Anyone else finding this a very LONG weekend?

[Sheila]

Is it just me but are bank holidays terrible times for single parents? I can't remember when I was last so exhausted. Any tips, anyone? I'm at home again tomorrow.

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I can completely sympathise. The solution for me has been to make a point of planning things to do. If I leave weekend/bank holiday activities to spontaneous inspiration, it usually goes horribly wrong. Both dd and I climb the walls and get ratty with each other.

On recent bank holidays, we have done picnics, gone kite flying, visited a friend in the country (overnight stay), gone to a new park and explored around, met up with other friends/kids for bicycle rides and ball games, taken a boat ride, gone for a ride on one of those hop on/hop off open topped tour buses, etc. In some ways I'm fortunate to live in London where there's lots to do, and with only the one child (age 4) activities and logistics aren't impossibly complicated.

Next time, try to have at least one activity per day in mind so that you can work toward it rather than being driven crazy by demanding children.

I sympathise too. I hate Bank holidays too. There seem to be loads of them now unless it's just me!

No advice really except to echo what everyone else has said and find some me time when the kids have gone to bed even just half an hour in the bath or reading a good book.. works for me mostly

i really hate bank holidays,have a 5yr old and a 10 month old and i dont have a car and am a single mum so i just spend all day in the house apart from when i nip round to the shop,and my daughter is off school for a week so its a week long bank hol!my mum and my sister love bank hols cos they have other halves and cars and they cant understand why i dread them so much.

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yep, I hate them too, the baby groups have stopped for 2 weeks so the isolation can get intense, just spent a couple of hours cycling round with my 13 mo dd to try to feel better and the town and playgrounds were empty, felt worse, I will try to do something tomorrow and hope I am not too knackered. I am also a single mum with family far away who I don't see much,
sending hugs

I hate them too, single mum with no family within 1000 miles and really suffer from cabin fever. I try to plan something for each day. I'm in London which makes it easier as there's always something to do but the cost is an issue. We take picnic lunches to museums and do bus/train rides to interesting and rarely-visited areas of the city. I also encourage my DS to write a diary so he's always keen to go to new and exciting places so that he's got something new to put in his diary.

I'd forgotten just how difficult the Easter weekend is. For the last two years I've been on a SingleWithKids holiday so this year has been such a shock staying at home. The weather hasn't helped of course but I hate times when places close and everyone else is doing 'family' stuff.

I won't be at home next Easter, that's for sure!

Long...but not seven years long, thankfully

what's with all the withdrawn messages?

i just came here thinking of starting a similar sort of thread and saw this one.

it is hard this time for me. last holidays i took the boy and dog off to the peak district and stayed in a b&b close to a friends house and spent much of the time with her. this time nothing planned and it has been so long and tiring and frankly quite depressing

definitely the trick is to keep busy but i find it easier said than done.

i don't drive and live in a village and don't know any other single mums round here. and yes as someone else said everyone is busy doing 'family stuff'.

currently feeling guilty that ds is watching telly again and i'm on mn but just feel knackered and bleurgh and weather is awful and.... hmpf.

bloody bank holidays.

oh i see - it's a really old thread - how did it come back to life?

Feel fraudulent as not a 'real' LP. Am living with H who refuses to move out, and I can't afford to. He deals in this by going to His friends from 11am-11pm and sleeping in DS1s room until 1030/11am.

I do literally everything. Not exaggerating. He sometimes picks up milk. That. Is. It.

Anyway. BH are a special kind of hell. Planned to stay and sort out all those little jobs. Reality check. Am getting over horrid cold so too knackered. DS2 is up at 3 and 6 everyday, DS2 is refusing to take a nap.

Got no money after H took my last 600 to give to MiL (found my secret hiding place). DM won't come and help because she has to stay and look after her dog and I couldn't afford nor practically manage getting there.

Thus am sat on sofa, DCs playing on dirty floor, whinging from boredom, chunks of spag Bol everywhere, piles of laundry/clean/dirty/wet here aNd there, a sea of crumbs, my clothes have been on 2 days. Going to sleep when they did was huge mistake, have planned no meal, house in chaos, IKEA bags I'll of junk everywhere. The disorganisation is making me more tired than losing those 2 hrs would.

All the while friends and their supportive partners are off doing family things. Like the idea of booking holiday. Next time. No suggestions, I am massively failing. Can't wait to go to work. Though not looking forward to inventing a response to "how was your weekend"

sounds like life will be easier and happier when you are a 'real' single parent BMS!

sounds a really tough time and i think surviving would suffice for now rather than having high standards that you beat yourself up for not meeting.

is there any way to get him out? no family who could help? sorry for your situation.

He stole £600 from you?
Have you spoken to a solicitor? It all sounds really hard, no wonder you feel down. He needs to leave if you and your children can't afford to.

Maybe you should start your own thread in relationships, and get some more advice about what you can do about this horrible situation.

Thanks, apols for hijack. I am a solicitor. My friend popped round as he was passing through, I started crying (I never cry) cue conversation in their language the gist of which was "what's up with her? She's exhausted you moron, she is only with you bec she can't get rid of you." he leaves. She helps clean up, gets DS1 to sleep holds ds2, and makes me lie on sofa. Then got me dinner. I am lucky.

I have held off relationships posting. I feel my OP would be so long and painful to write I can't face it. Here's hoping for better.