petite anglaise

… you decide to remove the year of your birth from facebook.

The boy and I nearly didn’t make it to the Cyclades at all.

The night before we were due to leave, I was wrenched out of a deep sleep by the sound of my mobile phone vibrating loudly against the dining table in the next room. The Boy shifted, muttered something inaudible, then resumed his gentle snoring. I was in two minds about whether to bother hauling myself out of bed. The odds on Mr Frog calling with some sort of Tadpole emergency in the middle of the night were very slim, I reasoned. It was, most likely, a wrong number. I would check in the morning…

Five minutes later, resigned to the fact that sleep would only elude me if I didn’t solve the mystery of the nocturnal phone call, I blundered through into the kitchen without my glasses, swearing as I stubbed my toe on the door frame.

Flipping open the phone, holding the screen the requisite five centimetres from the tip of my nose, I read “Missed call: G7.”

“Merde MERDE MERDE!” I yelped. “The taxi company… Oh Jesus, it’s 6.52! We were supposed to be downstairs five minutes ago! WHY THE HELL DIDN’T THE ALARM GO OFF?”

Sitting in a(nother) taxi fifteen minutes later, unwashed, dishevelled, heart still racing, I gave the Boy (he who had been entrusted with the task of setting the alarm) a sidelong glance, and wondered whether this stressful start augured ill for the rest of our holiday.