On a recent trip to the USA, I had a morning which went in a completely different direction than what I was hoping. Instead of a fun packed morning for my two boys, it reduced to what potentially could have been quite a sour, unpleasant experience.  

 We were staying in Redmond, a tree-lined, relaxed city, east of the bustle of Seattle. I had read a few reviews online and had decided to take the boys to a small open farm which had been recommended as it had small animals you could pet, and vegetables the boys could help pick. My eldest was excited, he loves all things animals, and anything mucky- farms have dirt, lots of dirt! 

We set off to the bus stop, as directed by our hotel concierge. We had a hire car, but I wasn’t feeling comfortable driving on the other side of the road to what I was used to, and the bus was a lot more exciting to my 3-year-old than a taxi.  

We arrived at the bus stop, just as the bus was leaving, so had to wait 30 minutes for another. That was ok, as my boy likes to run around and explore. We jumped on the next bus when it arrived and asked the driver to let us know when our stop came. We were let off in the middle of (what seemed) nowhere, and the driver directed us to a road filled with fields as far as we could see. The intersection we needed to walk to was a good 15-minute walk away. We set off, and I was extremely thankful for the sun, shining its rays down upon us, and the trees above, giving us a bit of shade. We finally reached the desired destination, the farm, but it didn’t have children scattered across its fields as I had imagined, in fact, I was finding it hard to see anyone. We wandered in anyway and found a young guy in one of the glass houses.  

“Ah, hi”, I said, kind of awkwardly, as I had already figured out that, there was indeed, no open farm day as suggested on the website I had found.  

“We have just come to see your animals”, I smiled, kind of sheepishly.  

“Oh, ok”, he said, looking down at my toddler, he smiled, “Why don’t you come and see our pigs, they have curly hair, you may not have seen pigs with curly hair before”. I expressed my gratitude and explained we had made the trip especially to see some farm animals.  

He was extremely lovely and very kindly introduced us to the charming curly haired pigs, and endearing chickens, and also explained that this cute farm supplied quite a spectacular AAA 5 Diamond award-winning local restaurant. We stayed for about 5 minutes, then quickly left, thanking the lovely, very accommodating young guy. I pushed my two boys back up the hill towards the bus stop we had originated from, the sun still beating down upon us. I assumed the bus stop to return would be on the opposite side of the road but I couldn’t find one anywhere. There was one around the corner, so after walking up and down the street for a while I perched the three of us, and the stroller under a tree next to the bus stop. The same bus we caught passed us on the other side of the road. I hoped our bus would arrive soon. Over an hour later, once 2 more buses passed us on the other side of the road I picked the boys up and started to walk, looking for something to give me a hint we were on the right track. After pacing back and forth I decided to knock on someone’s door. Thankfully a man opened the door.  

“Oh right, the bus you arrived on is the same one you catch, it does a loop”, he explained.  

 “Ah, Thanks so much,” I said, and quickly ran across the road to the bus stop without a minute to spare, I wasn’t going to watch another one pass by, without us on it!  The bus arrived about 5 minutes later, and we were back at our hotel shortly after. 

Later that day we went out again but stayed clear of the bus. We walked, we played in the park and enjoyed treats at the local café. As I sat in the café that afternoon, devouring a delicious croissant, I realized my mood hadn’t changed from that morning, and my mood that morning was the same as the day before. Although we had spent a few hours earlier that day going nowhere and doing nothing, getting lost in fact, I wasn’t shaken by it. It didn’t make me cross, or stressed, or cause me to blame myself for doing something silly and wasting time in the process. I had no plans, no schedule to run by, and no time restraints. I could just be. I was content, and just happy to be hanging out with my boys.  

 Being on holiday helped me to unwind, rip up the to-do lists, and take off the masks I had placed on myself. Taking a holiday isn’t going to be a quick fix for anyone, especially if there are many layers to unfold. If you let it though, taking a vacation can bring a simple gratitude to your life that you can easily forget about in the busy, chaos of life. Stopping can be scary, and maybe that is one of the reasons we fill our weekends and our vacations with as many things as possible, to avoid the still. But when we do find the courage to pause, stop, and exhale, we are able to again see the incredible beauty of our children and perhaps even our own self.