Going home

Packing to come home is nothing like the adrenaline-fuelled homage to OCD that is PACKING THE CAR TO GO ON HOLDAY. From 3.30 in the afternoon on the day before we leave I am on the phone to Prophet of Doom, begging him to come home so that we can start the joyful yet judicious game of 3d Tetris that will fill the boot , with: all components (only cubes and cuboids admissable: all irregularly-shaped items, such as a hairdryer, to  be packed into a cuboid-shaped recepticle and packed out with other items of the same product family: brushes or foam rollers say, not cheese triangles) stacked at the same height; picnic and overnight bag accessible from both in and outside the vehicle; magic blanky spread evenly over the load but not blocking fridge vents; and my things not squashed. The cubby hole between the two front seats is loaded with frozen water. Glove box contains IPods, chewing gum and baby wipes. It is how you would travel to heaven.

For our journey home the task could not have been attempted with less good humour. Obviously this is mainly because it is the journey home. But also because: the boot of the second most expensive and yet least reliable seven-seater on the market is jammed and everything has to be hauled over the seats in 33 degrees with four horseflies for company. Somehow, all right angles have been pushed into ugly lumps by the stealthy introduction of PACKING MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS INTO THE NEAREST SUITCASE/BUCKET/CARRIER BAG/HAT; a heinous Prophet-led practice that supports the juxtaposition of items in a piece of luggage that are clearly NOT FRIENDS: Camembert, cotton buds and wet trunks for example. Seriously if I wasn't half-drunk eating a slice of cold pizza in the bath I'd give a shit, but the closure of a holiday affects us all in different ways. I cram half a bag of melted and reformed Starburst into the glovebox and pick my way through the torn maps and used wipes that cover the floor and off we go.

You'll never unwrap those

Tortoise

After weeks of exhibiting tiresome behaviours we dismiss as broadly attention-seeking (refusing to eat and constantly burying itself under the compost/dog's bed/dirty washing) the tortoise disappears at the beginning of June. After a frantic search, which encompasses dredging the pond and employing three teams of working dogs ("Have you got an item of erm..clothing or something...?") all hopes of finding him/her are abandoned; everyone returns to work/school and we try to rebuild our lives.

For the next few weeks there are desperate flashes of hope: "The peg bag! No-one checked the peg bag!" But we all know that even if the tortoise could scale the washing line post, it could scarcely conceal itself in a flimsy fabric pouch that was half its size and full of clothespegs. As I have seen one of the children writing on the underside of its shell at the beginning of the summer in permanent marker I an vaguely reassured that it has our phone number on the underside of its shell. But it turns out that he had just written PTO. We never even gave him/her a name.

Attention seeking

Then, on August 3, there it is. In the middle of the grass, completely filthy and blinking the soil from its eyes. After several warm baths, a bag of curly kale and a mani-pedi he/she's in tip-top condition and tearing around the garden spitting at the dogs with a ferocity that belies his/her sixty years. A day later and we would have been away on holiday. It doesn't bear thinking about.