I am heading back to the UK for a surprise visit for a close friend's hen weekend. I am so excited about the holiday and seeing friends and family, but extremely apprehensive. I guess travelling alone with a 22 month old baby would be a scary enough prospect for anyone, but for me that is not the biggest issue. I have different concerns.

I will not have my own food and limited access to kitchens for the first couple of days. After a day of travelling on Tuesday, we will be staying at a friend's house in Hassock's for one night and will be visiting in London the following day. I won't be at Mum's until Wednesday evening. I'm still struggling to come to terms with the limited foods that I can eat. As I so often fall off the wagon, I feel it's a little hypocritical of me to start demanding that people make allowances for my diet. On the other hand, I should have the right to choose when I want to fall off my wagon - shouldn't I? Even 3 months on, I'm still not sure how to deal with my dietary changes in new situations. In any case, I've packed a whole loads of fruit for the trip and plan on buying bags of washed salad for my lunch on Wednesday. My lovely, accommodating friend has reassured me that my food needs are not too tricky, so Tuesday evening should be fine, too.

My other issues are a bit more icky. Dressings and washable pads. I'll strap on some Mepilex, gauze and Micropore before I leave, and at my first loo break, I'll just ditch them. If I don't strap up and I have to walk for some distance, I get sore much quicker. However, with a suitcase, baby and baby-carrier, I don't think I'll quite manage to replace the dressings on my journey. What will I do with my washable pads (yes, I have made my own home-made sanitary pads and they are much more comfortable than the plasticky disposables)? I think I have a waterproof zip bag that I can use - but who wants to be carrying dirty pads around with them?! After weighing it up, I figure it is just another thing I should get over. I just need to be prepared when I go change the pads, and have my little bag ready.

I'm disappointed that I'm already flaring from my last holiday. I so wanted to be flare-free and hoped to indulge a little more this time. With a camping trip planned for the weekend, with camping food and cocktails, I really wanted some leeway. On the other hand, I'm also disappointed that I'm completely off track. I so wanted to be disciplined with this. I wanted to heal my leaky gut, be flare-free, head into remission and live a pain-free life. Instead I am on a different path, but one that means I am living and enjoying life. I am not ensconced in my diet and I am not monitoring every little change in my skin. I am socialising, laughing, having fun and eating fun foods. I am, for much of the time, pretending I haven't got this disease. My flares are much worse, but I know that after these holidays, I will back to reality. HS doesn't let you forget for long.