"Does My Tummy Look Fat In This?"

The other night at dinner, Dumpie pushed his plate away and refused to eat anymore.

"I don't want to be fat" said my three and a half year old.

"WHAT?!" I exclaimed, hoping I had somehow misheard.

"I.  Don't.  Want.  To.  Be.  Fat." repeated Dumpie, this time pausing dramatically between words to make sure I got the message.

"But my darling, you are NOT fat!  Why would you think you're fat?"

Dumpie hopped down from the table and stood before me, jutting his gorgeous Winnie-the-Pooh-esque belly toward me and lifting up his shirt.

"See.  Big tummy."

We looked at his precious little tummy together and I stifled a giggle. He was serious.  I just wanted to kiss it.  Where on earth has this recent preoccupation come from??

Eggie joined in and said, "I don't want to be fat either.  Am I fat Mama?"

A long and serious conversation followed whereby I attempted to maintain a straight face and explain that they were both skinny and had absolutely no reason to be worried about their weight.  Watching them pull up their respective t-shirts and measure tummies mid-speech was priceless...especially as Dumpie, still only three, has a high, round tummy and Egg a svelte one.

Thinking this issue had been put to rest, I was most disconcerted to be asked last night by Dumpie, totally out of the blue, "Mama, how can I get skinny?"

Urghh.

"The Halfway Mark"

Yesterday marked the halfway mark of our 'Year Abroad' (or as I like to think of it, 'In Search of A Meaningful Life By Way of the Beach Bum Ethos').

Six months to the day that we crammed all our valuables into cheap cardboard boxes (i TOLD the husband not to scrimp and get the cheap ones), frantically raced from room to room cramming last minute objects into any available luggage space (which would explain the Chanel Nail Varnish and 'Fried Green Tomatoes' dvd, both of which inexplicably made their way to SouthEast Asia), and boarded Kingfisher Air, the 'King of Indian Beers' airline, not looking back even once.

Are we happy?  (Yup)
Are we glad we're not taking our scheduled return ticket back to the UK this month?  (Yup)
Are we bored of the constantly perfect weather, divine affordable eateries and picture perfect beaches?  (Nope. You kidding?)

See, the thing is, although we do occasionally pine for London (the pub, Waitrose, my oven, red wine, my clothes, a mosquito-free bedroom, etc.) we know how darn lucky we are.  Despite being domesticated to the extent of having two dependents, the husband and I are still 'living the dream' that we did years ago when traveling the world as crusty backpackers.

Every day is a mini-adventure, and today felt like one of those textbook days which just leave you feeling nothing but grateful:

8am - wake up
9am - freshly brewed coffee in magnificant garden
10am - London mates swing by for a quick goodbye en route to airport
12pm - lunch in garden
1pm - scooter around town with husband and purchase new helmets
3pm - afternoon snack in garden
5pm - hour long massages for each of us here in our home
8pm - dinner delivered from local 'warung'

In between all this we had two lovely local ladies making our beds, doing our dishes, feeding our children, taking our laundry to be washed, doing our grocery shopping, mopping the floor, playing with the monsters and dealing with Dumpies late afternoon 'accident'.

And you ask why we're greedily jumping at the chance of six more months of this...?

"The Manifold Uses of The Common Household Broom"

It's become abundantly clear that I'm going to need to put myself through some sort of 'domestic decompression chamber' before re-entering normal life in approximately six months time.  

Why do I say this?

Well take this morning for example.  The husband, searching for his least offensive smelling shirt to wear on our snorkelling trip today, happened to glance underneath the bed.

"You should check out  the two dead cockroaches under there."

"What?  Eew.  That's disgusting.  I don't understand why they don't clean our room here," I complained.

Gingerly I got out of bed (a raucous but amazing beachside dinner with our London mates last night ended with one greatly depleted duty free gin bottle and rather high spirits) and stepped over the detrius on the floor:  Mentos wrappers, dead flies, Ritz crackers crumbs, a dangly earring, etc.

Yuck.

A short while later, Egg came running up from the beach where I'd like to think he was collecting shells, but was more likely hanging out at the bar talking someones ear off.  He grabbed a broom from outside our door and went tearing off with it on some mission or another.  

Then it dawned on me that he had a broom in his hand.  And that the broom has been sat outside our door for the past six days.  And not once have I even thought to pick it up and use it.  

That part of my brain which when at home, automatically fills spare units of time with domestic tidying, as if on autopilot, is broken.  I mean, I definitely clocked the broom, and I most certainly knew it was there for someone to use it, but when I realised, around three days in, that there was no 'housekeeping' per se here at our bungalow, it never even occurred to me to use it myself.

I am ashamed.  What's happening to me?  How am I going to eventually handle going from a staff of three to a staff of me??

"Taking A Holiday From Your Holiday...The Logistics Therein"

It's an odd thing, but the husband I were remarking yesterday on how we're nearing H.S.P. ("Holiday Saturation Point").

Here we are, on a desert island, eating delicious food, snorkelling, swimming in crystal blue waters, sipping fresh lemon juice by day and icy cold Bintang Beer by night...and yet we find cause for dissatisfaction.  How can this be?

Well the husband I know is anxious to get back to his fairly regimented daily writing schedule (novels don't write themselves or so I'm told), and equally so, I am pining for the chance to get back into the recording studio in Bali and continue working on my music.  But, it also must be said, we are desperately missing our pembantu, Kadek.  

If nothing else she is an extra pair of eyes.  And we are in desperate need of those these days.  Throw a couple of laptops, a few riveting reads and a general sense of self-preoccupation into the equation, and it's understandable how keeping an eye on the monsters isn't as easy and automatic a task as one might think.

For one thing, the little pony carts - the only wheeled transport aside from bicycles allowed here on the island - can come shockingly fast around corners.  More than once the monsters have been caught unawares and have had to be jerked frantically out of the way at the last minute.  The husband remarked how ironic it would be if after all these months of travelling and precarious traffic conditions we've encountered since we left the UK - one of the monsters were to be the victim of a road accident on a traffic-less island.

Speaking of which, Egg was nearly complicit in an accident yesterday as he took off running alongside a pony cart (as he is want to do...'catching rides' alongside buses, cars, motorbikes and even oblivious joggers, is one of his favourite pastimes) and scared the pony so much such that the cart driver lost control and very nearly went ploughing into an oblivious and loved-up couple holding hands on the other side of the road.  Oops.

Yesterday was a big day for Egg.  He tried snorkelling for the first time.  I tried 'chilling out and reading with a bored Dumpie' by my side.  Didn't work so well.  So I gave him my ipod to watch a movie on.  That amused for about ten minutes.  So knowing his love of photography, I reluctantly put my camera into his eagerly outstretched hands in the hopes of buying myself a few minutes reading time.  Result.

This was great for awhile, until Dumps got bored taking pictures of sand and started going all Page Three photographer on me, suggesting I pose lacivously with my hat ("Kiss your hat like dis Mama and I take picture okay?")

His next request drew a startled glance from the table beside.

"Now Mama, lift your shirt up so I can take a picture of your tummy."

Embarrassed, I casually acquiesed, glancing around self-consciously and hoping that would be the end of it.  

It wasn't.  Clearly he was gathering steam.

"Okay Mama now I want you take off your whole shirt now for a picture" he requested, standing above me, the Fuji Finepix held up to his little squinty eye in preparation.

I grabbed the camera.  

"No Dumps. That's enough.  Now let's get you a lemon juice okay?" I tried, hoping to redirect his attention elsewhere.  By now, the chain-smoking blond beside us was taking no pains to hide her amusement and I tried valiantly to wrestle parental control back from my three year old.

He was having none of it.  We began a furious game of tug-of-war with the camera.  With an audience now.

"But I want to take picture of your nipples!" Dumpie cried as I finally wrestled it from his clutching grasp.

Just then the husband and Egg walked up, Egg blabbing excitedly about the millions of fish he'd seen underwater.

"That's nothing" I told the husband.  "You just inadvertently saved me from accidentally taking part in a soft porn shoot."

"What?" the husband asked, wrinkling up his face in incomprehension.

"Never mind" I said, taking off with the snorkelling gear, leaving a confused husband, exhuberant Egg and pouting Dumps in my wake.

Holidays Schmalidays...

"Paradise Found...I Take It All Back! - Day 5 of the Family Road Trip From H___!"

"Heaven....I'm in Heaven...la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-laaaaaah!"

After chartering a little boat for the twenty minute ride from Lombok to Gili Air (the best of the Gili islands most say), we landed in Paradise.  No, really we did.

Peaceful, serene and drop dead gorgeous, this heaven on earth is too wonderful not to visit if you ever get the chance.  Even Egg and Dumpie screaming for their confiscated chocolate sweeties wasn't enough to fracture the blissful sense of serenity which descended upon my frazzled nerves as our boat pulled up to the sandy beach.  

Our road trip was over.  The trials of the past few days completely forgotten.  Only a week of total bliss stretched out before us.  What's not to love?

It's Honeymoon Central here.  Well it feels like that anyway.  Loads of loved-up couples sipping cocktails, watching sunsets and generally getting down and snuggly in public.  But who wouldn't be loved up here?  Pretty twinkling night lights, scrumptious places to eat, sip cocktails, and the perfect opportunity to pretend like we're all stranded on the worlds most gorgeous deserted island.  Adding to its charm, there are no vehicles of any sort allowed on the island - only bicycles and the odd horse drawn carriage.  No petrol fumes, honking horns or chaos of any sort.  

I feel like I'm on that 80's television show 'Fantasy Island'.  I half expect to see two matching figures in white suits (one tall, one vertically challenged) pointing upwards and exclaiming, "Ze plane!....Ze plane!"

We've managed to snag a lovely bungalow beach side, with a gorgeous open-air bathroom (it never rains here apparently) and some gorgeous shady cushioned areas out front from which to view the placid sea and lolling sailboats as we sip fresh juices.  Snorkelling here is meant to be out of this world, and I can believe it.  Can't wait to try it out.  

So with no further ado...off walk I into the sunset (well, kind of....you can't really do that thing with our traveling circus of a family...but you get the picture)...

I have finally reached Paradise.   Ahhhhhh....

"From Bamboo Squalor to Mountain Delights - Day 4 of the Family Road Trip From H___!"

After all the hardships we had endured thus far throughout our little Lombok road trip, believe me when I say that we didn't even mind sleeping four-in-a-bed in a primitive bamboo structure, in a parking lot in Kuta.  No biggie.

Of course the bar next door helped, as did the two Mojito's the husband brought back for us to sip on our 'front porch' after the children had fallen asleep and we silently watched the steady stream of traffic go by.

We'd gone up and down the strip for ages and literally NO WHERE had any vacancies except for one scary place at the end of the beach, which looked like the scene of a horror flick.

Grabbing what was definitely the last available bed in town was a coup by anyones standards, and we were still buzzing from the high of having been rescued from a potential roadside slumber after our double tired disaster just a few hours earlier.

After a most unpleasant sleep (I burrowed myself somewhere near the bottom of the bed) I awoke to find the husband ill from the night before.  Apparently he'd not just returned our empty glasses to the bar next door after I went to bed, he'd also added a few more of his own.  Oops.  Cue killer hangover the next morning and a flustered wife marching up and down the still-sleeping main drag trying to procure Panadol (the famous 'period pain' remedy) for the husband.  He'll never learn.

Soon though, the reality of sleeping in a glorified parking lot got the better of the husband, and he somehow forced himself up and back on the road again we went.

Our tenacity was to be rewarded later that day as, after an uneventful day of driving and NO VOMITING, we pulled into the glorious Rinjani mountain resort.  The husband earned back his place back in our good books after procuring the most amazingly beautiful hotel room perched on the side of the mountain with views to literally die for.  We were once again happy.  Sipping tea as the sun when down, we sighed and gazed contentedly at each other.  

I was so grateful for our good fortune that I gave the husband permission to go off the next morning on a five and a half hour trek while I manned the monsters (not as easy as you might think given no telly, no guard rails to keep them from falling off the side of the mountain, and some contraband sweets they managed to find which made it impossible for them to not try doing the former.)

At one point I found Dumpie trying out a gymnastics move on two bars, hanging precariously like a monkey on the only things keeping him from certain death if he fell.  Racing towards him he jumped off and started climbing upwards, forcing me into an ant colony which soon had me hopping up and down in pain as I got bitten and tried yell-whispering  "Dumpie! Get down!  Get down now!' to no avail."  It no doubt made for great entertainment for the rather staid German family staying in the villa next door.

Never mind.  The husband eventually returned, having decided against taking the 3 day/2 night summit trek thank goodness, and we jumped back into our car and took off for the ferry port.

Gili Islands here we come!  (Queue huge sigh of relief as departing Lombok...)

"Bump-Bump-Bumping Our Way to Madness - Day 3 of the Family Road Trip From H___!"

It wasn't long after we'd left our lovely little 'cottage-like' resort on the beach that we came to a fork in the road.  We slowed down to ask some locals which way we should go. They laughed (at us) then urged us on vaguely to the left.

We soon came upon a bumpy road...which soon became even bumpier.  A few minutes later despite being strapped into seat belts we began jolting about like human 'PopRocks'.  At this stage we were still laughing about how bad the road was.  

Sure our fortune was bound to change up ahead, the husband, regardless, was at least courteous enough to ask, "What do you think crew?  Should we turn around and take the other route?"

Oh, how I wish I hadn't been daydreaming, messing about in my handbag and generally being optimistic.  

Instead, no doubt subconsciously trying to make up for the sulky strop I'd had on the ferry boat the other day, and trying to prove myself a good sport, I had resolved to be more positive despite whatever discomforts traveling as a family of four brought on.  So I merely mumbled, pseudo-optimistically, "Whatever...we can do this."

Ten minutes later the road got so bad it ceased being laughable and turned diabolical.  We were going torturously slow and hard.  Now, the only thing that keeping us from turning back was the knowledge of the bad roads we'd have to traverse a second time round if we backtracked.  No way!  So we kept on, convinced at every turn (literally, for they were windy roads) that the huge pot holes, deep gouges, and great missing chunks of the so called road would eventually cease and we could once again drive in a sane fashion without jiggling ourselves into a state of dementia.

We pulled over for a break to recalibrate our frazzled nerves.  The road just wasn't getting any better.  In fact, though scarcely possible, it was getting worse.  But with no choice but to carry on, the husband resolved to kiss the first stretch of decent road we came to...if we ever came to it...as penance for having made the earlier decision to go 'off the beaten track in Lombok' with his now less-than-impressed family.

No sooner had he made this pronouncement, when the car started rattling.

"Who left their door open?" he asked, pulling to a sharp stop.  He jumped out and had a look.  Nope, all doors securely fastened, everything a-okay except - wait a minute - oh bloody heck.

We had a flat.  A bad one.  How long we'd been driving on the rim was anyones guess.

"Check the other side!" I yelled to the husband.  Moments later our despair was complete.  The rear wheel on that side was kaput as well.

Two flat tires.  In the middle of nowhere.  Two hot, bored children with car sickness.  A spare tire in pretty bad shape.  And no tools with which to put it on in any case.

A few minutes later a father and son came whizzing by on scooter, balancing two giant glass doors between them.  At the sight of some flustered 'Bules' (ie. hapless tourists) at the side of the road, it was no surprise when they stopped.

Speaking no English, it was with some relief that another scooter ridden by two young men slowed to a stop soon after.  They spoke maybe six words of English between them.  

During the next half hour, various families stopped, hopped off their respective scooters and trucks and plonked themselves down beside us on the roadside.  Gestures, smiles and Oreo cookies were offered back and forth, but for all intents and purposes it very much felt like we were a tourist attraction.  Which we were I suppose.  How else to account for 'The Primitives' (this was one of the six words known by the young men, who attempted to explain the cluster of bedraggled natives peering out at us from the side of the hill top across the road), who stayed there the entire two and a half hours, still as statues, doing nothing but staring at us with undisguised curiosity.

Bless the husband.  Through pure perseverance, and no small measure of desperation, given that only a few hours of daylight remained and his family potentially faced a very hardcore night spent in a broken down vehicle at the side of the road in the middle of nowhere on some small island in Indonesia....he managed to set the wheels in motion for some sort of a rescue mission.

Under normal circumstances, the husband would have begged a ride on someones scooter, taken the two damaged wheels to the nearest mechanic, then come back and rescued us.  However, being in a remote area of a relatively un-touristed island, in  a Muslim country, already aware that I had way too much skin on show in my strapless mini sundress, and somewhat unnerved by the two young men especially, who kept eyeing me up and down, i hissed, "No bloody way...Don't even think about it!"  And there was certainly no way I was going to go off on the back of some strange man's scooter either, so...

So sit there we did.  Having experienced a fair bit of confusion given the language barrier and the 'helpfulness' of all the assembled onlookers, it was a small miracle that we managed to finally dispatch the father and son pair with both our punctured tires, heading, we hoped, towards a mechanic and not to the nearest local market to be sold for whatever they could get.

Somehow, in the fray, the husband handed over 50,000 Rp to the two young men with the wandering eyes, and not the father and son pair in possession of our tires. This did not bode well.  Some time later, perhaps an hour and a half in, the husband casually asked the pair, who refused to leave our side, despite having nothing to do, "So, did you give the money I gave you to the other man?"

The fellow looked solemnly at the husband.  "Money," he repeated lamely.

"No, I'm asking...do YOU have the money or does he?"

The fellow looked to the other man and they spoke in Bahasa.  Then he turned to the husband again and smiled.  "Money...yes."

And so it transpired that the wrong men were in possession of our money, and our fate was to be determined by the kindness of strangers.

Two and a half hours later, much to our relief (and surprise it has to be said), our wheels were returned, patched up and promptly put back on the car.  The husband broke out our sacred family sized bar of Cadbury's chocolate and to the great delight of everyone assembled, handed out celebratory pieces all round.

As we pulled away, so joyous were we that we barely registered the still shambolic roads and instead concentrated on the task at hand...finding a place to lay our heads that night....

"Bedding Down Miniature Style - Day 2 of the Family Road Trip From H___!"

After such a long day of travel (we had, after all, been up at the crack of dawn to start packing for our ten day trip, then had to endure the whole ferry ordeal), the husband and I weren't much in the mood for pushing things further than necessary.  So after only a couple of hours of driving, we found a place listed in our guidebook, and pulled in to secure a room for the night.  


It wasn't like we had a lot of choice, for unbeknownst to me, once off the ferry, instead of heading for the Sengiggi, the main tourist destination in Lombok, the husband had taken the other direction towards the sparsely populated area of the Southwest.  At this stage I was obliviously unaware of his intention to try and circumnavigate the entire island.

Having only passed one other place to stay - which involved sailing out to a nearby island and sleeping there - we fervently hoped there was vacancy.  

And there was!  Hallellujah!  And it looked a rather pleasant place too.  Right on the beach, manicured lawns, courteous staff....it could easily have been a resort by the Lakes in Ontario, Canada.  It felt distinctly 'cottage-like' and seemed a touch out of place in Indonesia.  But in a good way.

We were shown to the only room available.  A tiny white clapboard structure housing a bathroom and two children's sized single beds.  

Exhaustion overtaking common sense we took it.  What else could we do?  And besides, two tiny beds beat kipping in a stinky van.

A lovely pre-dinner swim in the warm placid waters followed, before showers for everyone and dinner in the dining room.  On the positive side, the kitchen was open plan so we could see what was going on and how our food was being prepared.  On the negative side, the kitchen was open plan so we could see what was going on and...

Some merely passable food stuffs were consumed with relish (hey we were really hungry) before I volunteered to escort Dumps back early in order to save the other diners from hurling their forks at our youngest child as he began wailing and whining.

Bad move. For the next forty five minutes I had the task of trying to get the wriggly giggly and uber-naughty Dumps in his jammies, teeth brushed, and settled in for the night.  The husband on the other hand, apparently enjoyed some quiet reading time while Egg quietly did a puzzle at the now peaceful table, and the two enjoyed a most delicious banana split I am told.

But the score was evened that night as I ended up bed partner with Egg and the husband slept with Dumps a foot away on the matching miniature mattress.  There really could not have been any other configuration given the sheer diminutive dimensions involved.

Egg somehow had the sense in the middle of the night to turn upside down, so aside from the rather unpleasant sense of having someone else toes crammed near my open mouth during slumber, we managed to have a decent enough sleep.  The husband on the other hand did not.  Perhaps it was the paranoia that he might get wee'ed on that kept him periodically and randomly shaking Dumpie awake throughout the night for mandatory toilet attempts.   Or maybe it was down to the horrid sloping mattress I had neglected to tell him about, which tilted towards the floor, threatening a spill for whoever was unfortunate enough to sleep on the edge (the husband slept on the edge).  It's hard to say.

The next morning after a quick breakfast we strapped the monsters back into our Pringle-n'-Oreo-laden vehicle, grabbed the map and took off in search of Paradise.  That's why we came here after all.  Lombok is supposed to be like Bali was fifty years ago.

(But I like Bali NOW, I couldn't help thinking.  Why would I want to go back in time to more primitive surroundings when I know for a fact Bali stays just as beautiful fifty years after tourism errupts?)

This question would plague me (as would others) later that day as disaster befell us.

"Ferry Ferry Quite Contrary - Day 1 of 'The Family Road Trip From H___!"

You know how on the ill-fated Titanic, there were insufficient lifeboats for passengers?  Well the seat to person ratio was somewhat reminiscent of that on our 4.5 hour ferry crossing from Bali to Lombok.

In retrospect, we were idiots for faffing about downstairs on the vehicle level after driving onboard... getting snacks for the ride, searching for Eggie's perpetually lost flip-flops, etc.  Turns out our time would have been far better spent up on the passenger deck procuring seats for the long outward journey.

For upon entry to the passenger level we found, much to our dismay, that every seat had been taken.  For starters, whoever designed this boat must have figured on a ratio of one seat for every two people.  This discrepency in itself could have been borne if not for the fact that a most distressing 'greedy guts' mentality seemed to be in effect.

Passengers lucky enough to have secured a seat didn't just leave it at that.  Most snagged an extra one or two for good measure, ensuring that their accoutrements (helmets, bags, jackets, etc.) could spend the journey in relative comfort...propped up jauntily on large padded seats beside them.

I could feel the husbands' eyes on me, wondering how close I was to full-on silent tantrum mode.  Pretty damn close as it turns out.

Standing there furiously clutching my bags and two children in a vice grip, I did what any self-respecting parent would do.  I marched them up and down the aisles, staring pointedly at the locals, daring them not to move their belongings aside and make room for one of the little ones to sit.

No one so much as looked down in shame.  Instead, meeting our beseeching eyes with impassive stares of their own, they let us wander up and down the aisles like a sorry band of vagrants, confounding any sense of decency.

By the time we made it to the rear of the seating area, where cushy padded chairs had been replaced by long wooden benches, I was nearly apoplectic with rage as I scanned row upon row of solitary snoozers who had unashamedly commandeered whole rows meant for five or six persons, and had stretched out proprietorily and already fallen asleep.

In panic, we grabbed the only seats going...the only seats left...the ones clearly nobody wanted  A tiny little wooden table boasting four tiny little seats stood empty.  I'm sure its proximity to the noisy snack bar and toilets couldn't have helped much, but then again it could have been the huge gathering of loud, chattering chain-smoking old men and guitar playing teenagers in the vicinity that had put people off.

To make matters worse, the husband didn't seem too bothered.  (Men listen up:  When your partner is PISSED OFF, even if you can't help the situation, any wise mate will realise that appeasement is the way forward.  At your peril should you take the side of a stroppy flight attendant, rude check-in staff, or an arrogant rail employee over that of your significant other.  If left unchecked, the continuation of this sort of behaviour will likely lead to divorce, or at the very least a very, very unhappy wife...which will lead to a very, very unhappy life...and in severe cases - physical harm to the hapless spouse.  But I digress..)

This was, after all, only the stage where the boat was pulling out of the dock.  Not enough time had elapsed for the husbands bottom to fall asleep, his legs to get pins and needles, and his back to start aching from being held so erectly upright against a painful steel bar...all this was to come.  Instead, with a pleasant enough grin, his Nikon flung casually over one shoulder and the monsters in tow, he took off for a wander upstairs to snap some pictures.  I stayed right where I was, glaring at the rude man across from me - staring pointedly at his extra seat with slowly mounting fury.

I have simply never seen anything like it.  There were children and women milling around with nowhere to sit but on the hard floor - and grown men, lounging on their string of 2, 3, or 4 seats, taking their shoes off, stretching out their legs, and settling in with a smoke and a burp for the long journey.

I briefly entertained thoughts of a freak-out, imagining the thrill of racing through the cabin hurling jackets and bags off seats whilst triumphantly giving the liberated seats to those unfortunates like myself, like some sort of manic Robin Hood, simultaneously forcing all the rude men to spend the journey cleaning out the toilets. That's when I knew I had to remove myself from the scene before I either exploded with a coronary brought on by uncontrollable rage, or began hurling helmets overboard.

So I stomped off upstairs to the top deck, where all the clove cigarette smoking male crew were huddled, bracing themselves against the strong wind.  I plopped myself down on the edge of a hard wooden bench, flicked on my ipod and stared resolutely ahead as Sigur Ros played mournfully into my ears, trying to pretend there weren't still four hours to go.

But all (good and bad) things must come to an end, and we finally pulled in to Lombok several hours later.  For the duration of the boat journey I stayed upstairs in the chilly wind, stubbornly refusing to move, despite being eventually wee'ed on by a sleeping Dumps, who not only soaked my only pair of trousers but my treasured All Saint's cardigan as well.

As we drove off the ferry, equilibrium descended and I glanced over to the husband.

"That really pissed me off."

"Uh.  Yeah.  I know.  I think the entire ferry knew"

"Nevermind," i thought to myself as we began winding around picturesque roads and unspoiled scenery..."It's all uphill from here".

How wrong I was.

"Wee and Road Trips...Not the Best Combo Ever"

When the in-laws brought us a travel sized bottle of Febreze back in Goa, I never imagined the importance it would take on, five months in, here in Bali.  For Dumpie has suddenly, and inexplicably, taken to wetting the bed most nights.  

This would be one thing I suppose, if we were moving around to different hotels each night, leaving urine scented mattresses in our wake.  However, as it stands, our new home, the one in which we intend (read 'hope') to stay ensconced for the next couple of months, now suffers from massive wee carnage.  No mattress has survived unscathed.

If the older gay proprietor of this place, Alan, who is fortunately abroad at present, were to find out about this assault on his textiles, no doubt we'd be chucked out on the side of the road, clutching our possessions, faster than you can say "But we used Febreze!"  

I'll say one thing though.  For dog smells, dirty laundry and even the unsavoury whiff of stale smoke, i'm sure Febreze works a treat.  But for a three year olds ammonia laden wee, it's a bit like putting a flower arrangement in a dumpster in the hopes of alleviating the stench.

The husband went out and bought Dumpie some giant sized nappies (he is almost four after all) to wear at night.  It makes him look like a giant baby monster.  Dumpie, truly offended, screamed like a child possessed and refused to wear them.  But tonight, after a few Oreo cookies as bribe fodder, and some heavy duty cajoling, we managed to get him into them without any lethal scratches or heavy objects being flung our way.

The other night after he wet our bed, we stuck him in a pair and were awoken this morning to tiny little crab-like pinches on our forearms.  It was Dumpie insisting we give him a shower because he'd wee'ed through the nappies.  And so he had.

I thought we were past all this.  Worryingly this recent penchant for nighttime waterworks coincides with a rather lame show as of late from the laundry service we use.  It appears as though our family are now subsisting on something like only three pairs of pants each.  So Dumpie has taken matters into his own hands and decided to go 'commando' for the time being.  Great.

But I've got more worrying matters to hand.  On Monday our little crew shall be setting forth for a family road trip.  I'm already dreading it.  Vomit, incessant whines of 'Are we there yet?" and reggae music on our little speakers 24/7.  Can't wait.

Oh yeah, and did i mention the 4.5 hour ferry crossing?  Where we'll no doubt be stuck in our rental car for the duration?  It won't be anything like European ferries, that's for sure.  There's a super speed ferry that does the journey in one hour flat, but the husband wants to take our rental car, so that's a no go.  And there's also the option of a twenty minute flight which costs only $40, but to this, the husband says, "Where's your sense of adventure?"

I'll tell you where my 'Sense of Adventure' is...currently pinned to the ground in a vice grip by 'Common Sense', whilst being taunted by 'Hindsight'.

(sigh)....