How to feel like you're on holiday when you're not?

[qualityjaisket]

I'm really craving a week (or several) in the sun but have no plans for holidays this year. How can I recreate that holiday feeling at home?

Eat in a dodgy restaurant and spend next 2 days on the loo

Keep applying sunscreen regardless of the fact it is -2 outside

Weed the garden using a plastic bucket and spade. Pretend its sand.

Decide that Mediterranean sunshine makes your skin look soooo much better and decide to go make up free. Then Weep in horror at the photos which reveal your blotchy, wrinkly, red and gurning face in every shot when you thought you looked like a bohemian goddess.

Spray your hair with salt water to make it dry and crunchy.

Buy some revealing, totally inappropriate clothes and never wear them again

Record your kids asking
"Are we nearly there yet?" In whiny voices.
Play it over and over...

Stand beside your child's sand pit and eat your dinner pretending it's a beach BBQ , whilst swaying and singing to the bee gees and drinking blow your head off strength cocktails.

Wear an inappropriately short skirt, vest and sparkly flip flops to do it and wrap a pashmina round your shoulders. Don't style your hair, because you know the heat will just make it drop out. Wear only mascara and lip gloss cos you're now naturally tanned and beautiful.

Then turn the music up and have yourself a beach disco.

Put a mop with a sign on it outside your loo saying it's being cleaned and could you use an alternative.

Buy a suduko puzzle book, fill in three numbers, then fan yourself with it whilst moaning it's too hot. Leave it on the table for two weeks then pack it away for 'next year'

Just trying to save money Foldedtshirt.

Make a fort. Did this once pre marriage and kids but could be even more fun with kids. Bring mattresses into the living room and have floor picnics and pretend you are camping.

Drinking from lunch time.
Eating a disgusting amount of food.
No cleaning or clearing up.
Laughing and laying about.
Going on day trips.

Watch Benidorm on netflix to get some good ideas!

Have a great manicure. Apply insect repellent containing veet in a room with a tiled floor. Skate around at high speed. Marvel as your nail polish smears and dissolves.

Put BBC world service on, or at least download their clubby background music.

Meticulously wash and iron all your linen clothes. Pack them with every summery thing you own into a case. Wrestle it closed. Wear 4 items from it on rotation for the next week.

Buy a shitload more clothes from a market to complement your new holiday look - patterned drawstring cuffed trousers may suddenly appeal. Never wear them. Open case, wash and iron everything again, including the unworn linens, pack away for next year.

Listen to the same song for a fortnight. Eg Agadoo or The Birdie Song. Learn all the moves and use them impress your friends when back off holiday.

Talk very LOUDLY and very SLOWLY in english/franglaise

Go to your local pool at peak time, take your lilo. Float in middle as screeching kids jump in all around you.

Be on holiday even though you're not. Adopt that holiday frame of mind.

Eat ice cream in the street. Build a sand pit in the garden. Let your worries go.

Most holiday experiences can be recreated at home.... don't worry what people think, just enjoy yourself in the wY you would ifno one was watching.

Just imagine what you would do if you had hired your home as a holiday home. Okay what you would do after you had complained about the house being let to you dirty.

You would not bother with cleaning. You would visit local attractions, eat out and generally try and have a lovely time.

Make dinner without a chopping board or a sharp knife on two rings that will only turn to 'boil to death' or wouldn't melt butter.

Drink coffee out of tiny 1970's mugs.

Feed kids cereal in bowls which fit 3 x rice crispies and a show of milk.

Use the same tea towel for a week

Make a salt srub & get it in your bits, under nails and in your sandwiches and one lone grain in your eye.

Drink warm cans of estrella with wasps in.

Variety packs for breakfast - starting off with all the nice ones and then argue with the rest of the family about the cornflakes that are left - then give in and but another pack!

I needed this thread tonight

OP,

Amuse yourself by replicating the full "Z-Lister sleb abroad" tabloid experience:

Ask/ bribe friends to pap stalk you.
(Staged-to-the-finest-detail 'spontaneous' shots only).

(NB You must express weary resignation throughout: bloody press have had nerve to follow your Agent's tip-off invade your privacy. Again).

Classic Sleb On Hol pics to include:

1. 5 changes of swimwear:

(Bikinis to be borderline inappropriate. Swimsuits to feature over-intricate straps, cutouts and DayGlo. Must be accessorised with unfeasibly high wedges, full make-up and ridiculous "statement" hat). Location: 'beach' sandpit and a potted palm.

1. (a) Flatteringly-angled, beach yoga session:

(Must have the audacity to show in public "flaunt" ample assets/ toned pins/ pert posterior, thus demonstrating efficacy of own fitness DVD). [ In Daily Fail world, this is deemed v. v. good ...permit yourself a #blessed Instagram, and a kale-alfalfa-and-sprout detox juice. You may add coconut milk for exotic, tropical vibe; go on, spoil yourself, you deserve it].

or

(b) UNflatteringly-angled, sunbed shot:
(Must be mid-mouthful of delicious, calorific snack. Must be clutching excess stomach or thigh. Must look despondent with self-disgust).
[ In Daily Fail world, this is deemed v. v. bad (sad face), though v. v. good for planned Xmas weight-loss DVD sales...reward yourself with Bacardi from the minibar].

1. Glimpses into your glamorous, cosmopolitan holiday lifestyle:

Improvise. Imply, yet never actually lie, that it's 5 star luxury all the way, oh Hell yeah. e.g. Impression hinted at by Sleb: a week's worth of 'time aboard our yacht haven'... The reality: a freebie (moored) hour for photos to update their bloody social media status, in exchange for glowing endorsement of hire company, by someone who was once in series 5 of Big Brother. Hmm).

Book a massage/facial/manicure

Enjoy!

Crank the heating up to 30°C before you go to bed.

Recreate jetlag by going to bed at 7 and setting your alarm for 3 am. Get up and stumble round in a disoriented fug for a couple of hours, then be first in the queue when your nearest tourist attraction opens for the day. Fall asleep face down in your pudding at dinner.