To think my wife is being unreasonable

[SomeGuy]

We are going to Mexico next week (flights not yet booked, but about to be).

Flights on Monday cost £735 total for our family of 4

On Wednesday the cost is £895 for our family of 4.

DW is organiser of a monthly lunch meetup with her friends. There are usually about six women, with their children, and each brings food. The next meet-up is not at our place, but at the house of one of the other people involved, and is scheduled for next Tuesday.

She says we can't go on Monday, saving £160, because she has given her word that the lunch meet would take place on Tuesday, and she says they would probably cancel it if she doesn't come (even though it's at one of her friend's house, who quite frequently has a lunch with just one other person).

I think she is being unreasonable, because there is frequently one of the 6 that cannot make it, and there's not really a significant difference between 5 cooking for 5 and 6 cooking for 6.

It's not that we can't afford the extra £160, it just seems wrong to 'waste' it.

See this is why Americans shouldn't be allowed on holiday (from a hotel review, by an American):

"Rafa will bring you out on a small Cat just past the reef (no charge) but please tip well. My husband caught the biggest fish of his life (about 35 pounds) and he had a blast. Rafa is an amazing guy and one of the nicest people you will ever meet. He will help you with kayaks and snorkeling gear also. They do not charge for any of this but I would encourage tipping these people well as they are extremely generous and kind.

The golf carts work nicely although I am sure during high season you can end up waiting for them...This is why there needs to be bikes! We tipped every time we rode but I can tell they do not expect it...again the charm of good service."

Gah, just stop it! You are paying a fortune for the hotel, the golf buggy to the beach is already in the price. STOP.

You see the people who stay in Banyan Tree resorts and such like have (in general) more money than sense. Chucking down a $50 note is probably the equivalent of 50p to most of us.

I know the thread has moved on and very amusing it is thanks SG, but a 10-hour flight with toddler would be a deal-breaker for me. I'd be dreading the return journey the whole time and I should know, I have to trek to the frozen wastelands of Birmingham twice a year from the S.E

Unless you were thinking of travelling with DC sedated / with au pair / on another flight that is.

erm.

waves hand in the air.

If you guys have quite finnished slagging of SomeGuys employment status and time on mumsnet, I would just like to add that it takes me no more than 30 minutes to pack for a family of 4 to go on holiday to whereever. Wheter we are camping or flying, or driving out on a weekend break. Packing is no big deal. It has taken me 3 weeks to look at flight and holiday options this year.

I think we are doing the following:

dh flies to Munich on tuesday, buys campervan. Me and kids fly to Copenhagen on Friday, joins dh who will have puchased camper and driven to copenhagen. We go to Legoland. We drive to Gdansk to hook up with MIL. We drive up Sweden, Finland, and take a detour to the Northcape before we head home.
PLANNING can be harder than packing.

Sorrry.
as you were.

Well the return journey is actually better. Outbound journey is at 10:35am, and DD will quite possibly be awake for the entire flight.

Return flight is more reasonable, 17:05, hopefully she will sleep through most of it.

Planning is a nightmare. First I scout out cheap flights on skyscanner. Then I work out where to stay, which involves many hours on tripadvisor, finding nice hotels that don't turn out to be 15 miles from anywhere and are not run by Basil Fawlty.

Then I work out where to go, which involves further hours printing restaurant addresses, names of attractions, maps.

We are going to Holland next month because DW has a get together. Not doing any planning for that, just going to fly there, go to get-together, and then come back. Although DW wants me to ask my parents to look after the DCs so that we can spend a couple of nights in Amsterdam going out to clubs and smoking dope, or whatever it is you do in Amsterdam. The get together is many miles from Amsterdam and was billed as a family thing in a youth hostel-type place, but it appears other people going are leaving DCs behind, so DW doesn't want to be left out.

I bet you forget your knickers though.

Is your dw very young?

My DW is 9 months older than me.

I love trip advisor - do you post reviews?

Oh that's good. My DS hasn't slept for more than three or four hours without waking in two years and that's when he's in a familiar environment. Please ignore me, I'm just and unfamiliar with the (to me) miraculous sleeping baby / toddler.

If you get up early and there is lots of activity there's a good chance that your DD will have a nap on the morning flight anyway. Enjoy, SG

I have posted several reviews on tripadvisor. I reviewed the Riad we stayed in Marrakech twice it was so bad.

Not Riad Farnatchi? I thought it was lovely.

Nope, the place we stayed in was owned by a supercilious Frenchman.

DW doesn't like the French. Partly based on that, and partly because of our trip to the Buffalo Grill in Calais (chain American-themed steakhouse) where she ordered in English (which is her second/third language) and they pretened not to understand her and ended up not bringing her any food.

And when she asked for butter they pretended not to understand that as well, I had to say 'beurre'.

She wouldn't have minded if she'd been buying onions off some gnarled old man, but this was a restaurant in Calais essentially aimed at les rosbif.

Oh why do the French hate butter? I post on tripadvisor too - I love the way the Americans hate the hotels some people love - and vice versa!

French people tend to over butterise hf - I read that it was Mrs Someguy they were unkeen on as she ordered in English.

Lovely to see you Pan! Are you well? You will be pleased to know I have a housekeeper courtesy of the Govt.

yes they pretended not to understand 'butter', requested in English.

And then when DW ordered her main course (ribs, I think) they pretended, not only not to understand, but also that as DW had not been speaking French, they refused to acknowledge she'd said anything at all, and came back twenty minutes later with food for DS and I, but nothing for DW, as if she would happily sit there watching us all eat.

Well the French are up their own arses after all. And yes I can say that as I have a French BIL and SIL.

Ms Pan is French, so can you please keep ones generalisations to oneself? Having rellies doesn't bestow any rights to insult.

• also, Buffalo Grill is the pits, according to Ms Pan - I wanted to stop at one, and she just gave a nice Gallic shrug......such non-verbalers....

and hi hf!!

Why oh why do people get so arsey on MN? People just take things the wrong way on here. It's the same in RL too.

I regularly get called posh. At work people say let X deal with it - she's posh. Can you imagine the guffaw if I said 'Oh Y is common, let her deal with it.'

I had fond memories of Buffalo Grill, having been subjected to trips to France as a teenager and finding that, absent local knowledge, the average French restaurant is at least as bad (and perhaps worse) than the typical British ones.

Hence the trip back, for nostalgia's sake.

Perhaps my tastebuds have been spoilt by DW's habit of spending £50 on lunch for random semi-strangers, but the Buffalo Grill sadly wasn't as I remembered it.

What a funny thread.

I particularly like StarBear's emerging novel. If I could add one minor amendment to her plot:

Dolly Parton and her bfanjo band