Proving myself as a mother
Amsterdam We recently took a trip to Holland, and were very excited to go by ferry. At least, I was – husband and children were a lot less enamoured of the idea. For me, it was pure Proustian Rush – the car queue in the freezing 6am wind and exhaust fumes on the quayside, the endless monotony of grey North Sea slapping the bows of the ship, the hours and hours of doing nothing except word search games in a stuffy lounge on fixed plastic seats – marvellous! The car ferry has not changed since the 1970s, and this made me preternaturally happy. But at Dutch immigration, things took an unforeseen turn. Married to an Aussie as I am, I am used to his being sized up suspiciously at immigration. He was once nearly sent back to Australia as we stood there, whey-faced, at the London border control, after the twenty-four-hour flight from Brisbane, because he hadn't transferred his right to remain stamp into his renewed passport. I am used to cracking hilarious jokes about his being '