Big Seymour and I Are Going Travelling

Big Seymour and I are going travelling. We are planning to sit on beaches at sunset. We want to pan for gold in the Klondike. There may even be some skiing involved. And lots and lots of delicious, regional, exotic food.
I will read up about every location we visit, and my Geography will improve no end, so that when we return, I shall be useful in pub quizzes. Big Seymour will find himself building a hut in the rainforest with the indigenous people. We will make friends across diverse cultures, and we shall realise just how small and friendly the world really is.
We might swim with sharks, but preferably dolphins. We’ll ride horses across the plains of America, and fulfil those cowboys ambitions we both share.
There will be selfies of us on the Hollywood Strip, and from thence I will pop to pay homage to River Phoenix outside The Viper Room.
I will cry.
Macchu Picchu will be on the itinerary: its perfectly manicured ruins have always appealed to me. And I know that Big Seymour will want to go somewhere where he can fish for marlin. The Bahama Islands are strong contenders.
It’d be lovely to go to some of the places you see in the Bond films. If it’s good enough for James, I’m sure it’s worth a look. And then we might just pop to Vegas. There is something about the brashness of the bright lights and their contrast to the surrounding desert that scares me, but since reading Andre Agassi’s autobiography, I feel like I know the place. So a visit is in order.
Yes, Big Seymour and I are going travelling. It just so happens that our travels are not happening quite yet.
Because at the moment, we have the Funny Little Bungalow to finish, and Four Little Seymours to try to look after. When we are travelling, we will look back on the night in The Shed when three of the blighters wouldn’t go to sleep on The Shelf, and as one emerged down the ladder to go to the toilet, it became clear that the mysterious giggling moments before signified that they had spent half an hour tattooing themselves all over with Mummy’s Best Purple Pen. (Yes, the one I draw them with.)
We will laugh, and we will lament the passing of those years.
When we are travelling, we will remember the morning Boy Seymour tried to sort out the bit of hair that was poking up on his head by simply chopping it off, then stressing inordinately about his bald patch and how it would make him look at school.
We’ll chuckle at the amount of worry we put in to the children’s primary schooling, and realise that, of all the things to worry about, primary school is way down on the list compared to the challenges later life will throw at us (and them).
Shed Life will be a distant (and hopefully fond) memory, and we will look back at pictures of the chaos and turmoil with a gooey smile and forget the strips of dead flies that decorate the mezzanine and the humongous angry hornets that keep trying to make our shed their home, too.
Our travels will be great fun! We will be all cool and carefree. We’ll rent out our house and off we shall go, travelling, like young people do, only we will be old. But that will be fine – we all come to these things in our own time. Big Seymour and I have had other things on our agenda in recent years.
Yes, our travels will be fun, but they can wait. Because right now, however frustrating they all might be, we have Four Little Seymours and a Funny Little Bungalow to see to. They are our priorities and we love them.
But that’s not to say I can’t plan. I’ve always fancied going back to university… Koh Samui, then Cambridge… now we’re talking!