Sometimes, a two hour drive is all it takes to turn humdrum to holiday.

“How about a romantic weekend away?” my Lothario whispers across his pillow, our love life handicapped by the three-year-old octopus suckered between us.

“Just a couple of days hey?” he murmurs. “Somewhere exotic. By the beach.  Away from all this.”

I could have kissed him. Instead, my arm is paralysed by the dead weight of a sleeping child’s leg-tentacle flopped across my chest.

“Promise?” I whisper back.

“No” comes the reply, “but the weekend after next I have to go to my high school reunion in Bunbury. I’ve booked us all into the Lord Forrest hotel.”