Holiday withdrawal

I haven't blogged since September. Four months - probably a record. There are two main reasons for this. The first is work - I have been working pretty much full-time for the last few months, on top of kids, house and all the usual things that take up hours, and I just haven't found - or been able to justify - the time to sit down and write a blog entry. The second reason - and this is more depressing -  is a distinct lack of holidays to blog about.

The last time I blogged, we'd not long got back from France. Granted, it was only two weeks and not the five weeks of old, but it did inspire me to write Magic municipals. We didn't go away again until the end of October, our now-regular half-term trip to the Bitacora in Tenerife. Given that I've already blogged about it at least four times (Four star favourite, If you can't beat them..., Same old, same old and Spring Hotel Bitacora, Tenerife), I didn't really have much more to add. It's not an adventurous holiday. It's not about seeing new places or trying new things. It's about going to a familiar hotel - which we really like - and relaxing. Chilling on the beach or by the pool, eating lots and the children being entertained. To be fair, this year we did have the novelty of an amazing upgrade to a Level 8 Terrace room - that's definitely worth a few pictures but maybe not a whole blog post!

Our Level 8 Terrace - probably bigger than my house...

Some of the amazing views from our balcony

Breakfast delivered to our balcony on our last morning

We planned on a weekend visit to Bruges in December to see the Christmas markets but we left it too late - reasonably priced family rooms are few and far between on the continent, or so we've found, and there was nothing available that would accommodate all of us and still leave us enough money to actually eat. Needless to say, we didn't go, and another blogging opportunity slipped through the net.

So here I am, heading towards the end of January, not having been on holiday for nearly three months. Okay, okay, I know that's nothing for a lot of people but this time of year is the longest I ever go between holidays. And on one level I don't mind, as Christmas is the one time of year I'd prefer to be at home with family than to be on holiday (Christmas (no) holidays...). But I do start to get itchy feet around now. Christmas is over, the weather is cold, the nights are long and the best way to cheer myself up is a holiday. We'd already booked Corfu for the summer and Tenerife (again!) for October, but they're forever away. So we've now booked Center Parcs in the Netherlands for Easter and I feel a bit better. But that's still three months away. And I'm getting serious holiday withdrawal symptoms...

Clearly, this is easily fixed: I need another holiday and I need it as soon as possible. So we're currently looking at a couple of nights in London during February half-term. Money, weather and work limit how long we can go away for and how far we can go, but I'll be happy just to get away for a bit. I wish I didn't still have a month to go, but at least I can spend the next few weeks planning things to do. And I'll finally have something new to blog about!