THERE'S a lay-by in Mid Wales we pass each time we go to New Quay, which we never fail to point out.
It's "Emily's lay-by" - same as my mum has a gate somewhere on the Horseshoe Pass.
The sight of it, some eight years later, still fills me with a slight dread and a knot lurches in my stomach.
I never fail to remember the spectacular projectile vomiting that led us there - too late to save our car but early enough to allow us to get Emily changed and deposit an entire sick-coated outfit in its bin.
We only had ourselves to blame.
Like her nan before her, Emily has never been the best traveller.
On our way to Pendine Sands, with two more families, we'd stopped off at another nan's house and she fed the kids jelly and ice cream.
"Emily doesn't like it." I protested sounding like a maternal version of Little Britain's Andy.But Emily had other ideas.
She decided all of a sudden that she did now like jelly and ice cream and what was more, she was not only going to finish her own but also polish off what was left by her sister and her two friends.
Nice.
I'd never seen anything like it. I was a bit embarrassed, but my friend's mum whose house we had stopped at was impressed by Emily's appetite.
"Get it down you," she smiled.
"Get it up you" would have been more appropriate as the journey continued.
Just 30 minutes of meandering Mid Wales roads later, Emily was spewing for England.
And so we stopped at the lay-by, before continuing with a resigned air and a determination that the holiday could only get better.
We were wrong.
After queuing to collect our caravan keys, we made our way inside and began to unpack.
A knock at the door soon came and my friend Stacey informed me she was taking her daughter Ellen to the nearest doctor as she had caught her hand in a door.
Ouch.
But it wasn't the end of the world, was it? I cheerily asked my girls.
"Daddy will be here soon," I assured them after Neil rang to say he was on his way after a late shift.
I'll never know what they thought of this news.
Next thing I knew Melissa had pooed on the floor as her potty training "practise" got the better of her.
As I stooped to clear up the runny mess seeping into the beige carpet, I could hear Emily's giggles behind me as she clambered onto the sofa.
But then I heard a sickening crunch.
Before I had time to tell her not to climb quite so eagerly, she had fallen off, landing on her wrist. She was crying uncontrollably.
I did what every good mother does and told her to stop complaining. Then we tried the trusted family remedy of running her arm under a cold tap.
Somehow, I also found time to wash the crap off my hands and eat a whole packet of Breakaways.
They never even touched the sides.
I drove like a maniac to hospital. I can still see the cars I passed now, sticking up two fingers or mouthing expletives at me.
When we found out Emily had broken her arm, I was inconsolable.
Even Bradley Bear wouldn't make up for this.
Needless to say we have never been back to Pendine. I've never touched a Breakaway and Emily has never had jelly and ice cream since.
* This post is for Victoria at It's a small world after all and her festival of car sick!
What a nightmare!
Posted by: Littlemummy | October 21, 2009 at 10:08 AM
Oh my god - what a total nightmare. Who would have thought jelly and ice cream could have harboured such dangers?! Poor little mite breaking her arm - that's so awful. I'll be avoiding Pendine myself - sounds nasty!
Posted by: Hazel Gaynor | October 21, 2009 at 10:30 AM
Ah, mother guilt. Nothing better than when you take the "Oh, get over yourself!" approach only to find that they have a bona fide social-service-eye-brow-raising injury. I once accidentally dislocated my (then) 2 year old daughter's elbow but thought she was having an extended tantrum because I wouldn't let her walk across the road by herself. I still feel bad about that one.
Of course the number of times you've lovingly applied bandaids to "grave life-threatening" injuries so miniscule they would be considered a papercut to wee faerie-folk is never remembered on such occasions.
Posted by: The NDM | October 21, 2009 at 08:41 PM