AKA The Travelling Coffee Machine

I don’t know when it happened exactly, but as I pack the car following our Christmas break it hits me. We’ve become those people.

“But what people?” I hear you cry.

Well stop crying as I was about to tell you, you impatient scoundrels. We have become the kind of people who take their coffee machine on holiday with them. Whenever we go away, even if it’s only for a couple of days, old Nessie the Nespresso machine comes with us. And not only Nessie. She also brings her good friend Alexa and our Fire TV stick as well.

“I’ve travelled all around the world and do you know what’s the best cup of coffee I’ve ever had?” says Zsuzsa. “Hands down Nessie’s coffee! Best in the world!”.

So that’s why she comes with us. Also, nobody can Alexa as well as Alexa, so she comes too. And can you imagine a world where we stay in a place that doesn’t have Netflix? Well we can, and that’s why our Fire TV comes with us as well. Basically to avert a Netflix-less disaster.

Are we sad? Totally. Do we care? Hell no! Why would we with such spiffing coffee, Alexa to chat to and Netflix on the gogglebox. Bless you Nessie. Bless your little caffeinated heart.

It’s also just dawned on me that we’ve become the kind of people who give their appliances names! (shudder).

An hour later and myself, Zsuzsa, Mila, Lola, Nessie, Alexa and our Fire TV stick are making our merry way through Hungary, pointed in the direction of our Budanest. My little wife yawns, I notice and follow suit.

“Do you think we’ll always be tired honey?” says Zsuzsa.

I consider this for a moment.

“Not always.” I reply. “In fifteen years time or so we’ll probably be alright.”

I look in the rearview mirror and see both our cubs fast asleep.

“Life’s so busy isn’t it?” says Zsuzsa.

I nod in agreement.

“You know what I struggle with?” I say.

“What honey.”

“Writing this bloody blog! With just Mila it was all systems go. I was writing something new every week, but with two little ragamuffins, it’s just so difficult to find the time. Now it’s like a piece every few weeks, or a month. Sometimes more!”

“I know.” says Zsuzsa, stroking my shoulder reassuringly.

“And it’s not like I haven’t got things to write about! There’s so many things that I wish I’d found the time to get down onto electronic paper.”

“Like what?”

FYI This is the bit where ‘The Budanest the Movie’ will queue a hilarious montage, with Tom Hardy playing me and Brie Larson as my lady wife (as long as she can do the accent). If Tom is unavailable maybe it’ll be Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s chance to star in the role of a lifetime.

“Like the time we met that family who fed their baby with pre-masticated chicken, regurgitated by the mother.”

“You didn’t write about that?”

“I don’t think so! I mean, I might have, but this year has been such a sleepy blur that i’m not exactly sure what’s made it in and what hasn’t.”

“Reese Witherspoon does that.”

“Does what?”

“Regurgitates food into her children’s mouths like some kind of Hollywood seagull.”

I shake my head in despair.

“What else?” says Zsuzsa. “What else did you not manage to write about?”

“Did I talk about the time I got stuck in a lift with Mila, and how she now refuses to get in lifts if it’s only me and her?”

Zsuzsa shrugs.

“Did you mention how Mila kept asking for a cicifix (bra) from Santa?”

“Nope. And I also didn’t write about the time that you put my passport in the washing machine and how I spent days drying the bastard out and ironing the pages!”

“Did you write about how your phone is full of photo’s of Mila proudly pointing at her poops? (adventures in potty training).”

“No! And I didn’t write about the time that I asked a random Hungarian woman in a restaurant for a Pad Thai!”

“What about how Lola is now so wriggly that dressing her is like putting a bow tie on an eel?”

“What about the time that Mila pointed at that fat man and shouted that he has a baby in his belly!”

“Or the time on the airplane when Mila told Lola that when she’s a big girl she will not only get her own seat on the plane, but also in the pub!”

“I haven’t mentioned how Lola has started calling me Kaki (shit)!”

“Didn’t Mila do that as well?”

“Yes, but still. Or the time in Centre Parcs when my mother declared that she’d had a nightmare where she was being chased by MFI (I think she meant MI5, not MFI the British discount furniture shop, although to be fair, the later would probably be more terrifying).

”Love Centre Parcs.”

“I didn’t even mention how you kept rejecting my idea to buy Mila a chameleon for Christmas.”

“You’re not buying that chameleon.”

“But it’s only thirty quid!”

“No!”

“Or the time when I was taking Mila to the cinema, and on a packed tram she loudly said ‘Daddy. You won’t hurt me will you? You won’t hurt me in the cinema? Please don’t hurt me!?’”.

Zsuzsa giggles.

We drive on in reflective silence, remembering all of the crazy, momentous, life changing events that occurred during this last orbit around the sun. It’s all been fairly wonderful and epic, as well as being incredibly tiring and stressful, but we wouldn’t change it for anything (although ask me again at three in the morning and see what I say).

As we approach Budapest a smile stretches across my face. Zsuzsa notices.

“What?”

“I love our life honey.”

“Me too.” my sleepy wife responds with a smile.

“I’m also really looking forward to giving Nora a spin when we get back.”

Nora, I should explain, is the robotic vacuum cleaner that Santa gave me for Christmas.

“Do you think Nora will get on well with Nessie?” I ask.

“I’m sure she will honey. I’m sure she will.”