Today we’re going to a town in France that puts on a Christmas Village every year. But it means that I'm going to have to miss my Bodycombat class at 7 pm. Honestly, the only thing I care about now is the Bodycombat class. It doesn't involve pretending to punch people, then I'm not interested. I’m like Victor Frankenstein, but instead of obsessing with creating life out of body parts, I’m obsessed with punching the air in a room with other people.

10:30 am

This was the time we planned to set out but we're still getting ready. Girlfriend is getting ready to pack the backpack (not packing the backpack, but getting ready to pack the backpack). She says we can divide the backpack into different compartments. But we're only going out for one day, so we don't need to even pack anything, surely?

3-year-old says that he wants to take loads of books and toys with him. Meanwhile, I'm walking around the apartment with the song "Across the Universe" by the Beatles in my head to keep me calm.

10:40 am

We still haven't left yet. 3-year-old is eating a cracker with honey spread on it. Now he's going around wiping his hand on the kitchen cupboards, spreading honey on the cupboards. Then he wipes his dirty honey hands on my trousers.

10:42 am

I'm making a flask of tea to drink on the way there. But the only tea that we have without caffeine is one that’s called “Good Night, Sleep Well”. So I'll be drinking that as I’m driving the car. A tea that’s designed to help you fall asleep.

11:00 am

We're finally in the car. I'm driving the car today and it's an electric car. Being an electric car, it doesn’t go very fast or very far. I say that but actually, it goes up to 135 km/h and can drive 310 kilometres before it needs to be recharged, which is quite fast and far.

It's an hour and a half drive to this Christmas village. We’ll need to drive 120 kilometres there and back, 240 kilometres in total, so as long as we don't get lost, we should get back with 70 kilometres worth of juice left in the battery. But I'm picturing the car running out of power in the middle of the motorway and we'll be stranded on the motorway, and Girlfriend, 3-year-old and I die from hypothermia.

11:50 am

We’re approaching the Spain/France border. I don’t know what to expect. I have our passports ready and I’m practising French with myself out loud just in case any French border officer asks me questions. But all I can remember is “une baguette”.

Where’s your passport? “Une baguette”

Where are you going? “Une baguette”

What’s that in your trousers? “Une baguette”

12:00 pm

Okay, here comes the Spain/France border. What’s there going to be? Soldiers with guns? Spot COVID checks?

No. There’s no border to speak of. There’s nothing. We just drive straight through. We don't even need to stop our car. There's no checkpoint or anything. No one with a beret and a small moustache who asks to check your passport.

The people of UKIP would have a meltdown. Because what about the terrorists? What about the Muslims? It’s weird, entering a country so easily like this. I'm used to the idea of strip-searches in the airport just to travel from Birmingham to London.

It's one of the great things about the EU: freedom of movement. I’m glad the UK has left the EU, actually. The UK doesn't deserve to be in the EU.

12:05 pm

There’s no difference between Spain and France, except that all the signs are suddenly in French. It’s a shock to suddenly see French everywhere. We only live an hour’s drive from France; we should come more often. I’ve only been to France once, when I was 12 years old, and that was to Disneyland.

I drink some tea in celebration, then spill the tea on my white t-shirt.

12:44 pm

We've arrived at the Winter Christmas Village. I'm carrying 3-year-old because he refuses to walk. My arm is getting tired from carrying him.

1 pm

We're standing in the queue to go in. It's a long queue because they have to check everyone's COVID passports. There's a small Disneyland-style castle. This place reminds me a lot of Disneyland, especially the queues.

There are loads of fake trees with fake snow on them. I wouldn't bring Radiohead here; they’d slit their wrists over all these fake plastic trees.

3-year-old's never seen snow before so he thinks it's real snow.

1:30 pm

We’re in. The first thing is that Girlfriend needs the toilet. So we look around but we see everything except toilets. There’s ice skating, and it’s funny watching Spanish people trying to ice skate. They don't have ice skating in Spain. Even I'm better at ice skating than them.

We eventually find the toilets. Girlfriend goes in to empty her bladder while I take 3-year-old on a ride. It’s a snail-themed ride that follows a track and spins around. It’s surprisingly fast, which is ironic for a ride themed around snails. I have to hold 3-year-old to stop his head from banging around.

After that, we play on the claw machine. It’s 2 euros a go, so I’m only playing this bastard thing once. And… we actually win! We win a small soft unicorn toy. 3-year-old’s happy. I’m the world’s best dad.

2:00 pm

I’ve just realised that no matter where you go in the Christmas Village, there’s always Christmas music playing over loudspeakers. You can’t get away from it. I see two women working in a stall directly underneath one of the speakers. From their haunted expressions, they look like they’ve been listening to the Christmas music all day. If they hear one more Michael Bublé track, they’ll probably hang themselves from the giant Christmas tree.

3:00 pm

We go on the enormous ferris wheel that towers over the other rides. From the top of the wheel, I'm surprised to see the sea peeking out from behind the rides. I check Google Maps and it turns out the Winter Christmas Village is right next to the Mediterranean sea. We're right on the coast. I had no idea we were going to the beach today. I just follow the satnav. If the satnav tells me to drive off a cliff I’ll do it.

3:55 pm

We’re sitting in a crepe restaurant. I ordered an omelette because I don’t want gluten. The omelette is probably the best omelette I’ve had in my life. And the best thing of all about this restaurant is there's no Christmas music in here.

A family is sitting next to our table. And they have three kids that are obnoxious and overly dramatic. One of the kids is shouting “I don't want it, I don't want it, I don't want,” over and over, it in Spanish. I don't know what his problem was. In comparison to those kids, 3-year-old is extremely well behaved like Jesus when he was born.

4:22 pm

Now that we've seen everything, we’re just wandering around aimlessly. Girlfriend said she wants to stay till the sun goes down so we can see all the lights come on. I feel like I've been shuffling around for like hours and hours. I've got a weird sensation that I'm walking on a travelator because I’ve been walking for so long.

5 pm

I've realised the place we're in is a gypsy Disneyland. It’s Disneyland if it were run by gypsies. Everything is slightly dodgy and the rides have a 0.001% chance that you'll die. There’s hook-a-duck, an arcade, and pony rides, all the gypsy stuff.

5:30 pm

It's been a long time since I've spend an entire day outside. I look up at the sky and think, “Where's the ceiling?” And I try and reach for the TV remote next to my arm but there isn't one. There’s just empty space. It’s weird.

6:20 pm

The Christmas Village does look better at night. Everything’s lit up with lights. It’s beautiful. Also, I lost 3-year-old in the hedge maze a few minutes ago. This is good because I’m temporarily free from my duties as a father. And don't worry, Girlfriend's with him.

Right, what can I do with my newfound freedom? I know, I’ll get some tiny sausages. 10 for €3.

The tiny sausage stall is run by a faintly dodgy-looking man. I hand over my money and he gives me my change. But when I count the change, I see he’s short-changed me by €1.

“This isn’t the right change,” I say. So I count the change in front of him. And actually, it is the right change, I just miscounted it. It’s the 50 cent coins in Europe, they look a lot like the 25 cent coins in Canada. My brain has mistaken them for Canadian coins because it thinks I’m in Quebec because of all the French. I back off and I say “Sorry, sorry,” over and over.

I find Girlfriend and 3-year-old. I go on the carousel with 3-year-old. If you’re an adult, they let you go on the carousel for free if you go with a kid. So I get a free ride on the carousel. I say free, but I did have to pay for 3-year-old, so in that sense, it’s not free.

I have no idea which language to talk in anymore because there are French people, Spanish people and Catalan people. I barely can speak French so I just speak Spanish to everyone. So I'm an English man speaking Spanish to French people.

We're now heading towards the exit, it's getting cold. We're in good spirits though, Girlfriend is getting tired as she’s almost six months pregnant, which now I feel I should have mentioned earlier.

8:00 pm

We arrive home. We did well as we only got lost two or three times on the way back. Even with a satnav, I still managed to take a couple of wrong turns. It's not my fault. The roads look different at night.

Anyway, that was the Christmas village. Thank you for reading this and now fuck off.