It was a big decision to turn three months' parental leave into a European holiday, but the whole family reaped the benefits, writes Tim Carey.
It was an idea born in the post-Christmas what's-it-all-about-anyway month of January last year. The family would take three months out of our daily lives and go to continental Europe for an extended holiday. If you'd ever bunked off school, this was bunking-off writ large.
As my wife Sinead and I reviewed what we felt was our litany of business over the previous seven years - four job changes, two house moves, three books and two children - we felt we had had quite enough. Another spur was that we also found ourselves whingeing about Ireland - the rudeness, the prices, the quality of life, the traffic and everything else. We wanted some perspective, and with our daughter Jennifer due to start school in September and our son Aaron not yet three, we decided that the timing was perfect.
The mechanism that facilitated this was the lovely piece of legislation called the Parental Leave Act, which allows parents to take up to 14 weeks' unpaid leave for each child before they are five. Given that the circumstances were right, it seemed daft not to avail of the offer.
The reaction of people to our plan of escape varied. Most thought it was a great idea, but other responses were more curious. Were we bringing the children? Were we going to put the children in school while away? And, most peculiarly, would we not miss the routine? Obviously, for some the thought of three months' holidays en famille conjured up some kind of hell.
Once we had decided that we were going to do it, we set about planning.
The first thing to do was for me to write a letter to my employer - Dún Laoghaire Rathdown Council - explaining why a three-month break would not affect my work as a heritage officer - the thought of Homer Simpson being replaced by a chicken at the nuclear power plant came to mind! The kitchen table became the centre of operations with the internet, maps and guide books to the ready. It was our Operation Barbarossa, our European invasion.
WE WERE NOT overly ambitious in our plan. We were not going hiking in the Himalayas or undertaking a tour of the campsites of Europe. We wanted a change of scene, not an endurance test. After much consideration, we decided on a farmhouse called Casa Cannavino outside the village of San Angelo in Pontano in the Marche region of Italy, an apartment in the Ravel district of Barcelona, and a gîte in Usse in the Loire Valley, France.
It was a rural-urban-rural sandwich, in which we started in the south and worked our way northward towards home. We would leave in March and return in June, which would mean it was quieter, cheaper and cooler than a summer trip.
Other things to do included organising someone to mind the house, taking an essential three-month break from the mortgage, a new car stereo (the old one broke down two days before departure), a roof-rack and roof box, car insurance for travel in all the countries through which we were travelling and car breakdown cover.
Apart from a few extra CDs, some of favourite toys and a couple of new ones to punctuate the long journeys, we made few allowances for the children. We figured we could make provision for them when we were away.
The most vexed issue of all was whether Jennifer's "Dolly" - her night-time doll - was coming. Should we let her bring it? Should we bring it to take out in emergencies? Both of these entailed the disastrous possibility of losing Dolly. In the end, we decided to leave her behind and let her be something for Jennifer to look forward to seeing on our return.
Despite all the planning, at the end of March when the ferry pulled away from Dún Laoghaire harbour, Sinead and I wondered what we had let ourselves in for. Were we mad? The full itinerary of the trip was Dún Laoghaire-Holyhead - a couple of nights in Cambridge - ferry from Harwich to the Hook of Holland, overnight in Metz in northern France, overnight in Milan, a month in Le Marche with a couple of overnight excursions in Umbria. Then ferry from Italy to Barcelona, where we'd spend 10 days, overnight in Toulouse, three weeks in the Loire, ferry from Cherbourg to England, overnight in England, and finally ferry from Holyhead to Dún Laoghaire.
People asked what the best place was. Each had its own delights. Le Marche - "the next Umbria" - was beautiful, unspoiled by tourism and cheap. We would definitely go back.
Barcelona was beautiful, vibrant and full of things to do and see for all of us. The Loire was a bit bourgeois and middle-aged - although Sinead kept telling me that I was middle-aged! - and when you have seen one castle you have seen them all. Although we did a lot of sightseeing, it was not that type of holiday.
THE BEST PART was hanging around with the family. The highlights were the small things and time spent together.
We were living the life of Reilly. We now know what it must be like to win the Lotto. For three months we rarely left the house before 11am, sampled more than our fair share of the inexpensive wines of each region, mooched around the towns and villages, read books, slept in the afternoon (unfortunately the children didn't sleep) and generally, well, dossed.
The downsides were largely weather related - at one stage in Italy it rained continuously for four days, which led to an outbreak of cabin fever.
Being with your children more or less constantly has its drawbacks. We were their only form of entertainment, and this was pretty hard at times. There was no school, work or creche, and there were no relations to give anyone a break.
The most difficult thing was to achieve a balance between our needs and theirs. There were times when we could have put them up for adoption, and I am sure that they put small ads in the local papers looking for new parents. But overall, these were minor problems. They just threw themselves into whatever was presented to them.
Although we did not go away for their benefit, Aaron and Jennifer got a huge amount out of it. In fact, they loved it from the start and never looked back or missed what they had left behind in Ireland - which I am sure disappointed their doting relations back home.
Jennifer is old enough to keep the memories of the trip vivid, and one highlight for her was her first visit to the castle at Usse that inspired the fairytale Sleeping Beauty. Struggling to express her emotions at the end she exclaimed, "I am so proud!"
Aaron, being the second child, and having been born in a busy part of our lives, had been a bit neglected. The holiday addressed this beautifully, as he went through his own rite of passage, going away a baby and coming back a boy.
After nearly three months of holiday, coming home was a killer. On our last day in France, each of us shed at least a tear. The drive through England was funereal. As the boat pulled away from Holyhead Jennifer suddenly shouted "No! I don't want to go back!", and we lied and told her that it would be nice to be home. Wasn't Dolly waiting for her? We were back to the routine, but all of us had changed.
