Hello everyone,

I know, I know – long time no post. Things have been particularly turbulent for me during the past couple of months due to work and studying. January and February were pretty dark months and I now feel like I’m just emerging out of a dark hole, my body and mind slowly waking up again after a couple of months of winter slump.

But enough of this dark depressing introduction to an over-due blog post – let’s move onto brighter and warmer things, namely my recent trip to Lanzarote with  my family – leading me onto my next lesson:

Lesson 10: How to have a great family holiday (Without killing each other…)

A bit of background info regarding moi. I left home when I was 19 to go on a one year gap year, which is now reaching its eighth year. I try to see my mum every 3 months, but I normally only see my “complete” family (mum, dad and sister (24)) about twice a year (summer and xmas!).

I love my family to bits but as with all families, there can sometimes be tension when put together in one room for a week (yes – we all stayed in one room). But despite a little cattiness and some small arguments I arrived back home with all limbs and most of my mental stability intact.

So without further ado – here are my tips on how to have a great family holiday*

*Success not guaranteed…please don’t take these tips seriously.

1) Choose a good location – which doesn’t involve an extremely long plane journey and also provides a good mixture of sunshine and culture.

We chose Lanzarote. A beautiful island near the African coast. It’s a volcanic island which has been very well preserved. What I really loved, was the lack of large buildings and ugly hotels.

The weather was great (a lovely 20°C with only a few days of rain) so I was able to sunbathe and burn my feet!

I admit, that when I first arrived the island reminded me of a large building site, with piles of sand – however when I took a closer look at the landscape I was greeted with wonderful colours and amazing geological formations (is that the right word…).

If you ever wanted to take a trip to Mars but couldn’t afford it – Lanzarote is the next best option.

2) Go just before or just after school holidays.

I don’t hate children. I will probably maybe possibly be a mother myself one day, but when on holiday I can do without kids running around, screaming and splashing in the pool.

My sister and I were some of the youngest there – and we would get excited when we saw other people under 40!

3) Take part in the hotel activities (it leads to free drink!)

We went half-board, which meant we had to pay for our drinks. (Although when I ordered in spanish, I tended to get free ones…)However we discovered, that if we took part in the activites there was a chance that we could win some free alcohol.

We played – bingo, boules, billiards, volleyball (we were terrible at that!), archery, shuffleboard and black jack. We won a bottle of champagne nearly every day!

We also learnt that we could have a lot of fun together as a family 🙂 (Insert cheesy music here).

4) Eat well.

5) Take part in cultural excursions.

Ok – we went to a British drag show – but it was awesome and I fell in love with one of the drag queens – men take note – drag queens are the perfect partners – you can have girly shopping time but also… 😉 I love them!

My mum, sister and I were in complete bits – and I was able to do the timewarp!

6) Golden rule – there will be times when it just gets too much – so always remember to bring headphones and a book. I spent a lot of the time reading about children being murdered by a clown – amazing book, but still too wimpy to watch the film.

I hope I was able to provide some useful tips and hope you all get to enjoy a holiday with your families!

Thanks for reading!

Laura xxx