My husband had gone green and we had to stop our four-year-old pushing him on mother's garden swing before he regurgitated his breakfast.

"All right, don't roll your eyes," he said to me as he staggered off to lie down in a darkened room. "I know what you're going to say."

I didn't need to say anything. For weeks now I have been airing my concerns over whether our holiday to Norway in September is such a good idea.

The holiday, which has been offered to us at a bargain rate, involves a 24-hour ferry journey each way. I'm not much of one for riding the waves but my husband gets seasick standing on wet grass.

"Look on the black side, won't you," he says every time I repeat my worries. "Anyway, I'm the one that'll be ill. Not you. And I'm not bothered about it."

"That's because you won't be doing the mopping up," I fire back.

"And neither will you," he says. "There are staff on board for that sort of thing. The point is, this is going to be an adventure."

The trouble is, it's not just my husband who's likely to spend most of the time languishing in the cabin or expelling the contents of his stomach in the restaurant area.

Our daughter Eve is also not a good traveller. The poor lamb has had some horrible experiences on planes (my apologies once again to anyone who was on a flight with us to Alicante two years ago) and cannot sit in the back of a car for more than five minutes without turning a bit peaky.

She has never been on a ferry and now we'll be putting her through the ordeal of a North Sea voyage.

This weekend, to test the waters as it were, we're going on a day trip to Dieppe.

The two-hour crossing from Newhaven will, hopefully, be calmer than anything the Nordic route will throw at us but it should give us all some indication of what to expect.

At my insistence, my husband has stocked up on all tried and tested seasickness remedies, including those bands you wear around your wrist.

Someone suggested we take some ginger biscuits with us - renowned for their anti-nausea properties - until my husband pointed out that ginger makes him feel sick when he's standing still and he dreads to think what would happen if he were in motion.

We're also taking some distractions for the ferry, as I've been told that concentrating on something other than the swell can prevent the worst symptoms.

My husband has delightedly dug out some of his old board games, although I think it's a bit ambitious to expect Eve to get to grips with the rules of travel chess before we reach the French coast.

If my husband is blas about all this, Eve is doubly so. Despite several episodes of motion sickness, some of which she vividly remembers, she seems to have no qualms about the journey.

"It's going to be exciting, Mummy," she says, echoing my husband's sentiments. "And Daddy has given me a new bracelet, which I can put in my mouth if I feel poorly."