The pictures drew us in – smiles, sun, sea and sand. But our holidays never turned out like the brochures

I RECENTLY FOUND some holiday photographs. They were of our last family holiday in Lanzarote, before my husband, Aidan, died. This find sparked a memory of the times we spent on holidays together. As a family. Relaxing times. Or were they?

The photos reminded me of times when we actually took photographs and had them developed. When my children were younger. When, once Christmas was over, travel companies started their TV adverts for their package sun holidays. The excitement of trawling through the Budget Travel brochure before the children went back to school was an intrinsic part of our Christmas. The pictures in the brochures drew us in. Smiles, swimming pools, sun, sea and sand. With the trip booked, there was nothing to do but pay off the holiday monthly and wait until July arrived until we could enjoy our annual excursion abroad.

But our family holidays never turned out like the glossy brochures. Greeted at the airport check-in desks with queues of eager families lined up with big suitcases and small children, I’d start digging around in my handbag for passports and tickets. Why did I always pick the slowest queue? Then, the job of keeping the three children together until we got checked in. By the time that task was completed, Aidan and I usually had had our first row. Getting three children on the plane and keeping them occupied was harder than commanding a troop of soldiers, Aidan used to say. And he should know. He was in the army.

Arriving in Arrecife, greeted by the first taste of heat, I feared the battle ahead to keep our family mosquito and sunburn free. Once our suitcases were on the wonky-wheeled trolley we’d head outside to find the bus. How come ours was always the furthest away and already full of sweating and contrary families? Just like ours.

Outside the apartment, I’d grab the passports and head for the reception desk, with the notion that we might get the best apartment. Usually one of the children left a soft toy on the bus which led to further angst, and a promise to buy a new one the next day. The carefully allocated daily budget was already diminishing.

Tired, sweaty and hungry, we got our first glimpse inside our two-week home. ‘It’s a bit bare, isn’t it?’ was the response. However, after half an hour, it looked like Penneys on Christmas Eve. The kids fought over beds and plundered the cases for swimwear. ‘Will you wait for your sun cream’ was a generally ignored instruction.

On our last holiday as a complete family, Cathal, our son aged 11, spent all day in the pool. I did my best, honestly I did, to keep sun cream on his body, but you know kids and water, and he just didn’t want to get out. We went for a lovely meal in town where he complained all evening about his shoulders. I checked. Scalded. I dashed across the road to the pharmacy and grabbed a bottle of aftersun gel, lashed it on his shoulders and applied it again before bed.

The following morning he said his shoulders were sticky. I tried to read the Spanish words on the bottle. Hair gel! We still get a laugh out of it when we look at the photographs.

On holidays, the local Irish pub was like an institution to us. Murphy’s bar in Puerto del Carmen showed the RTÉ news and GAA matches at weekends, so it became a nightly ritual.

The haggling with the street sellers, filtering between the tables with their watches and flashing toys, intrigued the children. So we bought these things to keep them happy and amused; things that invariably broke within an hour. Little things like that made our memories.

Between mosquito bites, sunburn drama, lost toys, tears and laughter, the holiday was certainly memorable. But ultimately we had to go home.

With cases packed on the morning of departure we’d sit outside in the sweltering heat, dressed up, waiting for a bus which was not due to arrive until the afternoon. The gloss would fade as tempers rose. We might be first to be collected by the bus, but then we had to endure the drive around the other apartments and the rush to get up into the queue at the airport. Trying to keep the kids in line. Trudging in the heat with overflowing suitcases. Searching for passports and tickets. ‘I thought you had them.’ Rolling of eyes. ‘No, you have them.’ More stress.

As the children slept on the plane, I looked at Aidan and said, ‘never again,’ like I’d said every year. But little did I know, there would never be a ‘never again’ moment. I have the photographs. I have the memories. But Aidan died in May 2009, and our children are not little children any more, so we no longer scrutinise the brochures after Christmas, searching for the dream family holiday. Time fades the sunburn. Time fades the stress. But time cannot fade the memories.

We have had our family holidays – hair gel for after-sun included.