You can also contact us by clicking here.You’ve probably packed too much. Cabin crew are not happy when I help them squeeze each bag in the overhead lockers and footwells underneath the seats. My 19-year-old has brought five and a half bikinis – we are away for a week – and her sister, four. For comparison, I have only taken one pair of trunks. The 19-year-old’s boyfriend has mercifully adopted a more minimal approach – just one wheelie for him – while the 17-year-old’s best friend has a different outfit for every day.
The extracurricular activities that we are doing right now may be the reason for our unusual excitement. Humans are able to understand and communicate with each other Baggage in tow. This year, each daughter was allowed to bring a friend along on our summer vacation. We can be together but mainly apart.
This is how people like it now.
Then it all happened at once. We had previously been a tight family of four who enjoyed each other’s company and loved going abroad. But then the girls grew fully into their Kevin and Perry years, and abruptly our holidays became protracted affairs, pierced by arguments, sulking and occasional stormings off, my wife’s attempts at diplomacy mostly failing. The girls were divided between the two. One wanted to go to the beach and the other preferred the pool. Both then decided that they would rather stay in bed. They were all made worse by their phones.
My wife insisted that I continue to go on these holidays. The last time we went on a holiday was about two years ago. I remember one evening in Skiathos when my then-17-year old daughter announced that she wanted cocktails. We went to a bar full of young people, bought three full-powered drinks and an equivalent non-alcoholic drink for her 15-year-old sister. The gesture was a failure. We sat in silence as my daughter fumed at our very presence (me in sandals), and I reeled at the €50 bar bill.
The three of us had different expectations for our vacation. There was bickering over breakfast options and wifi reliability, while my wife maintained the conviction that any loose collection of bricks upon the island – which she quaintly termed “historical ruins” – was worth a 30-minute trek in 32C heat to go visit. All I wanted was to sit in a café with a view of the sea and read my book.
This is why we agreed to let them bring guests this summer. Add water to the soup in order to dilute it. We are in southern Spain. The 19-year old wants to tan only, while the 17-year old wants to swim. The friend just wants to “have fun”.
My wife says, “Relax.” “It’ll be fine.”
Seville greets us with thick heat, cicadas chirping and an instant atmosphere of flip-flops and crop tops. Our seven-seater rental car is huge, and the teens pack it full of pale, spread-out limbs. Within seconds of hitting the motorway, they are fast asleep. It’s two hours to Cádiz, and I keep turning to look at them, to make sure they’re OK, these people we’re required to keep alive for the next seven days. During the early years of our daughters, we met their friends’ parents. This stopped when they reached secondary education, as it was deemed inappropriate to expose them.
These are the children, in essence, of strangers. It is a heavy burden. Whenever we go away, the dog-sitter sends us photographs of the dog, presumably to show us that she is safe and well. Should we be doing the same here for the kids’ parents, and have them holding up today’s newspaper to confirm the date?
“I’ll deal with it,” my wife says, a woman with more numbers in her phone book than I have in mine.
Zahara de los Atunes – a small coastal town famous for its local tuna – is where we stay. Spanish tourists outnumber Brits by a 99 to 1 ratio. We arrive at our hotel just before midnight. The air conditioner is complicated and the fans in the bedrooms are seized with seizures. I’m tired, but my children have a new energy. They want to walk into town or drive five minutes. Someone will have to drive them. We have toss it. My wife loses.
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Every morning we wake up to the sound of a mausoleum as they rest from the night. On the kitchen table are the leftovers and dregs from sticky alcoholic beverages that the ants found. They are now busy telling their friends. After a quiet, peaceful breakfast on our balcony, my wife and I head early to the seaside before the winds start. The wind in the afternoon here is called the levanteIt is strong enough for you to be lifted from your towel, carried across the Strait of Gibraltar and dropped in Morocco. We constantly check our phones for signs that they have woken up. They send us a shopping list from the supermarket when they wake up, usually around midday. The list includes Haribo, Bacardi, and chips. Instead, we buy them ingredients for fresh summer salads.
We all revert to typing helplessly. We remind them to use sunscreen, be aware of riptides and know where calamine cream is. Then they ignore it all and just sigh, muttering “yes, yes”. We encourage them to drink plenty of water, and we navigate the minor squabbles that arise with nothing like aplomb. (It is too hot for aplomb.)
My wife suggests the usual tourist attractions: museums, souvenir shops, churches with stained glass windows. They don’t seem to be interested. They want rum. I have 800 pages and the latest Sally Rooney. Helen Garner’s diaries Get through
Sometimes we do get together in a group. One day, we drive an hour to Cádiz, its picturesque old town full of narrow streets and a vibrant food market. We eat tapas and drink wine, and the plus-ones listen patiently while we tell silly family stories in the way that all families do – and, as with all families, probably reveal ourselves as eccentric at best, or else certifiably mad. The plus-ones tolerate us and that is the most important thing. It’s going to be a wonderful evening.
When it’s time to leave, there is a strange anticipation. I’m staying with my wife for a couple of days in order to see the area, and we have a smaller rental car. The kids will be returning to August jobs that help pay for college.
I am surprised to find myself crying at the gate. They all look beautiful, tanned and glowing, with friendship bracelets on their wrists. As I watch them walk away, not only towards customs, but also into adulthood without us, I’m overcome with emotion. I don’t want to let the holiday go, I still want to have it. But I also know that this is the way of life, and that it’s best to let them go.
“Safe flight,” I shout out to them a little loudly. “Please remember to text when you land. Call me!
