Everything but the dog

The night before you go on holiday – you wish you weren’t. You rush around, clearing the fridge. What is that, right at the back? Believe me, you don’t want to know.

Out it goes, to make its own way in the world. You’ve harboured it long enough. It’s on its own.

You zoom around with the hoover. After all, with friends using the house, you can’t expect them to adhere to the same standards of fluff familiar to you.

And then there’s the dog. Dammit. Where’s her Pet’s Passport? Why’s it not with ours? I could have sworn… A fevered search later, it’s in the car, and full speed ahead to the kennels. It’s a holiday, but not the one she was expecting.

The children are sad. Why’s the dog not coming with us? They were looking forward to her running about madly after anything moving in the long grass. Her tireless questing is a joy to herself.

Yet her attentions are not always welcome – especially if you’re in a grassy, low-lying clinch, or your picnic sausage is unexpectedly abducted.

No chance of that now. She’s in the cooler.

You try to palm off watering the garden to a child. They neatly sidestep the task with a compelling World Cup plea.

You melt. Of course – after all, you’d be watching yourself if you didn’t have basins to Jif.

Then there’s the packing. Six pairs of socks but you almost forget your toothbrush.

Shorts but no waterproof – and surely it won’t be that cool after sunset. Do you really need to pack a woolly jumper?

The answer, invariably, is – yes.

How hard can it be to grasp the reality of location?

An ambulance driver told me once that a whistle and a box of matches in a plastic bag can save your life. Yet do I take any notice? No. I immediately forget what’s really proved useful – resistant to experience. That goes for planning ahead too.

Although you swear each time you return and unpack that you’ll keep a core case for fast flight – I find I never do.

Everything gets dispersed again, and the lassoing roundup happens again, year after year: a ritual you long to escape yet never apply the wisdom you know makes sense.

So, as the taps are turned, the doors shut and the appliances checked one last time, in case they miraculously come to life the moment you leave the premises, we move towards the car – a cavalcade of bags, iPods and eagerness: this is what we long for each summer, and when we arrive at our destination… Well, it’s magic isn’t it? And then we remember the dog.