On Vomit
Sitting at the edge of the airport food hall, in easy view of about two hundred people, C pukes up her bottle of milk on me.
I say milk, I mean velling. Velling is a Swedish powdered baby food. Various grains go into it, along with some kind of whey powder or something, I don't know. Sort of like horlicks, I guess, I've never seen it in the UK. Swedes swear by it, C loves it.
It has, when old or semi-digested, the worst smell imaginable. Somewhere between cheese and spoiled meat, with a rotting bread undertone. Hints of the smell of a brand new polythene bag, cut through with the diarrhoea of a Victorian pauper with typhus. My Room 101 is lined with flasks of the stuff, gurgling their contents drippily into a central tank in which I am immersed, head down, twenty three hours a day. For the remaining hour, I must drink it.
It is this slime that I am coated liberally with, half an hour before our flight.
C is prised off my shoulder with a sucking noise. Across my chest is a perfect imprint of her body, outlined in goo, like a suncream gag from Police Academy gone horribly wrong. There is a ring of disgusted faces turning away from me as I rise and head for the toilets. V lends me her jumper. We've got changes of clothes for the girls, but not for us. This goes on the packing list for next time.
Comprehensive though my moobs are, they are lesser beasts compared to my wife's. Her v-neck is a little loose on me, is what I'm saying. It also doesn't hide the belt of caked white slime round the top of my jeans. Or the smell. Nothing hides the smell. Five hours on the flight certainly doesn't, with C writhing round on top of me happily, kicking the back of the chair in front.
F loves flying, she gets to sit and eat sweets and watch the iPad with our blessing for hours straight. Her over-excited screams drew grumpy looks from the lady in front a couple of times. I wanted to deck her with my tray of reheated beef stew, unstained by children and spew as she was, the bitch.
We got home to the darkest day of the Swedish winter. Two days before Christmas, with all the shopping still to do and no sunlight to do it in. Nice to know we'd made it past the solstice. Uphill from here! By April, we'll be right back to three minutes of weak, watery light round midday! Glorious!
F wept when we got home. "What is a holiday anyway," she wailed, "if you have to come home afterwards?" Well, an expensive waste of time, if you look at it that way, love.
Not that it was, in any way. Change is as good as a rest, they say.
On More Vomit
Christmas goes swimmingly, the Swedish family are round for a buffet Julbord and we all eat too much and get loads of presents. Cousin A sees right through my fake Tomte beard, but at least plays obligingly along with the illusion in front of the others. F gets a Doc McStuffins playset and a remote control car. C gets her very own playdoh and forgets not to eat it in her excitement. Then she gets toy envy and follows F from room to room, playing with whatever has been discarded last.
The day after Christmas, or, well, actual Christmas Day by the English reckoning , we go and hit the sales for a bit. C buys herself a Frozen snowglobe wand that plays Let It Go slightly off key and much too loud. F invests in a toy toaster, which turns out to have a broken timer once its out of its wrapper. I can't find the receipt to take it back.
Then we all start vomiting in unison. Except Clara, she's been done it already. And except V, who doesn't believe in vomiting except in extreme circumstances. Oh, we deck the halls, we do. All night, F and I take in turns to hit the buckets. The washer is full of stuffed toys and blankets, the sofa is full of exhausted parents.
"Pook pook," says C tenderly, patting me on the head. "Awww." Then she pulls herself up on to my lap and resumes bouncing up and down merrily. Careful, daughter, I owe you one from a few days back.
The night goes on forever, but by boxing day we're all more or less okay again. Exhausted, but capable of swallowing without hurling at least.
I want to go back to Tenerife.
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