USA Trip Part 2

Forgive me while I'm in travelogue mode, things are quite detailed as a result. So we arrived at John F Kennedy airport and after being told that we would be subjected to all manner of grillings and scrutiny and searches we more or less walked right through a virtually empty JFK.  It was stifling hot though with the air conditioning out of order, strategically placed fans were not doing much to help and everyone was near passing out in the queue.   A lovely officer checked our passports took mine and Nnenna’s finger prints and photos and stamped us into the USA for 90 days and we passed to security who looked at us and waved us through only commenting on the fact that we had so little luggage. We packed a lot into those little bags believe me and even though they were small they were quite heavy.

We crossed to the taxi queue as we’d been advised to get a yellow New York taxi and were told that there was a set fee of around $48-52 from JFK to any area of Brooklyn which is where we were heading.  Now this experience was crazy, the driver drove at break neck speeds along semi deserted roads and paying no apparent attention to rules of the road or signs, we had our hearts in our mouths… and then again (but for very different reasons) when we caught our first sight of the Manhattan sky line and again when we spotted the Statue of Liberty in the harbour. 

When we arrived at our hotel, the Pointe Plaza, the taxi had racked up a total of almost $80 so travel tip alert: don’t believe the quote!  They myth of anywhere in New York from JFK for $47 is a myth and only covers anywhere on Manhattan island from JFK which is actually further than Brooklyn but I imagine that they find it easier to pick up another fare in Manhattan than out in Brooklyn. The driver was quite rude and abrasive until the end of the trip when he suddenly adopted a more pleasant tone, probably as he realised the tip was coming up. Needless to say our introduction to the super friendly, faultless customer service we'd been led to believe existed in the USA was an eye opener and one which continued, it's like anywhere else on Earth, some people are nice and some are not, you get good customer service in some places and not in others, some people are downright rude and some are courteous, in our experience the USA was no better or worse than anywhere else.

Double king suite, very spacious and immaculate

The Pointe Plaza was a lovely hotel. The receptionist was so helpful and polite and our suite was perfect. Immaculately clean, the biggest bath tub I’ve seen in a hotel in a while, well equipped kitchen, quiet, comfortable, huge closets and everything we needed for a perfect stay. If anything the Pointe Plaza was so much of a home from home that we didn’t want to leave it and spent a couple of nights in with a take away (more on those later) and catching up on some much needed sleep.  Nothing was too much trouble for the staff who were all equally friendly, helpful and polite.  

Kitchen in our hotel suite, everything you need provided

The hotel is situated in a Jewish area and being used to living in a Jewish area in London I delighted in sampling once again Jewish breads and cakes from the local supermarket literally around the corner, Sprinkles where the carrot cake, fresh hot bagels and ice cream were to die for. Staff were helpful and right next door is a bank with an ATM located inside the lobby. Subway stations are close by which we used once or twice but taxis into Manhattan are so cheap ($20-25) and there is a free shuttle service which you have to book the night before and leaves at 9.30am from outside the hotel, that we didn’t use the subway much.  Breakfast was included with the room rate but we only actually made it once and it was basic bagel, toast, fruit, yoghurt juice, that kind of thing. Tea and coffee making facilities are in the room though and if you need utensils for cooking or eating just ask at reception. If you’re trying to use the free Wi-Fi here and you have a problem just wait a moment while your lap top prompts you to enter more information, it took a little while for the prompt to appear after we’d logged onto the network but after that it was just fine and was quite a fast connection too. CHECK OUT THIS FAB HOTEL HERE

While at this hotel we used a pizza delivery from Papa John chain and it was delicious and excellent value for money, be careful when ordering a large pizza, they are HUGE. We paid for this online and waiting in the lobby for it and tipped the delivery guy on arrival, it took about 30 mins from ordering to being on the table in our suite.

There are tons of places to eat around this hotel though and if you ask the staff they will be only too happy to give you any information or advice you may need.

Walking in Brooklyn a must for great Bagels and Ice Cream

The area is very busy but not too noisy and feels very safe. I like to see what the locals do to get a sense of the safety of an area and kids were playing outside, women were walking around with kids once the sun had set and children were often to be seen in the supermarket unaccompanied by adults and this all testified to me that parents are confident that the area is safe to allow their children these freedoms, that was reassuring for me.  It was a good opportunity for me to share with the kids my limited knowledge of Judaism and explain various things like the Mezuzahs on the hotel door rooms, the meaning of the different head gear and styles of hair and clothing, Saturday being the Sabbath, symbolism of certain foods and such and I was pleased to have given my kids some insight into the Jewish faith and broadened their minds somewhat.

So having dropped our things off at the hotel we decided to head to Manhattan to have a look around soak up the atmosphere and take some photos before going back to our hotel and venturing out again later on for the midnight celebrations… well that was the plan and what I said earlier about not believing everything you read on Trip Advisor, well this kicks in for the second time now.  


I ‘d had a dream for years to be in Times Square on NYE and this year was going to be the one when it came true and that’s why we found ourselves embarking on this trip at all.  BUT after reading endless accounts of the horrors of NYE in Times Square and of the staff at our hotel we’d changed our plans, opted for a hotel outside of Manhattan for the first few days (big mistake as this left us feeling a bit out on a limb with nowhere to refresh the batteries and go out again which meant we felt we missed out on some of the delights of NYC in the first couple of days, and undoubtedly this led to us missing the full New Year’s Eve experience).  


We took a taxi into Manhattan, we marvelled at the bright lights and the people, it was packed with people.  We wandered around, not really sure where we were going, heading towards Times Square and wound up having a bit of a look around the heaving Rockefeller Plaza and Grand Central Station until tiredness (we’d not slept for two days) and sore feet took their toll and we decided to head back to our hotel and take a bit of rest before either heading back out to Central Park for NYE or attending a highly recommended local event in Brooklyn at Prospect Park.  


Now, if we’d had stuck with our original choice of hotel and our original plan we would have had a nap and been back out in the thick of things, but going over to quiet Brooklyn and getting cosy in uber comfy beds was a mistake when Nnenna’s alarm didn’t go off at 10pm and I finally woke at 2am to find the new year had already arrived without us!  I was disappointed, but hey we were in NYC on NYE and that’s all that mattered, we were exhausted and the change of hotel due to Trip Advisor reviews cost us the dream but really we didn’t care, the holiday went on to fulfil more than our dreams and NYE was put into its insignificant place.

That said we really did soak up the atmosphere of NYE, the sounds, smells, people, the crazy head gear and just the sense of expectation. I don't feel like we missed anything at all, it was our first time in NYC and it was exciting and we feel that we squeezed all we could out of it.

The Trip to the USA Part One

Dan and Nen on the Train to London

Ok so the great adventure begins!  Leg one of our epic adventure (well by our standards given that we’ve barely left home for the past couple of years) started out with a trip to London on the great British railway system.  


As is our usual experience this trip was smooth, on schedule, comfortable and issue free.  We had one change in Doncaster and arrived in a rainy, dull Kings Cross station on the afternoon of 30^th December.  


Daniel was so excited to see the Emirates Stadium, home of Arsenal football club, a team he doesn’t even support but none the less, he was more excited by the sight of it at this stage than he was about the trip to the USA.  

Emirates Stadium

A tip about rail travel in the UK, there is a window where pre-booked internet purchased tickets are incredibly cheap keep checking about 8-10 weeks before travel for when the ultra low price window opens and mind for it slamming shut pretty quickly too,  get in through that window and you are laughing.  Our tickets for two adults and one child cost us the grand sum of £19 from Grimsby to Kings Cross. I do also have a Friends and Family Railcard which for around £25 gets you whopping discounts on standard fares, I think it’s 30% off per adult and more for a child.  GET YOURS HERE Pre-booking also has the advantage of reserving you seats which is pretty useful particularly when you can reserve exact seats, front facing/rear facing/table seats/near toilets/near luggage racks etc.  Train travel in the UK is ultra pleasant, can cost less than petrol and be far less stressful than driving and far quicker, you just need to do it right. BUY TICKETS HERE

At Kings Cross

Kings Cross has changed a bit since I was last there, which wasn’t so long ago, but the preparations for the London Olympics in 2012 are evident all around as the infrastructure gets a make over.  I guess some people are against spending billions of pounds in times of austerity but the renovations to dated facilities in London are overdue and wouldn’t have happened any other way so from that point of view the investment has to be seen positively.  The price of a one day off peak travel card for unlimited travel on the underground network has seen hikes since my last visit, we paid just shy of £20 for two adults and a child, no concessions for students. This is really worth it if you are travelling all around London all day sightseeing or whatever, but when it’s the best option for a couple of short hops then it seems a bit costly especially when your tickets down to London cost less. Oh well it’s a great network, super efficient and as we were to come to appreciate, super well sign posted and providing lots of orienteering information.

Not happy on the Tube

Not happy

So I shepherded the kids onto the underground, having decided to take Daniel for a look at Wembley Stadium before we headed to Terminal 5 at Heathrow to pick up our dollars and to check into our airport hotel for the night. Now, forgive me but I was once the master of the underground but things have changed, there have been alterations to the system, I’m getting older, we were all tired and the prices, I’ve already covered the prices right?   So we got lost but only as lost as is possible on the London Underground, it’s a case of all roads lead to Rome really and so we were not without direction for long.

Happy, Wembley Stadium through the mist in the background

Wembley was pretty dull and pouring with good old English winter rain, it was freezing and we didn’t hang around long before heading to Terminal 5.  What a treat lay in store. The terminal is mighty impressive, Nnenna likened it to a huge space station and Daniel thought the transport was amazing, fully automated driverless underground shuttles which are spotless and super-efficient.  Glass elevators transport you from one level to another, lots of shops and eateries land side, all in all just a really impressive place with the teething problems clearly ironed out. It was a good move to familiarise ourselves with the terminal ahead of flying out of it the next day. We knew exactly where we needed to be and what we had to do.  We’d checked in ahead using the British Airways on line check in and seat allocation system which opened 24 hours before departure time. It actually opened a little ahead of this time and allowed us to choose our seats at no extra cost and print out our boarding passes. We elected to save our passes and print them later at the hotel.

AT T 5

So after picking up our dollars with a fantastic exchange rate which gave us real value for money we headed to find a taxi to take us to our hotel. We’d booked a cheap £15 family room at the Terminal 5 Travelodge and after booking I read some reviews on trip advisor.  Travel tip alert… never read reviews on trip advisor AFTER you’ve booked they scare you and make you change your mind and sometimes (as we’ll see later) changing your mind is not the best thing.  Bear in mind that Trip Advisor reviews are written by a mix of people who have different expectations from hotels, restaurants and attraction and who have different ideas about what is good value for money and what is good service. A lot of the time people write reviews only when they   wish to complain and not when they have had a good experience so this can skew data and also don’t forget that it is the opinion of an individual and what one person may find boring or expensive another might find exciting and excellent value for money. 

Basic Family Room, serviceable, comfy £15 a night!!

So we arrived at the Terminal 5 Travelodge after a longer than I’d have liked wait for a taxi recommended by Travelodge on their website and it cost £13.50 for the three of us with our hand luggage to the Terminal 5 Travelodge. This hotel is not close by the terminal and it is difficult to access other than by taxi or shuttle which costs £4.50 per person each way so as in our case where there were three of us it was just as cheap to get a taxi.  Of course if you are driving life is much easier but still don’t expect the hotel to be right by the terminal as it isn’t.  We were assured that a taxi from the hotel to the terminal costs £11.00 due to the route being shorter.  I must say that the taxi was very nice, a luxury class Mercedes and the driver was smart and very friendly and helpful.

The Travelodge itself cannot be faulted.  You like it when you get what you pay for and you like it even more when you get more than you paid for. The check in was swift and pleasant, the staff were friendly and helpful; the room was spotlessly clean, comfortable and quiet.  We had tea and coffee making facilities, a wall mounted flat screen TV, bathroom with bath tub, towels included (no toiletries as is the norm with Travelodge but there were vending machines if you wished to purchase travel sized toiletries such as toothpaste and the like).  There was no noise, we didn’t even hear a plane and didn’t hear any other guests.  I wouldn’t have minded if we did, this is an airport hotel I’d expect people to be staying there who are flying or arriving at the airport at unsociable hours and who are likely to be checking in or out throughout the night, excited people going on holidays or arriving for holidays often make a little bit of noise because they are happy and you can’t knock people being happy just because you chose a cheap hotel for the same reasons they did.  My kids are normally very quiet but I even had to remind them to keep their voices down later on at night but they were excited and as I say it’s to be expected.

Panorama of dining area, pleasant, clean, nothing special

We had dinner in the restaurant, we weren’t going to as we’d heard such bad things but it was a pleasant environment, the staff again were faultless, the menu was basic kind of pub grub and tasted like decent pub grub and we stayed for dessert. We enjoyed the music, the holiday atmosphere which was already in the air and just the chance to relax before we began our holiday proper. 

Bathroom, clean, hot water, towels all you need really

The only downside was that we used the internet which was only a couple of pounds but when we needed to print out our boarding passes, using the printer was a bit convoluted in that we had to email the documents one by one to the printer which then printed them one by one when you enter a code and then they had to be paid for one by one by debit card with meant three transactions of £3 each. Now this was extortionate by anyone’s standards as printing 3 one page boarding passes wound up costing me £9 plus the charge for using the internet.  Wi-Fi is advertised as being available in this hotel but it is only available in the range of the ground floor, we were on 3^rd floor and it didn’t reach that far, maybe it reached first and second but certainly not third.  Just another note on the printing charges, it’s £3 for up to 10 pages or for each print job, I could have saved money had I had the facility to make the three boarding pass PDF documents one three page document, that way it would have cost me £3.  My advice would be don’t use this service if you can avoid it.

There are lots of vending machines with drinks, ice creams and snacks including healthier options and as I said earlier travel sized toiletries. The hotel felt like a safe and comfortable place to be and our taxi arrived on time as booked the next morning to take us to the airport for £11 as were had been informed.  We did start to get into the habit of tipping though so paid a little more for both taxis.

We figured that for £15 for our clean comfortable room we did well.  To have facilities to make tea and coffee 4 times probably saved us that amount in buying them downstairs or at airport prices so we see it that we got teas and coffees with complimentary hotel room for 4 rather than a hotel room with complimentary teas and coffees, when you look at things that way you are always going to be onto a winner and really cannot complain.

Checkout of the hotel was smooth and simple and we were on our way to Terminal 5 once more ready to take to the skies.

At T 5

Terminal 5 is a pleasant experience, all staff we encountered was helpful, everything was well sign posted, online check in and printing of boarding passes made everything so much simpler and we arrived about 90 minutes or so before departure.  There is a range of shops landside including W H Smiths and Boots should you need to pick up any last minute toiletries or snacks or reading materials. Security was quick and efficient with lots of staff working even though it was New Year’s Eve and the queues moved swiftly.  Usual applied in that liquids including make-up held in hand baggage had to be no more than 100mls and had to be taken out and put into a clear plastic bag issued by the airport staff, hand luggage had to meet certain size restrictions and at security coats, belts and electrical items as well as metal coins etc. had to be placed into plastic trays and if you were wearing boots or high heeled shoes these also had to go into the trays which went through the x ray  machines while the person (Us) went through the metal detector.  None of us set it off but this wasn’t to be the norm for the rest of the trip.

Staff were ultra-friendly throughout the airport, wishing us a happy new year and smiling and the atmosphere was very upbeat and pleasant.

Once airside we had breakfast at Giraffes.  It was a good breakfast, the kids had breakfast buns which were rather larger than expected and if anything can be criticised it was that my cranberry juice was rather warm and could have benefited from some ice which I’m sure they would have provided had I asked.  The staff at Giraffes were second to none, polite, upbeat, helpful and happy, service was fast and yet it didn’t feel like we were being rushed nor did it feel like a fast food joint.  The food was good, hot and tasty, the seating comfortable and a lovely view of the landing and take-off runways just topped it all off. 

Unusually for me we left the journey to the boarding gate to the eleventh hour not realising what a long trek it was however we used the transit shuttle which was fun, clean, 21^st century, slick technology. Daniel loved it. When we got to the back of the queue we were waved forward by a BA staff member who told us to pass through priority boarding as we were a family group, this was a nice touch and welcome after our mad dash to the gate.  

Immaculate T5 Transit System

We boarded the plane and were shown to our seats. Very comfortable, plenty of leg room, recliners, retractable arm rests, seat back personal TV with movies, music, TV programmes and in flight information. We had pillows and head sets and tooth brushes and blankets and it was really comfortable. Daniel loved tracing our journey through the sky on the TV and Nnenna watched several films.

Daniel kept reminding me how high we were and how
fast we were travelling throughout the journey

Take off was smooth and I busied myself talking to my neighbour to take my mind off it and had perhaps the most settled take off experience of my life.  The plane was full and spirits were largely very high with a few eager to start celebrating New Year’s Eve before they got to New York taking advantage of the complimentary drinks throughout the flight and some tried to coerce partners into joining the mile high club much to Nnenna and Daniel’s distaste.  I chatted the whole flight to a Scots guy called John and it made the flight pass very quickly, we had a good laugh and a few drinks together and joined each other at the back for a stretch of the legs throughout the flight.  During the flight we were well cared for by excellent cabin crew with a good lunch, snacks and drinks throughout and we landed on schedule at JFK airport in New York.

In flight entertainer

First pic in NYC outside T7 at JFK

I was so proud of myself for mastering my phobia of flying once again and living my promise of taking the kids to the USA, it was quite emotional when we touched down for these reasons as well as relief that the flight was over. We had a tiny bit of light turbulence on the approach to New York but other than that it was a comfortable, fun and uneventful flight. British Airways staff and services throughout the experience can not be faulted so well done to them.

Things Which Irritate Me - Day 10

So here it is day 10.  I can't believe 10 days have past since I started this and I have certainly learned a few things about myself from it.


I've struggled to find something to be irritated about for a few days now and that's a great sign. But today I'm going to go for perhaps one of my greatest sources of irritation, littering.


Why do it? How hard is it to hold onto your rubbish and drop it in a bin? I'm like my mother was when we were kids, always have pockets full of tickets,  small sweet wrappers, receipts because I put them there until I get to a bin where I can drop them in, or even better these days... to a recycling bin.


Sometimes when you enter an area that has strict litter control you are struck that something is missing and it all looks so bare and only when you think for a moment do you realise that it's litter. It's not there. 


Some areas are better than others at enforcing the law, because it is against the law in the UK to drop litter and some have better facilities for cleaning up the thoughtless droppings of some people, but for every effective system there is an ineffective one and some parts of towns or some towns in general are not faring too well. I love to visit places where littering isn't an issue, we are just too used to someone coming along free of charge (or so we think) and clearing up our mess after us. 



Come to think of it...doesn't that just sum up the attitude of large chunks of British society and perhaps the attitude which has landed us with a huge, cumbersome, drain of a welfare state that is abused, taken for granted and mismanaged? We get so much for apparently nothing and expect certain services to be provided for nothing - we don't realise that we are paying somewhere down the line, or at least someone is.

Hey, it's not even just towns the countryside suffers too.  I remember the country code from when I was tiny... don't leave gates open, don't litter being the two key points. I remember public information films reminding people of the dangers posed by litter - directly or indirectly. We don't have public information films anymore... maybe they should be revised.  But for some the message just never sank in.


Have you seen a festival site after the campers have gone? My gosh!  What about the left overs from a car boot sale? It's shocking.  

I know someone who once had to seriously contemplate his relationship with a new girlfriend as she dropped litter while he was with her and he felt that it showed gross incompatibility between them as he couldn't believe she had such little regard for the environment.


Littering is messy, dangerous (to humans and animals), a health hazard, unnecessary, totally avoidable, selfish and lazy.  Kids can be taught not to litter from early early days when they are sitting in prams, they can be taught to pass their biscuit or sweetie wrapper to mama who pops it in her pocket until she arrives at a bin and then lets the little one delight in the awesome task of posting the wrapper through the bin slot.

Funnily enough if you do this with kids, when they are walking they quite enjoy running to the bin to put their rubbish in it and that habit kind of stays with them. Lesson taught, job done, no sweat, no hassle and with the odd reinforcement becomes a way of life and sticks with them forever.


I'm not perfect, I'll admit I'm not too hot on recycling, but I am hot on not littering... urgh people emptying ashtrays out of cars onto the road side! Ghastly! People throwing things out of car windows... lazy monsters they are.  So yeah day 10 my final irritation - littering, there really is no science involved, it's just so easy to not do it.

Things Which Irritate Me - Day 9

Almost there! Can't believe it and I'm really, really struggling now.


I'm going to make this a bit of a cop out and relate it to something that happened last night.


We were watching a re-run of 6th Sense on TV and my daughter had never seen it before but of course she had heard that "he finds out he's a ghost at the end".  So you got it, day 9, I get so irritated by spoilers.


I'm hoping everyone who reads this has seen 6th Sense because if not then I'm spoiling and that could be irritating for some...


I remember the people who rushed to buy Harry Potter the book hearing that someone had died, Goblet of Fire it was. Everyone was speed reading trying to find out who it was so they could spoil it for people who couldn't read so fast. There was mass disappointment when the death was of Cedric Diggory and not one of the big, main characters as had been talked about.  


But in Half Blood Prince when Dumbledore does cop it, of course again, there was a leak that someone was going to meet their demise and again there was mass speed reading trying to spoil it for those who hadn't read that far yet.

I remember my daughter hiding in her room and disconnecting herself from all media so that she could enjoy the book at her pace and find out in her own time.


When we went in for the last Harry Potter film, there were people talking, trying to ruin it listing people who met their grizzly end in the film as we stood in the queue. Thankfully most of the die hard fans on opening night were book readers and so it wasn't news to them and the spoilers fell on stony ground.







I was a bit peeved, having not read the Twilight trilogy but having seen the first two films and developed a bit of a liking for the story to see trailers for the final film showing Bella pregnant. What the hey? That means she must have finally married Edward, or Jacob, is she a vampire now? It kind of ruined the film for me to the extent that I still haven't seen it and will probably now wait for Blue Ray or DVD.

So yeah, spoilers are not good. If you have a secret keep it.  We don't all find it totally awesome that you know a fact that isn't public knowledge or at least wide public knowledge and if you know how a movie turns out don't tell me, it's not good and spoilers really, really irritate me.




Oh and honest I don't have a mid-life 'thing' for Robert Pattinson, it's pure coincidence that he appears in two elements of my post... honestly.

Things Which Irritate Me - Day 8

This is becoming really difficult now so clearly I'm not easily irritated.  Oh I know I've thought of one... when the government decide they know more about what your child needs and care more for its welfare than you do.


This has long been an issue of mine to be fair. I consider that I take good care of my kids. They've always been fed, housed and haven't gone without anything they need. OK so there have been occasions when the nappy change was left a bit longer than the optimum time and I had a toddler wandering around with a heavy pampers almost dangling between its ankles... but hey am I the only one?  Please say no...



I have put in lots of effort, as lots of other parents do, to make sure that my kids knew the basics of reading and writing before they started nursery and that they knew all about money (could identify different coins and give change), they knew colours and shapes, could do puzzles (quite complex ones to be fair), could tell the time on an analogue and digital clock, could dress and feed themselves etc.  We lived in London when madam was little so she didn't start school until she was almost 4 but the little guy was born 'Up North' and as such was taken into nursery at a couple of weeks before his 3rd birthday, so fitting all of the basics in before they started did take time and effort and devotion.

I value education, show a keen interest in their progress and more importantly in what they are learning and what they are enjoying. I always attend parent/teacher meetings and turn up at sports day and school assemblies and concerts (for a full-time working single mother this wasn't always easy believe me and the odd time I had to miss due to inescapable meetings or a lack of leave remaining I always sent along a substitute mummy).  


I've helped out at school events, attended school trips, chaperoning hoards of other kids and sat sewing book bags and baked the cakes and made the costumes and all that kind of thing. For 15 years I've shown appreciation for the school system, done my bit to support it and done my bit to support my children and I'll carry on doing so of course until my input is no longer required.


Besides this I've always cared for my children, if they've been ill I've been there and wiped their noses, taken them to hospital, sat by the bedside of a sick child, been covered in puke and the other end stuff, had the sleepless nights, crammed the whole family into one bed because someone was scared by a nightmare or didn't feel well, I've gone to work on no sleep, I've worried and fretted and administered home remedies and a cocktail of 9 antibiotics and antivirals on a 24 hour schedule that had me on duty throughout the night with some medicine spoon or syringe in hand.


I've added to the experience of childhood for my kids with trips to cool and fun places, parks, museums, churches, cathedrals, castles, cinemas, play grounds, beaches, holiday villages, caravans, hotels, villas, aeroplane trips, train rides, boat journeys, rowing, pic nics, barbeques, big Christmas meals, capital cities, ancient ruins, zoos, wildlife parks, concerts, live shows, restaurants... we've done that and then some.  I've not dragged them around mindlessly, I've taken every opportunity to educate them and develop their understanding of something and enrich their all round knowledge and educational experience. We've grown things together, painted, glued and glittered, got icky with papier mache, foot painted, had food fights, water fights, swam, ran, biked, climbed, jumped, cuddled, hugged, loved, laughed, lived. We've done it all like most families have.


So then after all of this the government decides that I am not allowed to choose when to take my child on a holiday. Not a week in Benidorm spent with some obnoxious brats in a kids club while mum gets tanked up and more orange by the minute next to a pool... no a cultural extravaganza!  A fast track trip down the Eastern coastal region of the USA.  Taking in NYE in New York, trips to the NY Natural History Museum, the Rockefeller Centre, Wall St, Ellis Island, Brooklyn Bridge walk, Ground Zero centre, Washington DC, the Martin Luther King Memorial, The White House, Orlando and Harry Potter World and Atlanta with an enriching experience meeting friends that will probably and hopefully stand the test of time.  


We won't be mindlessly wandering around, we shall be marveling at some of the most well known and historic landmarks in the world, talking about their meaning, impact and history. We'll be learning things that they will never teach my children in school here, things that they will never learn anywhere else in their lives perhaps. 


Even if Wall St only serves to have a discussion about the credit crisis, about the Occupy movement and the Ground Zero memorial serves to talk about terrorism and hatred and how the innocent are always the victims, if Orlando only teaches them a bit more about turning dreams into reality and ideas into life changing business opportunities, branding, marketing... whatever! 

They will have learned things they will never learn elsewhere. They will learn not from reading but from being there, from seeing, from thinking, from contemplating and from discussing over dinner or at night in the hotel room tucked up in bed having a pre-sleep chat. They'll look up more info on the net, they just will, they are that type of kids.


But no, in spite of the fact that Daniel is the highest achieving child in his year and in spite of the fact that I feel this trip will benefit him immensely and will build memories for him of time spent with his family which will be priceless and last him for the rest of his life, I'm not allowed to do it, he can't experience it.  Because the law says he should be in school.  


So the law that says he should be in school is not able to be over ridden by me, the lady who cares more about that boy's welfare and well being and development than anyone else in the whole wide world?  It says that even though it's pretty much left me to struggle single handedly to raise my children on my own and face the hardships I've faced, that I can't make a decision without it giving me permission? 

Two of These!!

I'm going to be fined £100 for taking Daniel on this trip, not a criminal fine, a local authority imposed fine for taking him out of school during term time.  Now this I argue is not totally my fault, I want to go to NY for NYE that's how this began and we figured while we're travelling all of that way we may as well make the most of it and it got a bit extended.... just a bit from the 4 day trip to NY.  We couldn't go earlier due to Nnenna's work not allowing her to take off Christmas and New Year so we had to delay to the last minute.

My children and I have had a hard few years, we deserve a break, we need some good fun times to get us back on track and to bid a figurative good bye to what has passed - anthropologically speaking we need a rite of passage celebration to mark the transition into our new life. We don't want this holiday, we need it. We do.


I respect the law, I do, but sometimes there needs to be some flexibility and some holistic consideration for each case. All things weighed up I am happy that I am doing the best thing for my child and so I, as his mother, am doing it. I've spent 12 years doing all of the above with no praise or award, with no help or encouragement and I've earned the right to tell the system where to get off and educate my child the way I see fit. I am his mother. I have that right... don't I?


I know people say "you wouldn't like it if teachers took their holiday during term time", well truly I wouldn't care. If I had a letter home saying Daniel will be missing 2 weeks of geography due to his teacher taking a life changing trip to Bora Bora I'd say good on her, now let me know what he'll be missing and we'll get him up to speed.  I'd really do that.

Bora Bora - who wouldn't want to go there?

However, teachers do know that when they sign up for the job they'll pretty much have to work to earn their money according to the terms of their contract.  Nobody gave me a contract to sign when my kids popped out that said "The government has a right to over rule you on matters concerning your child's development and welfare"... they only care when you get it wrong or bend the rules. 


I'm not abusing my child, some people starve their kids and don't get fined £100, as long as they send them into school, that's cool.  You can swear at them, smack them, neglect their social development, do what you like but whatever you do do not let them miss school. (None of those are advisable by the way and all are contemptible of course)


So yeah, day 8 - I'm irritated by the government telling me what is best for my children.