Tag Archives: travelling with kids

Come now fisherman!

Dangerous beach toy

For those of you who had a guess on Would you let your child play with this? – here is the correct answer and full image.

Whilst on holiday, we were out walking along the sand dunes and came upon a whole lot of gorgeous shells…then some fishing line…and narrowly missed standing on an extemely sharp, new knife (not the one in the image). It was a chilling experience and seconds before I found it, the kids had walked within millimetres of it and I dread to think how the outcome would have been had they stood or fallen on it. I  found a safe spot to dispose of the said knife.

The next day, once we were over that incident and had shown the kids to keep an eye out, we were back on the beach and I was putting the beach towels up when our 4 year old piped up ‘Look what I found! Another one!’ A bit confused as to what he was trying to tell me – he brought his little hand up and in it was the knife above.

This time – there was the initial chill that went through my body after the shock of making sure he hadn’t cut himself and then confusion and then pure anger! The questions racing through my mind :

  • How on earth did he get his hands on it?
  • How had I missed it?
  • How can fishermen be so careless and selfish? (with silent swear words in amongst those I spose I should add)
  • How many more knives?

And plenty more. He answered very casually  that it was right next to my foot where I had stepped back to start setting the towels up. No he hadn’t touched it the sharp side.

As you can see – it must have washed up on the overnight tide as it is pretty rusty. I also think it was probably a good thing that we had shown them the one from the previous day and thankful that we hadn’t stood on it whilst jumping in the waves where we would never have seen it.

Travelling long haul with kids – the preparation

We’re heading off to a land of sunshine to celebrate a milestone birthday for my mum. The boys have been so excited as apparently they love sleeping in the plane (although I think they forget just how long the flight it).

Sunny Climes

We’ll have the 3 hour wait at Heathrow for check in etc, a 12 hour overnight long haul followed by a 2 hour stop over for the last 1 hour short hop to our first destination. Thankfully we won’t have to deal with time zone differences as we are going due South.

This is the plan so far :

  1. Phoned the airline and connected supportive husband’s ticket to ours as he is flying out at a later date to meet us. This means when we check-in for the rest of our holiday and return home, that he will be seated with us and not on the opposite side of the plane. Before you ask, this almost happened once when we didn’t realise you needed to connect all tickets flying together.
  2. Booked kiddies meals for the long hauls. You would think this happened automatically when you select the ‘child age’ option. But no…that seems to just be for information purposes only and they don’t do much with it.  I discovered this on one of the long hauls with the boys and thought the mum behind me was super organised to have their Cottage Pie cooked before she got on the flight. I then asked her the next morning how she arranged for her children to get their breakfast before everyone else when I was complimenting her on the being so organised with cooking their dinner before hand. She very kindly informed me that she wished that was the case, but that she had booked children’s meals. So I made the mental note for the next time and sure enough – it is the case!
  3. Booked seats near the bulkhead where possible or available. I am never sure about these seats as they are usually close to the toilets but it means I won’t have to worry about the people in front potentially having their seat kicked. Our boys don’t usually do that but I am not going to tempt fate.
  4. Travel insurance – double check it is in place for all members of the family. We usually have one of us going down with a bug we have either caught on the plane or change in weather etc.
  5. Have sachets of Calpol and Nurofen to hand and loads of sucking sweets too. Our boys suffer terribly with their ears and so taking some 30 mins prior to take off and at the start of descent helps.
  6. Loads of little puzzles, travel games and easy craft type things for them to do. You never know when the tv’s don’t work. I once had an entire row that didn’t work for the whole journey.
  7. Travel antibac and wet wipes. They come in handy.
  8. 1 change of clothes for each of us in case our luggage gets lost. I also tend to put cool clothing in for when we land as to go from 1-9 degrees to 30 degrees is something their little bodies suffer with and of course I swap it to warm clothing for when we come back.
  9. Water (yes from duty free) in case there is a delay on the plane for take off.
  10. Snacks like breadsticks or crackers. They don’t contain much sugar but help to pass the time. If the flight is around or after their usual dinner time, make sure you have either fed them a snack or a full meal prior to boarding.

I hope this helps and there are loads more on my to do list – those (apart from passports) are the important ones.

One more thing – contact tattoos

I am not sure who else does this, but there is a ritual I perform with our boys before we head out on a train to London (or anywhere else on a train) or go to a fair or gathering of thousands of people. Sounds serious and a bit OCD ish you may think but it’s not THAT bad.

I :

  1. Make a note on a piece of paper with their name, contact numbers and address for each of them and put it in a secure pocket. The boys are shown the paper and see where it is so that if they get lost they know to give it to someone.
  2. ‘Tattoo’ their name and contact numbers with a felt tip pen on their backs should their piece of paper get lost and they know to just show their backs to someone.
  3. Take a photo of them
  4. Drill into them to only hold the hands of the adults they know (mum, dad, uncle, granny etc)

I should probably add this to my earlier post of things I do when out and about with the boys. I am slowly getting to the point of thinking they may be old enough to operate a mobile/cell phone.  Is this overkill? Possibly and I hope that I never have to discover that it is not.

I’d love to hear any other tips you may have.