My best friend and I went on holiday to Greece with our families, a few years before MM went missing. We had three toddlers with us, it was a cheap last-minute deal, to stay in apartments which had no baby-sitting service, nor were there any restaurants or kids' clubs, it was literally just an apartment block with a pool. We had two apartments on the ground floor, the other two units on our floor were unoccupied for our first week. Our apartments had doors whch were at right angles to each other, during the day, we would leave the doors open so that the kids could come in and out when playing together, but we didn't do this on the second week when the other apartments were occupied (we didn't feel particularly worried about their safety, but the kids were loud and we didn't want to ruin anyone else's holiday!)
We spent time together as a group, we also had days where we did our own thing. Sometimes, my friend's daughter would spend the day with us, she was the same age as my son, and it gave our friends a break for a few hours, they then only had one kid to amuse all day. We almost always went out for dinner together in the early evenings. We had 3 fold-up buggies for the kids, we used to strap them in, chuck their toys, nappies, emergency clothes changes etc, in bags over the handles, and we took them out with us. Every single restaurant that we visited, made a huge fuss of the kids, nothing was too much trouble, we were given little nibbles and small portions of chips for the children, the staff would chat to them, we were made to feel so welcome everywhere, it was wonderful.
The kids had mostly been out all day anyway, so they were tired. Without fail, they would all fall asleep by around 9pm, my kid did manage to stay awake for the whole evening one time, but the restaurant had a fish tank, he spent most of the evening with his nose pressed up against it! We all managed to have a drink with dinner, but there was a kind of unspoken agreement that one of us could have a proper drink, while the other three took charge of a child each. It worked really well, I got quite tipsy after too many margueritas one night, my friend had a couple of bottles of wine on another. But our children were with responsible adults at all times.
I can't deny that a holiday with young children in tow, is often extremely hard work. Especially if you don't have access to children's clubs, baby-sitting services, etc etc. But there is absolutely no excuse for leaving young children alone in an apartment when on holiday. I don't think the McCanns will ever come out of this looking like responsible parents, but much as I think they're incredibly stupid, I think that their "friend" who left her young daughter, who had been unwell all day, is even worse. Who leaves a sick child alone in an unfamiliar environment, just to go and have dinner?
I think the whole crowd were a bunch of whiny, entitled arseholes, who just couldn't be bothered to take care of their children properly. I can't believe that there wasn't one person in that group, who didn't think that it was a bad idea to leave young kids alone, in apartments that weren't within sight or hearing range? They should all have been investigated for child neglect/endangerment, at least to show everyone else that you cannot do this, no matter how "safe" you think it is, just because you're on holiday.
I hope that the McCanns other children give their parents a really hard time about this. I hope that they tell K & G every day how much they resent being robbed of their older sister, who is missing purely because of her parents' neglect.
