I discovered my first epic fail of the trip just before we reached Fishguard (no sick bags!) when our 8 year old was car sick, with only a paper bag to hand (which started to leak everywhere) stress levels went through the roof when we were forced to pull over to clean up the mess. Our 4 year old had a huge upset when he realised the sick had covered his beloved Spider-Man pillow and he blatantly refused to get back in the car, so there I was at the roadside cleaning a Spider-Man pillow with a baby wipe! (Anything to stop the high pitched noise of the tantrum!) This put us behind, then typically we got stuck behind a tractor! A lot of arguing and name calling ensued between my husband and I over whose fault it was that we may now miss the ferry (obviously it was his fault as he was the one driving) and I forgot to mention the fact that we had previously stopped in a service station to feed the baby which was all that we were meant to be doing, however my husband decided he needed to buy some sweets (for himself, not the kids) and disappeared for a good 10 minutes! (How can that take 10 minutes!!) and the fact that no sick bags were packed was apparently my fault because I’m meant to be superwoman and predict when a child will be sick right?

But once it became apparent that we hadn’t missed the ferry the stress levels came down a notch and we started to relax as we boarded the ferry and started to unpack what we would need from the car for the 3 hour ferry trip – another epic fail (buggy buried under the 5 suitcases packed in the boot) after we managed to retrieve the buggy and made our way up to the seating area it was time for a coffee!!

From that point on there were minimal dramas and the kids were actually very well behaved and were kept entertained by their new purchases from the ferry shop – a transformer and a Lego model (Lego is an amazing invention, it literally provides hours of entertainment! The transformer wasn’t so successful, his arm was lost within the first 15 minutes which meant another big upset and a search around the ferry floor on my hands and knees trying to find said transformer arm)

I also had a mild panic attack every time my son wanted to go out onto the deck as he really does think he’s spider man and he really would try and climb overboard without someone holding onto his hand!

We arrived at Roslaire port all together (nobody lost at sea) in the early evening, we had booked a beautiful hotel in County Wexford to stay in for the night so we made our way to the hotel for a well deserved glass of prosecco for mummy and a beer for daddy which was also well deserved – well done daddy, you have more patience than most and you actually are a fabulous daddy and husband!

So, tips for travelling by car and ferry with kids:

• Pack plenty of sick bags
• Leave with plenty of time to spare (allow for tractors, sick stops and sweet stops!)
• Always pack what you will need during the journey at the top so it’s easy to access
• Think you have enough baby wipes? You don’t, pack more!
• Mummy’s – pack a sneaky alcoholic beverage in your handbag (as long as you’re not driving may I add)
• Always laugh! When things get crazy and it feels like you couldn’t make it up, just laugh. My husband and I find that this is the saviour in our marriage