What I did in the Holidays (written from the view of 12 year old daughter, hopefully)

We did not go away on holidays this Easter because Mum said our new house is so lovely it is like a holiday house and we have to keep sending money to the bank so we can stay here forever. So these are the things we did to keep us amused and to stop Mum having wine before 6pm:

• Shopped in the best shopping centre ever where they have Diva, Smiggles, EB Games and the biggest Target in the universe.

• Shopped in the discount centre for sports shoes for my little brother where the shoes were exactly the same price as the expensive best shopping centre ever but took another day to find out and convince him that these were much better because they have red stripes on them.

• Shopped in the local shopping centre (a lot) where they have disgustingly coloured hotdogs which my brother loves and my mother really hates paying $3.95 for but does anyway because it means she can sit down and have a latte.

• Went to Ikea for A WHOLE DAY but wasn’t so bad because we only had to line up for 40 minutes so my little brother could play in the kids centre for an hour. This gave us just enough time to do 2 laps of Ikea, one in the direction of the arrows and one against (just for fun). Plus we bought lots of lovely coloured plastic stuff for the kitchen and a quilt cover for Mums bed which she has been wanting for years and she says its finally only $20 where it was a huge $29 three years ago. Plus we ate Swedish meatballs and jelly (before the kids centre – good planning Mum!) … and a $1 hotdog after. He has to eat a hotdog EVERYWHERE!!

• Went and visited Mum’s friend from school at the beach. I can’t believe she can even remember her friends as it was AGES ago, like 30 years!!!! Anyway, she was lovely and was almost exactly like my Aunty’s wife but younger and lives on a farm. She also has a great laugh which she does a lot when she talks about her sick Mum and about her partner who died. It was a really nice day, not only because of Mum’s friend and the beach and that she bought us icecreams, but because my little brother got his foot stuck in the playground tube and didn’t want to take his shoe off to get free because he was wearing the sandshoes I just gave him and they had pink on the inside. LOL!! (oops, Mum hates me saying that, just because I actually say it all the time instead of laughing at something).

• Wasn’t all good that day because when we arrived Mum’s contact played up and she couldn’t see out of one eye all day and I got scared on the 40 minute drive home. Apparently it turned up broken at the back of her eyeball the next day (eewww).

• Watched my brother learn to ride a bike (he’s 8!! OK, I secretly think its pretty good because I can’t). He then preceded to nag Mum constantly to take him out to ride around the bay which she did half the time because she wanted the exercise, she said. She is looking a little thinner, I think.

• We also went to the cheaper Easter Show, the Family Show at Moore Park. It poured so we went and watched Arthur at the movies first with Aunty Moo and Uncle Nate and my little cute cousin Chloe.

• We picked the coldest, wettest, foggyiest day to visit another Aunty in the Blue Mountains. We had a yummy picnic inside – my Aunty says that’s how they have picnics up there. We almost didn’t make it because we drove into a bottomless hole in the road which burst our tyre and Dad was very quiet while he changed it on the side of the road in the freezing rain – Mum kept asking nicely if he wanted to put his jacket on but he wouldn’t answer her.

• On Easter Sunday and Nanny and Poppy helped Mum hide 1000 chocolate eggs which my brother started frothing at the mouth at because his little cousin found more than he did. They didn’t even notice the icing sugar bunny prints I put in the hallway this morning! We had a big roast pork lunch for all 10 of us and then everybody fell asleep on the couch while Mum walked my little brother round the bay on his bike for and hour and a half. They came back in the dark and Mum was a little tired and cranky so everyone went home.

And that’s what we did on the school holidays! I don’t want to go back to school but Mum says she is looking forward to going back to work tomorrow?!!??!!