It’s a miracle I’m here.
To fully appreciate my frame of mind for the last week, picture my face. Now imagine it wide-eyed. Terrified. Mouth wide with screams. Now turn the page upside down.
That is the sight that greeted innocent bystanders last week when I took the kids on our impromptu Theme Park Tour of Britain.
Otherwise known as the week of ‘Oh good grief my internal organs are not meant to dangle fifty feet in the air.’
I blame those merchants of all that is scary in this world:
My children.
I had to travel to London for a meeting on Monday. Obviously, this came with logistical considerations because at the moment I’m embarking on that stressful, hugely difficult task, up there with splitting the atom and developing space travel.
I’m trying to keep the kids occupied for six weeks of summer holidays during a staycation.
Yes, that sad, sun-deprived situation has dawned once more. I’ve decided to skip the annual holiday this year and pay off the credit cards instead.
That noise you can hear is my bank manager singing ‘My Way’ through a megaphone.
It almost makes me feel like a real grown-up. Next, I’ll be buying a twin-set and pearls and thinking about pension plans.
Incidentally, who designed the word ‘staycation’ to sound like it was something relatively enjoyable?
It should be a frazzlecation. Stresscation. A houseworkation.
And don’t tell the bloke with the megaphone, but I’m not sure the financial benefits are all they’re cracked up to be, given that taking the boys to the cinema, with a pit stop for a hot dog and popcorn, costs approximately the same as a fortnight in the Maldives.
But back to my meeting.
The original plan was to sort out childcare and fly up and down in the same day, but after pondering the options I decided to take the car, the kids, and visit family in Leeds and London.
So far, so civilised.
Then Low the Younger interjected his words of wisdom.
At eleven, he is fairly convinced that he’s twenty-five. I expect him to appear at any moment with application forms for the bureaucratic signs of adulthood – a job, a mortgage and a Matalan card.
‘But Mum, if we’re going from Leeds to London, we could go the way that passes Alton Towers.’
Indeed. Damn you, Google Earth.
‘And then, we could stop at Thorpe Park and Chessington World of Adventures too?’
No we couldn’t. Definitely not. Absolutely no way. Those were the thoughts that went through my mind. Unfortunately, they were cancelled out by his hopeful wee face and general air of optimism.
I’ve been on many road trips in the past. A pal and I once did a Thelma and Louise from New York to Orlando, stopping on the way for an enraged wife to attempt to break our motel door down with an axe because she thought her husband was inside with a girlfriend. Never have I been so close to featuring in a Crimewatch reconstruction.
I once drove from Niagara Falls to Philadelphia, getting lost 5,465 times on the way.
Last year, the chums and I headed for Pitlochry, and braved the twin threats of motorway services tea and torrential rain.
But the Theme Park Tour of Britain?
I flew through the air. I screamed while my face was being G-forced to the consistency of marshmallow. I dangled. Yes, dangled from a structure that looked like it was only a few fitments up the technologically advanced scale from my whirligig.
And I prayed. I prayed to the Gods of Chunky Burds, not to let me fall out or get stuck.
Never again. Warn the bank manager next year I’m going off to faraway shores and I don’t care what I have to do to afford to get there.
Or if all else fails – NASA, need any volunteers for that space travel?