Paradise lost

The phrase ‘family holiday’ is an oxymoron, as the mere presence of family shuts down any hope of relaxation, says Sophie White, who is stress-eating

Iwas never a huge fan of family holidays. I can’t say I particularly want to be in close quarters for an extended period with my family, but then, last summer, my mother, aunt and cousins went on a family holiday and opted to not invite me, which seems to suggest that I am the problem, not them.

All along, I thought it was I who didn’t want to holiday with them, but, in fact, it’s the other way around.

This epiphany was most unpleasant, though the non-invite on the family trip has provided me with invaluable currency. At all familial events ever since, if one of them whines at me to so much as put the kettle on, I immediately dredge up the “time you all went off on holidays without me”. Sometimes I’ll even conclude with: “the same summer my dad died”, just to really compound the guilt trip. Insufferable, I know; yet eminently satisfying.

“It was for the best. You’d probably have tried to kill each other,” Himself reflected.

Cut to a year later, and I am on a family holiday with my mother and children and yes, we are trying to kill each other.

We’d left the poolside and embarked on a day trip (always a mistake). “Look,” my mother says cheerily on the third day. “We’re parked just outside a psychiatrist’s office. Handy.” This says pretty much everything about the mood. We had just completed a 35-minute car journey that was nearly aborted twice within the first five minutes due to frayed nerves and some light screaming (from the children — mostly).

We agreed to continue for sanity’s sake — the children need to be restrained and subdued by the car at least once a day — however, we opted to spend the rest of the car journey fighting two vintage fights of our own: the time in 2008 when I forgot her birthday, and the time in 2016 when she forgot my birthday. Exhausting stuff, but I held my own, even driving a rental Jeep on the wrong side of the road while furiously needing to pee; I’m just that good at fighting and driving, apparently.

“I suppose I know what this week’s column is going to be about,” she intoned bitterly. “No,” I was indignant. “I’m not writing about this,” I said, writhing in my seat, both from the need to pee and the kind of irritation only proximity to family is capable of inspiring. “The rule is: tragedy plus time equals comedy. This is much too fresh for me right now.”

We’ve five days more to go, and I have commenced medicating with food. It’s better than anything the psychiatrist can offer me. I’m keeping my children occupied with ice cream on tap and plying my mother with this bastardised concoction, which borrows from about three different nationalities of cuisine. Luckily, we’re in France, so no one’s going to charge me for crimes against pizza.

“The rule is: tragedy plus time equals comedy. This is much too fresh for me right now”