After quite a bit of juggling and working extra days to allow other drivers time off to do their Christmas shopping, I managed to secure a decent period off over Christmas. I didn’t tell Jon/Fiona until I’d booked a week in Tenerife over the holiday. It wasn’t cheap but I’d secured a self-catering apartment and flights for a week away. The downside was that the flight was from Birmingham on the 21st. We’d need to set off really early in the morning to check in by 07:00. The other downside was that the return flight was not due to land until 23:00. I booked a Hotel close to the Airport for that night as I guessed that neither of us would want to drive home in the small hours of the next morning.

When all the tickets and everything arrived, I showed them to Fiona.

“Dad?” she said when she’d seen everything.

“Don’t you want to go?”

“You know I do but I don’t have anything to wear for that amount of time away.”

“Funny that, neither do I. Why don’t we go shopping in Manchester a week on Saturday?”

The seventeen year old boy stared at his reflection in the mirror and let out a long, tired sigh. It was a day he'd been planning for for weeks, and now that it was finally here, he felt nervous.

 

Gaby Book 17 - Seasons

“I'll be late this afternoon,” I advised Dad as I collected my stuff Friday morning.