So it’s fair to say in 10 yrs there have been many of these but I thought I’d start with the worst one and hope that in publishing it, it won’t lead to my immediate and overdue arrest….!!
Soon after the birth of Bella, we were to go on a lovely holiday abroad! It was the first time we’d ventured overseas since becoming parents and we were looking forward to it to say the least! The holiday was to be in France, staying in a lovely villa with Daddy dearest and respective step family. Dad had arranged the accommodation, all we had to do is sort the travel over etc…We all had our passports already but had to sort Bella’s almost as soon as she was born, something I find mind boggling really, honestly what can differentiate one newborn baby photo from another? Anyways, passports sorted, bags packed, we awoke in the early hours to make the journey down to get the eurotunnel over to Calais! Happy days! A hot car, many stops and delirious exhaustion later, we arrived, an hour before our departure! Smugedy smug Mummy even had time to browse the duty free feeling proud that she had actually achieved punctuality when travelling with 3 children on the hottest of days…
After half an hour we were called to passport control, so we all dutifully trotted off back to the car to make our way round. As we got nearer to the barriers, I reached into by bag to get the carefully organised folder with all passports, tickets and directions and pulled out the 4 passports contained within….oh shit, shit, shit…in that second I immediately knew beyond any doubt, I’d only brought 4 frickin passports. Terribly organised I’d been taking Bella to have her photo taken and sending off for the damn thing, apparently not so in remembering to bring it with us, despite all my OCD checking, it seems in my head we were still a family of 4….feeling my voice getting shrill and panicky, I tried to calmly inform Max of my ‘mishap’ (catastrophic f’up!) without alerting the children to the said situation. We were literally 2 cars away from the booth and at this point, I had already reconciled the idea that we’d be turning round to make the long journey back home to collect the damn thing and try again tomorrow, Max however, as a total chancer of all things, was not seemingly on the same page. Confidently driving up to the booth, hissing at Esme to be quiet as she was repeating Mummy’s panicked words about ‘smuggling children’, and ‘breaking the law’, he calmly threw a coat over Bella’s car seat, handed over the FOUR passports and engaged the officer in a conversation about F’ing LOON BANDS of all things as he had noticed he had a bracelet on, presumably made by his own child, that matched his own….for some reason that escapes me to this day, the passport officer not only engaged in this inane chit chat, but then ushered us straight through to catch the train…….
Once on the train I think I had the closest thing I’ve ever experienced to a panic attack!! It was like being in labour all over again, hot flushes, panting, crying, insanely giggling, nearly wee-ing myself…all in the confined space of our car….I honestly didn’t know what to do with myself as I was convinced that on exiting the train, we’d be going through another control where the gendarme would be waiting to take my children away from me and arrest us for trying to smuggle them into the country!!! In the midst of said panic attack, Max calmly called my Dad, who thankfully had not yet left, and asked him to nip up to our house and get the abandoned passport, he then routinely mopped my brow and reassured Esme and Lucy that no they were not going to be taken away, and yes Mummy was fine and was not going to spontaneously combust as she has never, ever done anything even borderline illegal in her life before this but was convinced she was now going to prison. Bella slept through the whole thing. 10 mins later we drove off the train and very unceremoniously onto the motorway, and continued on to our first stop….
On the way back, now thankfully in possession of 5 passports, we weren’t just stopped, no, we all had to get out of the car while it was searched…the irony….!
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It's a mums life. 