Hope for the best, prepare for the worst: 24 hours on a family vacation in Antigua

4am: “Just another day in paradise,” I say in an American accent as I open the curtains to a view of pink-tinged clouds hovering over a still Caribbean sea. My three children and husband are asleep downstairs, so I can use whatever accent I like without being judged. My eldest is 11 and harsh but fair in her appraisal of my abilities. “Mum, it’s not that you can’t sing, it’s that you don’t sing well,” was yesterday’s slight.

Before coming away, I vowed to rise early each day of our ‘holiday of a lifetime’ in Antigua to work on a novel. It’s to be a rom-com set here, in the glorious St James Club. Today is day 10, and the first I’ve got up to write. I go to retrieve my laptop from the safe, but the key won’t turn in the lock. I try over and over to open it until I’m sweating. And I’ve nobody to share my panic with…

“What do you mean you locked your valuables in the safe?” says my sister—when it’s 4am in the Caribbean, it’s 9am at home. “Isn’t that what a safe is for?”

“Yes, but I fiddled with the lock yesterday. I’ve fucked it. And our passports are in there, we won’t be able to fly home.”

“You’re not flying home today.”

“I know but imagine if we were …”

She hangs up. Of course, I can’t tell her the reason I’m distraught is that I was finally going to make a start on my novel. She’d tell me to pick up a notebook.

5am: I abandon dreams of becoming a novelist for another day and pad barefoot along the sand to the 24-hour coffee shop. I’m in love with this coffee shop.

I remember a trip to the Caribbean with my youngest when she was 18 months old. She woke at 3am, thinking it was time for breakfast—which of course it was in the UK—and I had to distract her from her hunger for FOUR hours until the breakfast buffet opened.

I smile at the memory as I sit on a quiet beach drinking iced coffee and eating a buttery pain au chocolat. She’s seven now and her brother is 10. I’m over the worst period of parenting.

7am: I am definitely not over the worst period of parenting.

“What do you mean you’ve locked my iPad in the safe?” Middle child is yelling at me. “Will it stay there forever?”

“I don’t know,” I say feebly. “How about a swim?”

“I don’t want to swim! I want to play Roblox/message friends/watch Barbie” all three say simultaneously.

“But we’re on holiday!” I plead. “It’s not about devices.”

“But we’ve been here forever already.”

This isn’t what I expected when I planned this trip. I imagined an all-inclusive resort would be all we’d need: Kids club, watersports, new friends, endless slushies and snacks. The kids would be entertained and I’d make great strides in my fiction writing and plough through novels on a lounger. But in 10 days, I’ve barely read a word, and you know I haven’t written one.

8am: “I’m going to hire a car!” I announce to a pile of sheets that roughly resemble my husband Shyne’s torso. I try to resist the urge to yell, “How can you be sleeping in all this chaos?” I know it will start an argument if I do, but…

“How can you be sleeping in all this chaos?”

“Oh don’t start.”

“Well I have started. I started at 4am and now it’s 8am and I’d like a bit of support!”

I flounce out and bundle the kids to breakfast, knowing I’ve now blown any chance of the support I’m begging for.

10am: The handyman is dealing with the safe, Shyne has forgiven me and we’ve piled into our newly acquired hire car. We arrive at Darkwood Beach on the west coast and feel like we’ve walked into a postcard.

Shyne chills on a blue-painted bench under a sea grape tree, while the rest of us don snorkels to spot blue and orange fish and dive for conch shells. As we get back into the car, sandy and happy, it feels like I’ve saved the day.

Midday: We’ve made it 10 minutes up the road when my son starts crying. “Ow, my ear, my ear.”

“Who’s hurt him?” I demand.

“I didn’t touch him,” the girls cry in unison.

He’s clasping his ear and moaning.

We’re on our way to a ‘paint a pot’ session at Margrie Hunt ceramics. “Let’s just get there. I’m sure they’ll help us,” I say.

This doesn’t reassure the boy, who’s working himself into a frenzy. Perhaps he’s burst an eardrum? I question why I’m not driving him straight to a hospital.

1pm: We certainly know how to make an entrance. I greet Michael Hunt, fellow ceramist and husband to aforementioned Margrie, carrying a hysterical topless, barefoot boy and try to explain. He calmly takes my husband and other children to select their ceramics, then heats aloe vera for me to hold against my son’s ear while he makes some calls.

2pm: Michael finds an emergency clinic in the capital, St John’s. In reception, there’s a book written by Dr Francis called Doctor Mommy, our superhero. It presents such a committed and caring mother and I feel so frazzled that I cry while reading.

Then my son remarks how cool it is to be in a country where everyone, even characters in a book, look like them and it cheers me up. The doctor calls us and she’s as formidable in real life as she is in fiction. The verdict is ear infection and I pay USD$120 and leave with a prescription for antibiotics and ear drops.

3.30pm: I pick up the girls and Shyne who’ve finished their painting. The boy is calmer and the drops have released a chunk of gunk, which he seems quite proud of. We head back to St James Club to spend the rest of the day on the beach. Our outing has calmed everyone and the children play without fighting.

Shyne decides to get in the water. He hasn’t been in the sea for 20 years—since before he sustained a spinal injury in a car accident—but the water here is shallow, with sea hammocks tethered a couple of meters from shore. With his crutch on one side and me on the other, he staggers into the water and hurls himself into the hammock. He is thrilled. I order two pina coladas and wade back out to join him.

6.30pm: The water sports guy comes to untether the hammocks and bring them to shore. He’s surprised to see my husband. “The sea will do ya good, man!” he says as he drags him into land.

10pm: We’ve gorged ourselves on Caribbean buffet and I’m now dancing with the kids to a rendition of Red, Red Wine by the house band.

“I’ve never heard this song before,” my eldest declares. I assure her she’ll hear it many more times in her life. Perhaps on a holiday like this, with her own kids. Perhaps, by then, I’ll have written my novel.

***

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