Holiday planning and assessing risk

Last updated: 26/07/2016 14:25 by DaisyWilson to DaisyWilson's Blog
Filed under: MummyBloggers
 
On one of the many beautiful blue sky days recently, I stood on our local beach with the four-year-old, surrounded by tourists and locals picnicking, swimming, sunbathing, paddling.
 
It was an idyllic scene; beach umbrellas, toddlers coated in sun lotion and sand, skinny-legged kids jumping over the waves, the knowledge that lifeguards were watching over everyone and that, just beyond the sand dunes, a fully stocked ice cream van waited in the car park.
 
And then that horrific terror attack on the Tunisian beach came into my mind and I found myself scanning the beach imagining what that must have been like - to see a gunman coming towards you. I slowly found myself planning what I would do if such a thing would unfold here, on this peaceful beach.
 
Would I run into the sea with the four-year-old and try to somehow hide in the waves or would I make a dash for the nearby cliffs? Or would it be best to lie down and play dead?
 
I told myself to cop myself on, brushed it all back to the storage cupboard of my brain and got down to some serious wave jumping with the four-year-old.
 
I know it was silly to contemplate such a thing in such a place, but at the end of August we travel to the south of France to meet the French side of the family, and eat good food and drink good wine and hopefully lie on sandy beaches; beaches that will probably be patrolled by armed police officers.
 
 
After Nice my partner and I did say, okay, are we still going to go? And we decided that yes, yes we are, and not because 'we can't let the terrorists win' -because they aren't fighting a battle they can win anyway - but because we assessed the risk.
 
We believe the experts when they say car crashes are still a higher risk, (and, uh, how are we qualified to assess terrorist threats in far off places anyway?).
 
It is a weird and unsettling thing to add to your list of considerations alongside car rental excess charges and how many bags you need... But that's the world we live in now.
 
So I'm just going to try to carry on carrying on, though perhaps, sometimes, with an occasionally hesitant step.
 
Daisy Wilson is a freelance writer who lives and works in West Cork. Mum to an almost-teenager and a toddler who is striding through the terrible twos with a glint in her eye, life is noisy, fun and covered in fingerprint marks.
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