How men and women prepare for a weekend away

A weekend away recently made me ponder how men and women prepare for a weekend away completely differently.

For Christmas my parents gave us an all expenses trip to France and an offer of looking after the children and the dog.   So as soon as we heard April 29th was to be a bank holiday we booked our weekend away to make the most of that “free day”.

That was January.   Fast forward to the day we leave.   Mr B has been out of the house at work for twelve hours a day, Monday to Friday for the past few weeks.   Mr Barrow Sr has been with us this week so Mr B’s evenings have been spent keeping his dad company whilst any football match televised has been watched.  It also safe to say that whilst watching said sports programmes there has been some consumption of bottles of red / white / rose /  Scotch (you get the picture).

We are leaving tonight at 6.30pm.  Mr B will arrive at 6.19.  Talk to the dog until 6.21.   Talk to the cats until 6.23.   Talk to his dad until 6.25.   Grab three pairs of pants, his toothbrush and a clean t-shirt, sling them in a bag, pick up his passport and declare himself ready at 6.30pm.  Without fail.    And this won’t be the first time this scenario has played out either.

In order to go away for the weekend, leaving three children, a dog, three cats and my father in law (who is leaving tomorrow) I have had to do the following today:

1.  Do daily 30 mile round trip school run
2. Stock up on milk / bread / butter
3. Strip bed Father in Law has been in as my parents will need it.
4. Strip eldest daughter’s bed and move Father in Law into her bedroom
5. Do nine.  Yes nine loads of washing
6. Go to the tip
7. Get nine.  Yes nine loads of washing dry.   As some of is the bedding I need to put back on beds
8. Walk the dog
9. Clean bathrooms
10. Clean kitchen
11. Vacuum entire house.   Re-vacuum bedroom when I managed to empty the damn thing all over the carpet instead of in the bin bag
12. Write an instruction manual for my parent of how various things work / where to walk dog / wi-fi password / etc etc
13. Remove Father in Law’s hot cross bun from the toaster as he managed to wedge it in there.
14. Go to son’s school and attend Year 10 Parent conference, grab his laundry etc and bring him home.  A 50 mile round trip
15. Iron clothes for trip
16. Print off all travel documents for Eurostar and Hotel
17. Book dinner cruise for tomorrow night
18. Pack my suitcase and all forgotten items of Mr B’s.
19. Make sure Father in Law stops for his lunch as he has been gardening like a demon all week
20. Remake beds

So as you can see there is a slight imbalance in this allocation of duties, in this approach to how men and women prepare for a weekend away.   Is this how it is for everybody or am I alone?

Up shot is that in booking the posh candlelit dinner on the river in Paris tomorrow night I appear to have booked THE most expensive TABLE on THE most expensive cruise on Mr B’s credit card instead of mine because I was too busy to concentrate on what I was doing.

Silly me