#oneaday Day 824: Today is pool and drinks you can chew

Quiet day today, informed slightly by the fact that I woke up in the middle of the night and thought I was going to be sick (I wasn't) and we then slept in until after 1pm. Whoops. Oh well. We are on holiday, and there was nothing we needed to get out of the door for today.

As such, today was a fairly lazy day, though we did make an excursion to the pool, where we spent a pleasant hour and a bit in the warm water of the "Sprudel pool" and its nearby "whirlpool" (actually a jacuzzi) before heading home to have a bit of dinner and pretty much just vegetate on the sofa. Absolutely fine with me. Andie and I are both of a similar mind; a holiday doesn't have to be constantly "doing stuff" — sometimes just being away from your usual surroundings but doing pretty much "normal" things is enough to have a positive effect on your overall wellbeing.

One of the things we've discovered while we are here is a brand of drinks called "Mogu Mogu". I have seen these around before but never tried them, and the ParcMarket (a well-disguised Co-Op) is pushing them hard at the moment. We each tried one flavour yesterday and another today, and we're both big fans.

For the unfamiliar, Mogu Mogu is an Asian (Thai, I believe, though the phrase "mogu mogu" is Japanese) soft drink that consists of a brightly coloured, sugary, fruity drink with lumps of nata de coco floating in it. Nata de coco, if you're unfamiliar, is "coconut gel", or, to put it considerably less appealingly, fermented coconut water.

Now, I won't lie, when I first read the description of these drinks, I wasn't entirely convinced. I was primarily concerned that the presence of something called "coconut gel" would mean that the entire drink tasted of coconut, and while I don't find the flavour of coconut especially offensive (Andie does, meanwhile) I wasn't sure I wanted it in my brightly coloured, sugary, fruity drink.

However, we decided to take a chance — and you know what? They're bloody lovely, they are. Yesterday, I had a bright blue "blackcurrant" one, which reminds one just how inferior sugar-free blackcurrant flavour really is, while Andie had a lychee flavour one, which was a little too floral for my tastes, but she enjoyed it. Today, meanwhile, I had a strawberry one, which was very good, and Andie had a mango one, which was also very tasty.

The present of the nata de coco forms the core gimmick of Mogu Mogu — the Japanese onomatopoeia mogu mogu refers to the act of chewing, and indeed, the fact there are lumps of stuff floating in these drinks mean that with each mouthful you take, you will get a kick of flavour from the liquid part, and be left with a pleasantly chewy part that still tastes of the fruit flavour and not of coconut at all. Nata de coco, it seems, is one of those things that if you bung in something with a strong flavour, it will pretty much just take on the flavour of the thing it is immersed in, making it ideal to provide some things to chew in a drink that markets itself as being… well, a drink you can chew.

The texture of nata de coco is similar to those soft and squishy lumps of pineapple you get in your typical Chinese takeaway sweet and sour sauce, but, as I say, they just taste of whatever flavour drink you got. It's not unpleasant at all, and in a funny way I think it makes you appreciate the drink as a whole a lot more; the very nature of the fact that a mouthful will have both liquid and lumps means that you will tend to take smaller sips rather than guzzling it down in one, allowing you to savour the flavour a bit more than you might otherwise.

Yes, there is a bit of a mental block to get over — and I'm aware that describing a mouthful of this stuff as "having both liquid and lumps" probably isn't helping — but honestly, I was really pleasantly surprised, and we are almost certainly going to try pretty much all of the flavours at least once by the time we depart.

So yeah. That's been today. This has been a good holiday already, and we're kind of still just getting started. Tomorrow we have equally minimal plans, so will probably get up, have some pancakes or waffles (Andie brought a huge bag of mix with her, along with the waffle iron) and then just have another lazy day, perhaps including a dip in the pool again.

Ah, it's so nice to have a do-over on this holiday. And yes, we have been checking in with Oliver via the security cameras while we're away. He seems to be having a lovely time with my mother-in-law, who is giving him lots of attention, treats and playtime. So nothing to worry about there.

Now it's time to head to bed, and perhaps we might even get up before midday tomorrow…

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#oneaday Day 823: Today is spa

As has sort of become "tradition" over the course of our last few holidays at Center Parcs, today we had our day at the Aqua Sana spa. And, as always, it was a thoroughly pleasant experience.

If you've never been to a spa for one reason or another, I highly encourage you to give it a go if the opportunity arises. And, if possible, I recommend going to a proper spa, not a hot shed that a three-star hotel describes as a "sauna".

The Aqua Sana spa here at Center Parcs in Longleat Forest has a number of different "experiences", they call them — they're rooms, really. And each of them very much have their own feel and character.

The centrepiece of the whole thing is a moderately sized circular pool with nice warm water and jacuzzi-style bubbles around about a quarter of the circle's circumference. There's an underwater bench so you can sit in the bubbles, and the rest of the pool is just… sort of there. Andie quite rightly questioned why they didn't just do bubbles all the way around the outside, and I don't really have a good answer for that. Regardless, the pool is a nice stop if you're not sure what to do next, as soaking in warm, bubbly water is always pleasant.

There are a number of saunas and steam rooms scattered throughout the complex. These vary in size, heat, humidity and smell. There's a large what I would describe as a "traditional" sauna, which is just a big hot room with wooden benches, but there are several which are "themed", mostly through the lighting and decor. Our favourite is the "volcanic" sauna, which is dark aside from some red lights at floor height and a feature wall with sort of "crystals" in it. It's a very nice environment to go and be hot in.

There's also a "volcanic" steam room next door to the sauna, which adopts the same stylings, only with more steam and more pleasant smells being piped in. I'm not entirely sure exactly what the smell is, but it's nice, and it sort of sticks to you after you've left, too, meaning for the rest of the day you have the pleasant scent of having been relaxing hovering around you. Better than your usual stench, no doubt.

We actually managed to get into the hot tubs this time around. The last time we came, they were out of order for refurbishment, and the time before that, they were being monopolised by a group of people who had evidently been in there for some time and had no desire to move. A shame, but I wasn't too mad; there are plenty of other things to do around the place, and a hot tub is, on the grand scheme of the other stuff available, relatively mundane.

There are several rooms specifically set aside just to be "relaxation" rooms. There's one with absolutely enormous beds in a nice sort of wicker "cocoon"; there's another that is modelled after a Scandinavian lodge; another that is designed to look like a cave in a forest; and another still where they project an accelerated day-night cycle of the sky onto the ceiling. There's also a room with heated stone beds that are inexplicably comfortable due to how they are contoured to fit the human body and a room with water beds. It's very tempting to just go into one of these rooms and sleep for several hours.

Every room is accompanied by various generic, non-obtrusive music of varying descriptions, ranging from ethereal plinky-plonky piano to what I would describe as solemn Viking battle preparation chants. All in all, it's a very pleasant place to spend a few hours.

And they feed you, too! Today we had the Afternoon Tea, which consisted of some sandwiches, some delicious tiny cakes and a scone with clotted cream and jam, plus a drink. Doesn't sound like much but it's surprisingly filling — and you might be a tad shocked at the calorie count too!

So yeah. It's been a nice day. Nice enough for me to not really be all that bothered that my mini PC appears to be dead — or, at least, is not in a position to be usable while I am away. We'll have a go at diagnosing the problem a little better when we actually get home, but for now, it doesn't matter and I don't really care. Well, I care a bit, it is my work machine and I would rather it wasn't broken, but still. I am in a relaxed, breezy sort of mood rather than stressed out and wanting to repeatedly turn it on and off all evening while getting increasingly irate.

Anyway, it is late now, and I think it is time to take a day of relaxation to its natural conclusion by… well, going to sleep. So that's what I'm going to do.

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#oneaday Day 822: Today is holiday

We're here! Or there, depending on how you look at it. An uneventful drive down, aside from some traffic around Salisbury, and my mini PC refusing to boot up for some reason (that's going to be fun to diagnose, since it's also my work computer), and we're safely ensconced in our pleasant little forest lodge, ready for a proper holiday. And none of that worrying about a silly orange cat who decided to go walkabout. (We have still been checking on him via the security cameras. He is getting thoroughly spoiled by my mother-in-law.)

As a result of the mini PC refusing to play for some reason, I am typing this using a keyboard on my phone. Like, an actual keyboard. The one I brought with me to use with the mini PC. Thankfully, given that modern phones are basically just computers, you can just plug a keyboard into a phone and type on it just like on a proper computer. The teeny tiny screen size doesn't even really matter all that much, so long as you can read what you just wrote.

I'm just going to… not worry about the mini PC for the moment, since the only reason I brought it with us was for blogging purposes anyway, and given I can just do that on my phone with only a minor cable management disaster atop the dining table, that can be a problem for when Pete gets home.

Of course, when Pete gets home, Pete has to almost immediately set off to go into the office for a stupid HR workshop, which Pete is resenting somewhat. But still. On occasions like that, the boss usually takes us out for lunch, and it will at least be nice to see everyone.

I shall continue repeating to myself: this is something for Pete to worry about when Pete gets home. Pete is prone to worrying himself stupid about things he can't do anything about right now, so Pete just needs to jolly well calm down, enjoy his holiday, and if his PC is fucked, one, nothing will be new there, given the woes he has had with the living room PC (though up until now, the mini PC has been very reliable for work) and two, he can just determine what to do next from there. Right now, there is nothing Pete can do, so Pete is just going to write about himself in the third person until he convinced himself that there is nothing he can do.

Ahem. Anyway. Yeah. We haven't done much today other than drive down here, get ensconced in the lodge and have some dinner. Tomorrow is our day at the Aqua Sana spa, which is going to be lovely. No phones, no broken PCs, just four and a half hours of chilling out in a variety of nice-smelling rooms, punctuated by a pleasant afternoon tea at some point during the first two hours.

That sounds pretty all right, doesn't it? Right then. I'm going to go and look forward to that, and a big "sod off" to the mini PC for trying to spoil the start of our holiday. You shall not win, you little shit. I am going to drink chocolate milk and there's nothing you can do to stop me.

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#oneaday Day 821: Tomorrow is holiday

We're off on holiday tomorrow! It may seem extravagant to have two going-away holidays in the same year (to the exact same place, no less), but as I've mentioned previously, our prior attempt earlier in the year was spoiled somewhat by worrying over a certain idiotic orange cat who had decided to explore the Great Outdoors the week before we went away.

I am pleased to report that Oliver is, as I type this, safely inside our house, and has given no indication he is going to escape. (I know, I know, he gave no indication that he was going to escape last time, but he doesn't even seem interested in sneaking out of the front door when we put the bins out any more, even.) This means that, barring any sort of major disaster which occurs over the course of the next 24 hours, we will be able to go away on holiday without any sort of guilt or unease, and just enjoy ourselves. (Hopefully no major disasters will happen between tomorrow and the 14th of September, either.)

I'm really looking forward to some time away. I'm looking forward to spending some time in the pool, for a combination of just relaxing in the water and actually getting a bit of exercise by, y'know, swimming. I'm looking forward to our spa day. I'm looking forward to our inevitable trip to The Pancake House, and buying at least one Massive Cake from the ParcMarket.

Center Parcs, in its various forms, has become rather special to me over the years, even though I know there are almost certainly plenty of reasons one could criticise it. And it all, as with so many other things in my life, extends back to my childhood and adolescence.

I forget exactly what year we first went to Center Parcs, but I do remember the trip itself. My brother was still living at home, and he brought his friend Alex with him. One of the most enduring memories of the trip was Alex, who fancied himself a bit of a womaniser, causing two girls to fall off their bikes by delivering a thoroughly Leslie Phillips-style "Hell-O!" at them as they rode past. My other enduring memory of the trip is the fact that, at the time, Center Parcs used those weird Dutch toilets where you poo on a little platform rather than into a bowl of water. Most disconcerting.

On that first trip, I was still pretty young, as I can determine from my brother still living at home with us, and thus I was still pretty nervous about things like water slides. I do remember going on "the slow slide" at the pool, which is the longer of the two, and enjoying it, but also being too scared to go on either "the fast slide" or "the big white slide", the latter of which is just a big wet slope made out of the slipperiest material known to man. These slides are all still present at the Center Parcs pool complex to this day, along with the Wild Water Rapids, which I did not go on on this first trip.

Some years later, we went on another trip to Center Parcs, and I took my friend Edd with me. This was partly as payback (positive) for his family graciously taking me along with them on a trip to Gran Canaria, and we had a good time. My enduring memories that time around are of being old enough to enjoy the slides a bit more, and having a great time on the Wild Water Rapids. A particularly vivid memory is of getting halfway down the Rapids, only for Edd to pop up from under the water going "Hoo-haa-haa!" (which is what we thought the blue SS guards in Wolfenstein 3-D said, rather than "Schutzstaffel", which you probably shouldn't shout in public) and pretend to machine-gun me. Good times.

I also remember an awkward conversation over breakfast in which Edd attempted to convince my Dad that bloody violence in video games was fine because "you just stop noticing it after a while". That, it turns out, was not the most convincing argument, but did not result in me being disallowed from playing games like the aforementioned Wolfenstein 3-D and Doom, even though I had historically not been allowed to watch 15- or 18-rated movies.

There was another trip to Center Parcs at some point where I went with my friend Craig, and my one enduring memory of that particular trip was seeing Savage Garden and Ray of Light-era Madonna on the television, and us both realising that we actually quite liked both of them despite historically having been "indie rock" boys.

Andie and I have now been to Center Parcs ourselves a number of times, and it still feels like a proper example of "being a grown-up" to go on a holiday like this by ourselves. I mean, I know we technically are both "grown-ups", but as I was talking about with my therapist recently, I still find it immensely difficult to think of myself as such. This is not an altogether unusual position to hold, it seems; no-one in this world really knows what they are doing, it's just some people are better at hiding that fact than others.

Anyway, tomorrow we are off for yet another excursion into the forest. I will continue to blog while I am there, as usual, but I may be quiet on the socials while I am away. It is nice to have a bit of peace and quiet — and this time around, it will be nice for said peace and quiet to not be interrupted by intrusive thoughts worrying about whether or not we are ever going to see our beloved pet again.

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#oneaday Day 815: A second time around

I have four more days of work before we go on holiday for the second time this year. This may sound extravagant, but given that the first time around was during the period that Oliver went missing, I'm sure you won't judge us for wanting a "do-over". We had some money from anniversary gifts, so we thought that a nice thing to spend it on would be a second chance at having an enjoyable holiday. So that's exactly what we're going to do.

I've been looking back over my posts from the period that Oliver was missing today, and it feels like it was a lifetime ago. In reality, it was about three months ago that he first disappeared, followed by three very long, difficult weeks while we didn't know what we were supposed to be feeling, because we had no idea whether we'd ever see him again. Now, as I look over at him sitting on the sofa next to me, washing his bumhole, I am grateful that things ended as they did: with a happy reunion, and with our silly little boy hardly the worse for wear after three weeks on the streets.

Over the past few days, both Andie and I have been just a little bit worried that the worst might happen and he might go missing again — I can tell this because we've both been "jokingly" saying to him that he must not disappear again, but actually meaning every word — but honestly, I think he might actually have learned his lesson.

He may not have learned other lessons that I wish he'd learn — such as to stop trying to get on the shelves and knock things down — but ever since he's come home, he hasn't even tried to sneak out of the front door when we open it to put the bins out.

Previously, he'd always try and nip out behind us while we weren't looking, usually to eat a bit of grass growing between the paving slabs outside our front door — and on one occasion he succeeded in properly getting out without us noticing, but immediately regretted his decision — whereas now, when the front door opens, he sometimes has a look out of curiosity, but he has given no indication that he has any desire to go Out There ever again, either via the front door, or via our now thoroughly cat-proofed windows. This is good.

Anyway, with him now seemingly nicely settled in and unlikely to go a-wandering again, we can actually look forward to our holiday, rather than wonder whether or not taking said holiday is actually a good idea. In retrospect, it was a good idea for us to go anyway, because in the periods between being emotionally distressed we did manage to unwind a bit, but still. It will be nice to be able to enjoy it "again" without the "emotional distress" part: just full-on, guilt-free relaxation and enjoyment with nothing to worry about. Hopefully.

And we're doing it properly again, too — that means another nice trip to the Aqua Sana spa; another trip to the Pancake House; and plenty more trips to the Subtropical Swimming Paradise. Can't wait.

Well, I have to wait. Four more working days, in fact. But I'm sure they'll fly by.

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#oneaday Day 735: Many distractions

We have both been feeling pretty upset today — like, breaking down in tears upset — so, during moments of clarity, we attempted to get out a bit and actually do some things rather than spending the entire day miserable. We actually ended up having a rather busy day as a result.

This began with our customary trip to the one restaurant we always pay a visit when we come to Center Parcs: The Pancake House, an establishment that, I believe, is fairly self-explanatory. They offer an excellent range of both sweet and savoury pancakes, and you can have each dish made with a large Dutch pancake, a stack of American pancakes, or an omelette if you're some sort of crazy person.

We both went for our usual orders: Andie had the apple and cinnamon crumble pancakes on Dutch, and I had the "New Yorker" (pictured), which is listed under "sweet" pancakes but is actually just a stack of American pancakes with bacon and (optionally) a fried egg, plus maple syrup. Very good.

After that, we weren't quite ready to return to the lodge and potential intrusive thoughts, so we went to go and play pool for a bit. I haven't played pool for a long time and have always sucked at it, but thankfully Andie also sucks at it too, so we had a fairly even best-of-three session. Andie ended up beating me 2-1, and it was deserved. I played well in my first game (which I won) and got pretty consistently worse with each subsequent game. My excuse is that it was hot and sweaty and humid in the pool hall, and I'm sticking to it.

Following that, we came back to the lodge to sit for a bit; I played a bit of Ace Attorney and Andie stared at a knitting project she's had trouble starting. Then we thought going for a swim would be a nice distraction; turns out that it was. A bit of time in the outdoor Sprudel pool and bubbly jacuzzi was nice and relaxing, then we went down one of the water slides, played in the wave machine for a bit, and then we were ready to head back and have some dinner.

All in all, although we're both still very sad and anxious, today ended up being about as nice a day as it's possible to have under the circumstances, and a demonstration of something that is always worth remembering during your bleakest moments: sometimes it pays to just get up, get out and go do something rather than staring into the middle distance being miserable about something which, at that exact moment, you cannot really do anything about.

Tomorrow we will still feel sad and anxious, I am sure. There will be many more tears before we get any sort of closure on this whole horrible situation, I am equally sure. But I will keep telling myself: it is important to continue to take care of yourself, as well as worrying about the wellbeing of those who are precious to you.

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#oneaday Day 734: Wildlife

One of the nicest things about Center Parcs is that there is an absolute ton of incredibly tame wildlife around the place. Just today, we have seen a wild cat, several deer, a variety of birds and a bunch of squirrels.

I will, of course, grant you that the reason the wildlife is so very tame is because it has been so thoroughly spoiled by the humans in this space — and I won't pretend that we are immune to such temptations. Not only that, I will not deny that it is probably bad for wildlife to become dependent on food provided by humans. But I prefer to look at it as these animals coming to live in harmony with the people who visit here; it's abundantly clear that they're all more than capable of taking care of themselves in the wild, they just enjoy getting a treat or two from the suckers who inhabit the various lodges.

Discovering that the site here plays host to wild cats was one of the strangest things. I don't think I had ever seen a wild cat prior to coming here a few years back, but apparently there are so many on the site that it's a bit of a problem at times, as you can probably imagine. Non-domesticated cats have a tendency to breed, after all, and cats are pretty good predators at the best of times, so one can imagine that it's easy to throw a delicate natural balance out of whack if the population explodes too much.

Thus, it's unsurprising to see that at least some of the wild cats here show signs of if not having been "domesticated" as such, then at least kept under control somewhat. A particularly persistent (and seemingly well-fed) one that kept paying us a visit today had a clipped ear, for example, which suggests at the very least that she exists on someone's records somewhere, and likely has been neutered in an attempt to keep the population under control.

Is that really "natural balance" if humanity has to intervene in that way? Perhaps not, but the very nature of the site has already thrown the natural balance out of things somewhat out of whack anyway, so I suspect the most sensible thing to do is at least attempt to compensate for such things as best we know how. I do not know a thing about how one goes about such things, but I'm sure there are men with graphs and flipcharts who have calculated things very effectively at some point in the management process of this whole place.

Anyway, my point is: it is nice to be able to open your curtains and see a deer, or a squirrel, or a jay, or a cat. They all seem to be having a thoroughly lovely time, and I'm not about to stop them doing so.

Meanwhile, we're hanging in here, just about. The animal friends are helping a bit.

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#oneaday Day 733: Distractions

Today we went to the swimming pool, the central attraction of most Center Parcs sites. We had a good time having a little swim in the nice warm outdoor "Sprudel pool" and sitting stewing in the outdoor jacuzzi for a bit. For the rest of the day, we've been trying to relax as best we can: eating good food, watching the wildlife out of the window, and in my case, finally getting around to replaying Ace Attorney: Trials & Tribulations in its Nintendo Switch incarnation. The last time I played this, it was on DS, so it's nice to play it on the big screen.

Pic, again, unrelated, but I thought you might like to see a deer.

The distractions have been good and welcome, but it's still tough, I don't think either of us will deny that. But we are at least managing to have a reasonably good time while we're away, which is the important thing. In some respects it might even be a good thing that we don't hear anything while we're away, as it means that the worst hasn't happened — or if it has, no-one has found him as yet. That means, I like to think, that he's still out there somewhere, waiting to be found — or perhaps just waiting to wander his way back one day and saunter in as if nothing had happened.

Stranger things have happened, as I've said a few times before; cats are well-known for their independence, after all, and even my beloved family pet from when I was a child disappeared for six whole weeks once, apparently. I don't remember this at all; I guess I must have been too young to remember when it happened. I do remember the time she got hit by a car and fled into a bush in a nearby field; we managed to track her down, get her to the vet, and she eventually made a full recovery, going on to live a very long, full and happy 17 years of life.

But still. As I keep saying, it almost doesn't bear thinking about right now, as far away from the situation as we are in physical terms. And I think we are slowly coming to terms with various unfortunate truths… or at least possibilities. None of them are particularly nice possibilities to contemplate, and thinking about them too much still upsets the both of us… but we are, gradually, bit by bit, able to get through each day without becoming completely non-functional.

It remains to be seen how we'll be when we get back, of course, depending on what — if anything — has transpired in the meantime. I feel like the best case scenario at this point is that he's found wandering around somewhere, taken to a vet, gets his microchipped scanned (which will immediately flag him both as missing and as living with us) and will thus be able to return to us safe and sound. But that is, I am aware, a very optimistic hope for how this will all end up.

I guess there's no point wondering "what if". The human brain doesn't work that way, however; the human brain, it seems, is uniquely designed to wonder "what if" as much as possible, as often as possible. And it's a function that, at least in my brain, it's near-impossible to turn off.

Still. It's the end of another day and, as always, we continue. Tomorrow is yet another day, and it remains to be seen what it will bring.

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#oneaday Day 731: Temporary escape

Well, we did what we said we were going to do: we got away from it all. Part of me still wants to be at home waiting with open arms for Oliver to return, but it's been a week. At this point I don't know if he's more or less likely to make it home by himself after this long; apparently typically "indoor" cats tend to return home after about 5-7 days away if they go walkabout like this, but we have something of a suspicion that Oliver, from a previous life (i.e. before he moved in with us) has some memories of Being Outside, hence his apparent eagerness to go wandering off.

Regardless, we are some distance away from, practically speaking, being able to do anything about his disappearance right now, so all we can do is attempt to enjoy ourselves. We are safely ensconced in our villa, the weather is nice, and this is the view out of the back door:

Green. Green everywhere. It is nice. I feel a certain affinity for foresty settings. I have always liked coming to Center Parcs precisely because they're all slap bang in the middle of a forest, and when I was a youngster, I always used to like trips to Waresley Wood, a nearby small woods that also, as I recall, played host to a sewage works, which was nice. You could tell which way you were going from the smell in certain areas.

I always feel somewhat mixed feelings about being out in nature. I certainly, on the whole, enjoy the experience of being in natural surroundings, and find the general environment to be rather relaxing. At the same time, though, I am always very conscious of the number of things that live in Nature that are more than willing to sting me, bite me or just generally make me very itchy. And these things are not always immediately apparent — though I do tend to tread specifically carefully when I'm in an unfamiliar and somewhat "untamed" environment; memories of enduring the irritation of a brush with some stinging nettles as a kid remain surprisingly vibrant, and I'm not keen to repeat them as a grown adult.

I am hoping the time away will help us. We have been so worried for the last week that it's just completely exhausted the pair of us. As I type this, Andie has just climbed into bed and gone to sleep. It is not even 6.30pm, but I do not blame her one bit. We have been fretting so much over our silly little man, and both of us are still worrying over him, even though we've both agreed that to just go ahead with our time away is the best possible thing we can do with regard to our own self-care.

And like I've said before: Andie's mum is looking after our house and Patti while we are away, so if Oliver does happen to show his face — or if we hear from someone who has seen him — she can take any sort of action that might be needed. Hopefully, that action will just be "shut the little bugger in and seal up all the windows for the rest of eternity" but… well, as I've said numerous times over the last week, we just don't know.

Anyway, I am going to make a specific effort to try and enjoy my holiday now. We miss you, Oliver, and we would love it if we would be able to come home to your smiling face on our return next week. For now, please be safe, take care of yourself… and go make a lot of noise at a sympathetic-looking person who will help you be reunited with us.

We have no particular plans for the rest of the day. I'm off to see if Andie actually wants to wake up at all today, or if we might as well start our holiday properly from tomorrow!

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#oneaday Day 709: Countdown to holiday

It's not long until Andie and I go on holiday to Center Parcs, a now-regular(ish) tradition for us. We're going for the full "Monday to Monday" experience again, and we're also going to have a spa session again, as we really enjoyed that last time.

This is where we stayed last year. This year will look similar, but with a different number.

I am looking forward to it, but I'm also mildly stressed, because just before we go away, we have two big, challenging projects at work to finish off. And they kind of need to be finished by that time. I am semi-confident that we will make it, but it is cutting things a bit fine, and I probably won't feel better about things until they are over the line, out the door and various other metaphors that mean "finished and not my problem any more".

The challenging thing is that in my new role, which partially involves QA, I am not in a position to be able to "fix" things myself — I have to just report the issues as clearly as I can, and then hope that they end up fixed. Usually they do, but sometimes it takes a few attempts at explaining something before they are finally resolved.

The projects are in a reasonable place at the moment, but not ready to go out of the door by any means. And so I suspect we're in for a busy couple of weeks; the end result will definitely be worth all the stress and hassle, but dear Lord, I will be well and truly ready for our holiday when time's up.

I'm trying not to stress about them too much. I'm not the only one working on these things, and the other people working on them are smart, talented people who know what they are doing. I am just part of a process, so I just need to ensure that my part of the process is completely successful, and with communication that is as clear as possible. Everything outside of that is outside of my control and responsibility, so that is just what I need to continue focusing on.

But yeah. I am really looking forward to our holiday. Center Parcs is such a nice environment to escape to for a little while; it really does feel like getting away from the rest of the world into your own, pleasant little bubble. I am going to enjoy just hanging out in the forest, perhaps going for a few walks around the place, spending some time in the pool and, of course, having a blissful few hours in the spa. We don't have any particular activities planned as yet — we'll probably do a few things here and there, but for the most part, it is just nice to get away from everything. The world in 2026 is a noisy, chaotic and rather unpleasant place to be, so being able to go somewhere that just feels like you're far away from all that stuff is something that I'm very much looking forward to.

From tomorrow, there's three full weeks of work to survive before I can enjoy this. It's going to be three challenging weeks, I'm sure, but as I say, the end result will be well worth it — and the opportunity to go and have some well-earned relaxation afterwards will also be well worth it.

After all, if you're going to have a holiday, you might as well have one when it will be particularly beneficial to your mental health, right?

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