Weddings! What a great occasion to see friends from far and wide, and share in the happiness of two people in love and enjoying the next step in their relationship.
BUT a lot of the time a wedding also involves travel. Sometimes just a casual Saturday drive to a local vineyard, and sometimes a full-blown road trip to the far corners of New Zealand and beyond!
We had such an occasion at the weekend, and while lucky to have care for the children so we didn't have to burden, I mean, bless the happy couple with their presence, we did have to drag them hundreds of kilometres, strapped helplessly into position within fighting distance of each other.
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We tried loading up the digital devices with movies to help keep the peace, but between "My headphones fall out of my ears, my eeeeears aren't big enough" and "Dad, I think I'm going to spew" from motion sickness, that idea was quickly relegated to the "bad ideas for road-trip" entertainment' folder.
So what else to do? Music! I thought, quickly scouring the CD drawer and finding myself staring at The Wiggles' It's A Wiggly Wiggly World, Nat King Cole Greatest Hits and several scratched beyond recognition.
Desperate not to be caught out in that position again, I've whipped up a new roadtrip CD that represents the stages of one of our family drives:
Song 1. Republica - Ready To Go, as we always are at the start of a trip.
Song 2. Britney Spears - Hit Me Baby One More Time. Within 10 minutes the girls have started physically fighting.
Song 3. Duran Duran - Hungry Like The Wolf. Despite the fact we make sure everyone is well fed before we sit in the car, about half an hour into our journey everyone is suddenly STARVING.
Song 4. Blink-182 - Bored to Death. An hour or so in, the calls start, "I'm boooored".
Song 5. Roy Orbison - Crying. Usually someone is by the hour and a half mark. Sometimes it's Dad.
Song 6. AC/DC - Highway To Hell. Pretty sure we are the living embodiment of this song at the two and a half hour mark, especially because our air conditioning broke about two years ago and we still haven't got around to fixing it.
And to wind things up, Song 7. A little Shirley Bassey, Never Never Never. Which is what I say to my wife when she asks when our next road trip will be.
• Don't miss Adam Green and Sarah van der Kley on The Hits Hawke's Bay from 6am to 9am, Monday to Friday.