"Did you enjoy your holiday?"

"Did you enjoy your holiday?", "Did you have a good holiday?"... so many people have asked me that question in the last few days, and I`ve found myself automatically replying, "Yes, thanks, it was lovely, the weather was good".......etc. But really that is the polite answer. I wonder why it is, that when asked such questions we always (or at least I know I do), tend to give the answer we think the other person wants to hear and not the real answer to the question, which probably they haven`t got time to listen to anyway.

The truthful answer to Did I enjoy my holiday, would actually be I enjoyed some of it, but not all. A lot of the time I found it very hard work, very difficult coping with pushing a wheelchair everywhere, always thinking what can be done or where visited with an elderly person. It, to be blunt - felt a huge tie. I couldn`t just go for a walk along the cliffs, or to picturesque old towns with narrow, steep, winding streets or anything like that. It`s surprising how even a promenade which looks level and flat, actual isn`t, it leans towards the beach - I suppose to send any sea water back the right way when it splashes over - but it makes it very arm aching holding a wheelchair with more pressure on one side than the other. I had anxiety too over whether my parent was alright, especially when she wasn`t well one day, and then on the morning that we were due to come home, when I went into her room in the morning she told me she`d been sick in the night which made me very on edge as to whether she`d be ok travelling home. The whole while it was so very taxing, I couldn`t relax.

I`ve come back feeling tireder (is there such a word as that?) more tired, than before I went.