How’s everyone doing this weekend? Us H’s have been staycationing it again this week. I have to tell you, it’s been a lot of fun, helped greatly I’ll admit by the weather we’re having. 2013 is the summer of the heatwave!
‘Staycation’ I have discovered is a term apparently coined by a Canadian comedian for stay at home vacationing and since then it has became popular in the US and crept into our vocabulary now too. In fairness though, long before the term ‘Staycation’ was bandied about, a lot of us Irish grew up in households that didn’t stray much further than Curracloe Beach or the Ring of Kerry for our annual holidays. We were staycationing it, we just didn’t know we were!
When the celtic tiger said adios to us so did the days of two holidays abroad (for most of us anyhow!) so we went all retro and went back to staying at home for our two weeks every summer and you know what? somehow sticking the label ‘Staycation’ on it, makes it seem a whole lot more fun!
So here are my top reasons why I reckon staying at the Costa del Homeo is your only man:-
First of all, it’s free! No travel costs at all – nada. Just think of the money you will save on airline, ferry tickets and hotel costs. Never mind the time you will save trawling through the internet for months, trying to work out what the best deal is. And lets face it, you will know exactly what the accommodation is like before you check in, so no hidden surprises for you all.
For example there’s no chance of arriving in what is supposed to be a 4star resort, but in fact it is atually a building site, that starts drilling at 6am every morning just to set you up nicely for the day! And there’s nothing like sleeping in your own bed, with your own pillow is there?
There’s no horrendous 15 hour commute, (are we there yet, are we there yet?) where you have to get up at stupid o’clock to get to the airport at the ungodly hour of 6 am, so you can sit in departures half asleep for 3 hours before departure (who made that rule!) and the whole family are about to pass out from the heat, because theres been no choice but to do this
because you can only afford to pay for one small case between 5 of you! Excess baggage allowances are very generous when staycationing, trust me!
And how about the fear us Irish all have when we go abroad that we won’t like the grub. At least when staying at home there is no need to sneak a kilo of new potatoes and a box of Lyons or Barry’s tea into your meagre luggage allowance. And if the urge hits you for a bag of tayto of an evening, you can nip down to the local shop and knock yourself out.
And speaking of food, you know where you are with the local restaurants and takeaways at home. So there won’t be the need to spend an hour walking up and the down the restaurant strip, trying to simultaneously avoid eye contact with the pushy waiters all shouting annoyingly at you ‘You Irish, No?’ while you work out if the tourists that are eating in said restaurant look happy with their el steakio and chipios or not!
And let’s not forget that we already speak the lingo at home. No looking like a right Irish eejit as you saunter up to the local barman and shout in your best accent, ‘Two beerios, pleasio, comprendeo?’
This one is a bit of a good and bad point. At home, you will have a TV that a) works and b) has more than two channels that are in English. We’ve all done holidays abroad where the only channels of the 99 that are available and any use to us were CNN News or The Geographic Channel. And God forbid that there is no cartoon channel. Disaster!
And we’ve all been stung by this one haven’t we? Stay at home and you won’t receive a nasty bill in a month’s time from your mobile phone company for €500 because you forgot about Roaming charges and turned on Google maps on your smartphone in an effort to find the local Starbucks for the free Wi-Fi as you have withdrawal symptoms from Facebook and twitter.
This is a good one, if you fancy a night out without the kids, you can book your regular babysitter and head out to the local pub. Supporting the local economy an added feel good bonus here! Mr H and I took firm advantage of this on Thursday night just gone!
And finally don’t underestimate just think how smug you will feel of a weekday morning as you sit at your sitting room window and watch the poor neighbours all heading off to work and you get to put your feet up!
So on that note, I’m going to make a cup of coffee for myself and enjoy the last day of our vacation. I’ve no packing to do, or unpacking, or a moany long journey home with depressed faces all round. Think we’ll pack another picnic and head out for a day trip, make some more memories.
Have a lovely Sunday and chat soon everyone,
Carmel x
