Summer Holiday Diaries: Stonehenge, Aliens and a Cursing 18 Month Old

I have new found sympathy for my parents who repeatedly took me to places of interest when I was younger only for them to be faced with an unenthused, bored little shit who just wanted to be at home….

I am always trying to do fun stuff with the kids, to get them outside engaged with the world around them. It often takes a Herculean effort just getting out of the door with three kids in tow, but I keep doing it because, obviously, as a parent I have to parent them….Today I had arranged a lovely trip to Stonehenge, which admittedly wasn’t the best choice for a 6 and 8 year old (the 1.5 year old doesn’t really get a look in, she is used to being dragged about everywhere and thankfully is too young to complain at present)  But I was determined to drag their arses out and get some fresh air, I loaded up their bikes, the buggy and drove for an hour.

Luck was on our side the torrential rain had stopped by the time we arrived and they let us in even though we were 15 minutes late for our pre-booked ticket time. I had made sure I didn’t tell the troops (Dad included) that it was an estimated 30 minute walk to the stones – hence why I brought the bikes – and off we went. After 5 minutes steady uphill riding the eldest had not stopped moaning, the middle was steadily stripping off all the layers she was wearing because of the muggy weather and we had a fairly heated debate as to why she couldn’t take her trousers off and ride in her knickers. The baby has mastered the word ‘shit’ and says it frequently when we are all bickering like this, especially when the bigger ones are being naughty, and she was steadily shouting it to all of the passers by, much to the delight of her siblings. All the while I was cursing them (inwardly of course we were in public) wanting just to get to the damn stone circle, where I had anticipated a certain amount of awe of the sheer size of the stones. Especially as they are both big into Minecraft and are always banging on about pickaxes and iron ore and all the other bollocks that goes with it.

We arrived at the stones to what I can only describe as the most anticlimactic response:

‘We’ve travelled all this way just to look at some stones?”

I suppose I had walked straight into that, I could not have described any more times to the ungrateful tribe of Crocker’s what Stonehenge was…Joe (aka Dad) spent the whole time walking around repeatedly stating his confusion at ‘why are they here?’ And ‘what does it all mean?’ He is also pretty adamant that ‘ancient aliens’ (?) put them there…I can’t even……

So after walking around the stones muttering for the biggest to behave and stop straddling the rope, we attempted a few photos, (which were disastrous) let the youngest loose from the buggy to run around (who also attempted to climb into the enclosure and onto the stones), we turned around to go back to the carpark.

The kids rode their bikes back to where we were parked which was all down hill so they loved it, but we spent the whole journey gently jogging behind calling at them to mind the people in front and not to steer into the hedges or the road with the shuttle buses ferreting the tourists up and down to the circle.

We then hit up the gift shop where I bought myself a keyring to commemorate such a ‘special day’ loaded up the bastards and headed home.

Given that 2020 has essentially been one massive summer holidays I am very much looking forward to August ending and September beginning!