My XH and I were taking my DS on a family holiday to Scotland - we were driving from the South coast to his Mother’s family village where his brother lived to meet up with a large number of extended family, and were travelling in our Mitsubishi Delica.
We had to pick up our trailer tent as (joy of joys) we were going to be camping and it was stored at his parents place in the North of our county. As we had recently changed vehicles, we had to change the number plate on said trailer tent.
Numpty Ex had neglected to bring a screwdriver so used his pocket knife to do this …… and stabbed himself badly in the hand 🙄
Rather than turn around to a local hospital, Ex bandaged himself up and said we’d find somewhere on the way, which we did - he got patched up and we continued on our way. Running late, but on track…..
Then one of the tires on the trailer tent blew, so we had to stop under a flyover on the motorway, Ex had a spare and changed it - police turned up, made sure everything was ok and off we went again.
Of course by the time we got just across the border it was the middle of the night. We’re off the motorway and on normal roads.
And then - the other trailer tent tire also blew. Obviously we’re now out of spares, so we call the AA or whoever we were with, and have to wait about three hours for them to find us.
DS was about 8 or 9 and was surprisingly good - I think we played the longest game of “I went to the shop and bought a turtle” in history, and a tow truck arrived and loaded the trailer tent and got us to the village we were heading for where BIL lives. We’d been keeping everyone informed, and as we didn’t have the trailer tent to sleep in, we went to BILs house and we’re put up there in their adult sons room - he was away, can’t remember where, but he had the hardest mattress I have ever encountered so although shattered it was not a good nights sleep.
It took two days to get the trailer tent sorted, then we got to the campsite and got settled.
DS was sleeping in the van, we were in the trailer tent. Our first night camping, there was a mahoosive thunderstorm and a bolt of lightning but the ground so close to the van my poor DS was absolutely terrified. Thus began the wettest summer Scotland had seen since the 40s apparently.
I remember standing in the middle of the campsite absolutely losing my shit and yelling at the Gods like a banshee before dissolving into hysterical laughter…… and thinking “You couldn’t make this shit up”
Ex wasn’t the most clam and stable of people and the whole family in-law dynamics were very odd to put it politely so while all this was going on, there was a whole hooha about whether his tetanus was up to date necessitating another hospital visit and concern about his health etc - to be fair he had actually damaged a tendon. I had suggested not ploughing ahead but rufty tufty biker man had to be a hero 🙄
It was the wettest, most stressful and chaotic holiday ever.
I spent a lot of time laughing manically so I didn’t cry…..