Katherine Locke had just undergone gruelling chemotherapytreatment for breast cancer when she won our 2008 Travel story competition.
Katherine and her family enjoyed a prize holiday to
Greece. With a wide age-range and plenty of stroppy teenage behaviour would it be the restful break every mother hopes for? Find out how the
Locke family got on…
It happened forty-eight hours after we arrived. I was
swimming in the adult pool, looking out towards the beautiful Mediterranean
Sea and thinking about having an iced coffee, when it dawned on me.
I had finally relaxed.
When the phone call arrived informing us that I had won
a Sunsail holiday, I was absolutely over the moon. We had struggled
so hard over the previous year during my treatment for breast cancer.
The illness had taken its toll on the whole family, with everybody being
affected in some way. To win a holiday was the best news we could have
had.
We travelled with four of our children. Fred, 17, Kezia,
16, Ollie, 15 and Henry, 2. With such a wide age range and plenty of
stroppy teenage behaviour, I was slightly nervous about it. Also, as
delightful as the Snappers Kids Club for 2-4 year olds sounded, I was
anxious about leaving Henry in the care of strangers.
I needn’t have worried. Within twenty-four hours the teenagers
were roaming around in a huge gang having an absolute blast and the
staff at the kids club were so lovely that I was totally confident about
leaving Henry.
The
childcare at the resort was absolutely examplary with two nannies looking
after five children. The outside play space was a toddlers’ paradise
and there was a fully shaded toddler pool. Henry was able to follow
his usual routine, with an after lunch nap in a fully air-conditioned
room in the nursery. We went out for dinner one night and employed a
qualified nanny to babysit for us, so we could relax. The staff were
extremely helpful at all times and did their best to make Henry’s stay
as enjoyable as possible. I felt so confident leaving him that I was
able to totally unwind in the knowledge that he was taken care of.
Everybody
had something fun to do. The older kids became part of the Beach Team
and tried their hand at everything from Ringoing (bouncing around on
a huge rubber tyre being pulled along by a speedboat!) to kayaking to
dingy sailing. My husband, as a keen sailor, was in his element trying
all the latest boats, including the marvellously named Hobie Cat.
I took up residence by the pool with the rest of the readers.
At 10am every morning there was a fabulous aqua aerobics class, so after
an hour of stretching and bending, I felt totally justified lying around
reading a novel for the rest of day.
The food was regular and plentiful. The boys were thrilled
by the ‘all you can eat’ buffet arrangements and certainly got their
moneys worth! The bliss of not having to cook or think about food for
once really did make it a special holiday for me.
The highlight of the week was taking out a thirty-foot
yacht for a day and getting a flavour of what it must be like to drift
around the med on a boat all summer. We spent an idyllic morning sailing
over to a nearby island and moored up at a taverna on the waters edge
for lunch. Looking out to sea with a table of delicious food and nothing
to do but sail home again was absolute heaven.
The sail back however, turned out to be a little more
challenging. The wind got up and we were hurtling along at 7.5 knots
with me with my head in my hands desperate for it all to be over. We
made it back safely though and the teenagers loved the thrill of a truly
interesting sail!
Sunsail was the perfect holiday for us, it was one of
the best holiday’s we have ever had. All too often, I return from holiday
absolutely exhausted after chasing around after children, mediating
rows, deciding what to eat and were to go. Sunsail took all that pressure
away and it meant that we all had the holiday of a lifetime.
