OOOooohhh - Priceless
Family Holiday to Whitley Bay - Check.
Mum, Dad, and Five Kids, including one under the age of 6months - Check.
Mashed up 14 year old transit van/minibus conversion (painted in gloss paint) - Check.
Homemade curtains held in place with clothes pegs for aformentioned transit minibus - Check.
An Green Flag membership - Check. (You can see where this is going).

20miles up the M11 and our beloved 'minibus' breaks down. I mean smoke, fumes and oil leaking everywhere. Phone Green Flag (who at that point had only just started their 'we'll get you to wherever you're going' offer.) -

The poor recovery driver was torn - my Dad [in all his usual smugness] was insisting the policy meant that he tow us all 260miles to Whitley Bay and how could he deprive his poor kids of their wonderful holiday - even though we were about 20miles from home, but on the other side, as he was a contractor, he could claim all the milage and expenses from the recovery company....

So we all got a ride in a pickup tow-truck, all 260miles with orange lights flashing, the recovery driver got a sizable tip from the parents AND the garage owner in Newcastle where the transit ended up for some surgery (all paid for by the recovery people) and we spent two weeks visiting relatives and visiting the local landmarks.

I was disappointed that Byker Grove didn't actually exist and my 3 year-old brother nearly had us all lynched for questioning the number of people wearing 'those silly black and white striped shirts everywhere..'. Still - Good times.
( HSDriver was probably still at work on, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 22:44, Reply)

Culture Clash
My aunt and uncle came to the American Southwest on holiday. They were well-meaning corn-fed Protestant Midwesterners adrift in a semi-foreign land.

While in New Mexico, my aunt and uncle visited my mostly Spanish-speaking grandmother, who had a sign warning 'None but Catholic propaganda permitted in this home.' So, if religion was a bad topic of conversation, and if the conversation would be in broken English anyway, what would anyone talk about?

My aunt and uncle decided that, despite the many profound differences between them, they all had something in common...they were all old! My uncle put his arm around my grandmother's shoulder and proclaimed 'we are all senior citizens, together!'

My grandmother was startled by the sudden embrace. Looking at my uncle's bare legs, exposed by his tourist shorts, and the over-eager smile on my aunt's face, my grandmother decided that these two strangers were trying to entice her into a menage a trois.

First, my grandmother was ashamed that these two 'swingers' were regrettably part of her extended family. Then she exploded in sarcastic fury, making all kinds of unflattering comments, entirely in Spanish, about the weight of her two visitors, their odd manner of dress, their sexual habits, etc. I knew just enough Spanish to be hysterically gasping for air....

We didn't visit too long that day. Being old, together, somehow wasn't quite enough....
(Perv With A Dog had his eyes pecked out by scrub jays on, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 21:52, Reply)

Caravanning
As a kid I used to spend every other weekend away caravanning with the folks and the various fucknuts from the caravan club where my dad worked.

The firm was based in Sandbach. We lived in Sandbach. Yet every year the club would organise a 'caravan rally'

here: www.multimap.com/maps/#t=l&map=53.16797,-2.36167|13|4&loc=GB:53.16797:-2.36167:14|bradwall|Bradwall%20Green,%20Bradwall,%20CW11%201

Zoom out and you'll see that it's approximately 1.5 miles from Sandbach. We lived half a mile the Bradwall side of Sandbach.

The folks still packed the van, did the shop for the weekend, and didn't pop home for anything.

They spent more on petrol preparing for the holiday than they did going there.

edit: Just remembered that we also used to go to Bradwall village hall on a separate ocassion for a party - the kind of scenario that would give Peter Kay a career recalling - we used to walk to that btw! anyway, one year they decided to have an auction. About a week before I'd paid 7.99 out of my pocket money (I was on 50p a week FFS) for a spectrum adventure game which got high ratings but I found to be bobbins and boring - no Back 2 Skool that's for sure. So I put it up for auction thinking that I'd get my money back and sucker some other kid into buying it.

I got £1 for it. I actually cried. 14 weeks of pocket money saving up for one fucking quid return for one week of pleasure (this experience would actually serve me well when I bought my first house and the now ex moved in). Couldn't even buy one of those bargain £2.99 platinum series games from the proceeds. Bastard auction.
(spike starski, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 21:36, Reply)

Another one for my dad...
I have lots (as he is a mentalist). One time he was being kept awake by some drunken louts down on the street. Dad goes out onto the balcony (naked) and starts shouting (in a broad Scottish accent) "Hey you! Barstardo! Arseholay! Shut it!" etc. I think they were so shocked they buggered off and left him ranting...
(brycemonkey No fatal accidents since:, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 21:17, Reply)

Provence, France. July 1993.
Back in the days before my parents divorced, my dad considered a 'great holiday' to consist of loading up our Ford Sierra estate and matching trailer full to bursting point with camping gear, clothes, my long-suffering mother and my brother and I.

I was about to turn eight; my brother would have been five.

After what may well have been days of driving down French motorways, my mum was looking forward to some proper amenities- anyone who has ever visited an old-school French motorway service station will be familiar with 'squatting' toilets. Those who aren't can probably guess the arrangement.

We finally arrived at the campsite, rendezvoused with my grandparents and set about settling in. My dad struggled with our massive tent, my mum went to wash some clothes at the facilities block and my brother and I acted like young children.

Soon, my brother approached my mum saying he needed the toilet. She pointed him in the direction of the gents, next to where she was washing the clothes. He disappeared inside and came out just a few seconds later.

"Mum, there's just a hole in the ground!"

"Oh no," thought my mum "we're going to have to squat for the whole blooming holiday. Fan-bloody-tastic."

"Just use it anyway, dear. It's just like the ones on the autoroute."

A few minutes pass, and my brother emerges from the block in tears, soaking wet.

He'd been peeing into the showers.

And he'd tried to flush.
(Generator cannot be named for legal reasons, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 20:54, Reply)

France
Back when i was about four years old i went on a family holiday to France. As far as i remember it was OK and i had some laughs.
However, it being around 13 years later the memories are a little fuzzy, but one painfully happy moment has stuck with me for years:

One day we drove up to the beach for the day. It was very sunny as i recall and the air smelled of omlettes and frogs legs, and alas, i set off on my own accords nearer to the shore just a few meters away from some French kids about my age playing in the sand.
I managed to find a rather large crab underneath some rocks after a considerable amount of digging for my age with my small bucket and spade and managed to unearth it...The french kids saw what i found and ran up and excitedly said something to me in their heathen lingo in a rather happy and friendly tone of voice. To which i replied:

"Oui! oui!"

and thus proceeded to snap off the crabs legs and start chucking them at the now running away French children, much to the delight of my encouragable father.

I haven't been to France since then.
(Snailfighter Mk VIII MASTER of the bits underneath the ledges on fences, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 20:36, Reply)

I Put the "Scar" in Scarborough
I was 14. I'd warned the parents in advance that Scarborough looked shite but my sullen demands fell on deaf ears. To make it worse, I was on my own. My older sister was off to the South of France with her mates, my older brother off to the then-Yugoslavia with his.

I knew things were going to be bad when I was shown to my room at the very, very top of the boarding house we were staying in. It was tiny, with bobbly blankets on a lumpy mattress and My Little Pony paper lining the fusty smelling drawers. I decided to distract myself by checking out my view, being so high up I was sure that it'd be a cracker.

It was the local graveyard.

And so it went on. We went to the seaside. I go in for a swim. I'm surrounded by pink bog roll and lumps of rust from the pier. We go to the local water park, I slip and fall on my arse down a flight of stairs. No one helps me. I fight back more tears. The landlady serves crap grown up food every single day which I won't eat. My Dad gets even more pissed off at me. We go to see Cannon and Ball's summer show at the theatre. I piss myself laughing. I needed a laugh.

We only stayed a week. On the way home I got the double whammy of crippling period pain and travel sickness. I didn't care, they were heaves of joy.

My only consolation was that I ruined the holiday for the parents too, with my deep sighs and sullen visage. I did fucking warn them.
(Hoopla, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 19:32, Reply)

I went to Turkey. It was hell.
Firstly, my sister kicked up a fuss about not wanting to go, the obligatory 'I'm staying here and there's nothing you can do to stop me' rant, at which point my dad picked her up and locked us all in the car.

We couldn't park at the Airport because my dad's a weirdo and thought the car would get stolen (who'd steal a ten year old volvo?), so we went to this random woman's house and got her to drive us.

The journey was very turbulent, and no-one got much sleep. It was far too hot when we arrived, and it got worse from there.

We were sharing the holiday with some random Welsh family my dad knows, and the little girl (she was about 8, so was my stepsister), Harriet, fancied me. So did my stepsister. I was 12 at the time and it was very very scary. It still is. (My stepsister's always after me. She's a fucking retard). I had to put up with this for two weeks, along with the weather and the evil stepmother nagging in my ear all the time about crap.

We nippers were forced to participate in a sketch showcase, showing every wednesday, which was shit too. We did stupid things like read newspapers with our legs crossed, and listen to music eating crisps. What the fuck?

We went on a cruise which wasn't bad, I god realy badly sunburned and jumping into the sea at every stop to soothe the pain helped. Well, after it stopped stinging like fuck.

At one point during the two weeks, I was conned out of £60, and I was also persuaded to have a Nike tick shaved into my head (Apparently, it costs a tenner to get beaten up by schoolchildren these days, what the fuck was I thinking!?).

By the end of the holiday, I had thrown up several times, and I had the runs. This was due to the crisps I was eating on stage, combined with the 40 degrees heat every day. Even spending most of my time in the pool eating lemon ice cream didn't help.

On the plane back, I had several packets of those crisps and thought 'Meh, I'm ill anyway, I might as weel scoff the lot'. Bad idea, as it was, again, turbulent.

No sleep, lots of toilet trips.


Length? Two weeks.
( ClanSoul, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 18:36, Reply)

No family holidays for me...
I was fortunate enough never to have to bear a family jaunt as my parents had a habit of working bizarre shifts at the same time. Instead for one week every year I would be thrown off to Scout camp to put up tents, tie knots and generally enjoy a homo-erotic experience with others.

My one "family" experience of this came when I was eleven, after my first camp. My parents came to pick me up on the Sunday (traditionally the last day) and took me for food in a nearby town. Being a Sunday, and being the non-shopping Sunday void of the early 90s, nothing was open, and I needed a piss.

Of course, rather than taking me home, we went for a walk. I forget which hills we walked over, but I remember an absence of refreshment booths and washroom facilities. It was getting close to evening now - and I was getting tired.

So, lagging 30 or so feet behind my parents, natural instinct took over and out came little Kris. Quite how I managed to walk and piss without any splashback onto myself I don't know. I just remember the look on my mum's face as she looked behind to see her pride and joy making his impression on the westcountry.

To this day she swears there were others around her were aghast at what they had seen, although I can't verify that. But that one moment is probably the reason I've never had a proper "family" holiday.
(grobsig No longer cleaning up after others, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 18:09, Reply)

Uncle Richard
My parents used to to on two week jaunts to Spain and Greece when I was young, but they left me with my uncle Richard because they didn't want me to ruin their holiday with my whining and irritating paranoias.

Uncle Richard was a retired schoolteacher of the old school (corduroy jackets with leather patches) and always insisted that I wear a pair of denim shorts much too small for me. "It's good for a young man to expose his legs to the sun!" he'd say, as his hands fluttered beneath an out-folded newspaper in his lap. We did all sorts of fun things. For example, he'd throw my shoes in his ornamental lake and tell me to get them. "Take off those shorts, first, lad!" he'd say. "The water will make them even smaller." Any smaller and I'd be chewing them.

Of course, now I realise that he was a paedophile. Not the nasty kind who download pictures and rape children, but the old fashioned kind who became scout masters and teachers so they could ogle kids and have a tug later. He never touched me inappropriately , even if he did spend about 40 minutes each morning rubbing me down with sun cream.

"We don't want you to burn do we, Frank?"
"It's raining, Uncle."
"Well, you never know, do you?"
"It's been raining for a week."
"Put your shorts on, I'm going to sit and read my paper while you do some yoga in front of the fire."
(frankspencer, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 16:44, Reply)

I remember going to a caravan park for a "holiday" with my family.

My brother, king of the poos, decided it would be a good idea to drop the Cosby kids off at the pool as soon as we arrived.

Unfortunately for my mum, my brother had dropped a log so big that the small caravan bowl couldn't flush it away, so Mother had to go in there with a knife and chop the bugger up into smaller pieces.

My brother was later taught how to chop them off into smaller pieces.
(UTB, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 16:28, Reply)

70mph naked highjinks.
Not so much a family holiday but...

My uncle Hamish has a number of great friends with whom he used to travel around Europe with. One of the said friends has a curious desire to get nekkid whenever he gets drunk. Much hilarity has ensued from this along the lines of getting him to try peeing over the top of a car without hitting it, successful, to trying to pee onto the ceiling, he pooed himself.

Anyway, one holiday out in Italy, Hame and his mates are blasting along some back roads when his mate decides to get some nudey action in and strips off in the car and climbs out of the sun roof and holds onto the roof rack like a wobbly pink Spiderman. The second he was up there, Hame wound the sunroof shut and floored it.

After about 5 mins of screaming from above them they decide to do the decent thing and drive onto the Autoroute next to them.

Apparently they drove past a bus load of school kids who all pissed themselves laughing at the screaming naked man with flapping nads perched on top of the car and they were followed for about 5 miles by an old man who must have had the worst view possible.

After a while they pulled over and let Mr Naked back in. He was almost in shock and to my knowledge stopped the naked japes from that point on.


Length? It was flapping about so much I couldn't measure it.
(71 hour Ahmed wasn't working at, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 16:03, Reply)

With hindsight, packing the Purple Ohm was a mistake
It’s the dawn of the 1990s. A bright new dawn has already curdled. Winter. And, oh, my Wolverhampton is in the grip of recession. Bitter, bitter winds blow empty special brew cans and cheap fag packets along icy streets. Wolves' charge up the divisions have stalled, and "Turner Out" graff has - ominously for Turner - started to appear on the vandalised bus stops, broken down garages and boarded up civic buildings. Hale and Paces' "The Stonk" is still played all too often in the pubs and the clubs and a young Charles Calthrop has yet to kiss a girl.

Of course, none of this bothered me in the slightest because I was 19, I had my own Switch card, I had every record which the Ozrics had released, and, probably more pertinently, I had an nascent addiction to dextroamphetamine sulphate and a more established relationship with alcohohohohol.

My mum decided that a good way to “cheer me up” was to take me on holiday with her and her Sister and her sister’s dysfunctional 17 year old son to the only place we could afford to go, even in midwinter. A place called Hafton which is in Scotland. The two tourist attractions were watching the nuclear submarines go up and down the grossly misnamed Holy Loch. And shivering.

One afternoon, my mother and her sister having gone into Glasgow, I found myself shivering in my DMs. My drunk cousin was shivering, huddled in my drug stuffed Dutch Amy Overcoat to keep him warm. I remember thinking “he looks so young”. Two empty Thunderbird Wine bottles were lolling on the grass, giddy as confessions. I held the third firm. We were outside, so that I could smoke some more draw.

I still maintain it was not my fault. After all, he stole the acid. He was the one who took it. It was him – not me who got the fear. He ran away. None of this was my fault. I would have warned him. I would have. As it was, after he came up and freaked off, I spent the next two hours wandering around some sort of wood thing searching for him in the charmingly ineffective manner that only a true drunk can muster.

My mother and her sister found him as they drove back. He was on the road, doing that crying you do when there is nothing left to cry. When my mother approached him, he threatened her with a stick which he said had been given to him by Herne the Hunter (who I believe to be English, therefore unlikely to frequent Scottish Holiday Resorts in the off season). Predictably, argument ensued. My Aunt blamed me, squarely. My mother – with the magnificent logic that only 30 years on the sherry can create – blamed the cousin. We departed at dawn the next day, and to the best of my knowledge, my mother never spoke to her sister again.
(sirolimus, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 15:57, Reply)

Benidorm early 90's
I was about 16 and it was a holiday of highs and lows, peaks and troughs even swings and roundabouts if you will.

On the first full day my mum got sunstroke. She spent the next few days confined to the hotel room while the old man and I watched an entire Test Match (that's several days worth of cricket) from the comfort of an English pub, drinking bitter and eating chips. Classy eh?

Sadly, after recovering, mum had her revenge by dragging us to the set of Eldorado, the ill fated, ill scripted and ill acted soap opera. There we had to watch her swoon as she got the autograph of the devilishly handsome, Julio Iglesias-ish, Spanish actor who played the doctor. Gah.

Benidorm is a shithole by the way.
( abefroman skating on the thin life of modern life on, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 15:36, Reply)

Not really on topic, unless you count the school orchestra as family
Every year, my former school go on a tour to somewhere in Europe. They always invite former members back, and, as year year we were going to Venice, a couple of friends and I were only too keen.

It was, to say the least, brilliant, (also, we met Razorlight on the ferry on the way back. No, really), but for one poor first year, it was nothing less than a week of hell.

His name is Henry, he's very short, quite rotund and has a bit of a stutter, but doesn't have a malicious bone in him. On the first night, we were disappointed to learn that he was feeling homesick and wanted to leave. However, our teachers persauded him to stay and see if he enjoyed it more the next day. Willing to give it another go, he toddled off to bed for a blissful night of sleep.

Not so, for he was sharing a room with a fourth year called *name withheld*, who ought to be outlawed under the geneva convention. Very funny, but possibly quite intimidating for a young'un and with a penchant for never ever shutting up. The next morning, he understandbly complained and was moved into a room with some second years, and we hoped from now on he would enjoy the trip,

That day, we went to a water park outside Venice. Henry dutifully applied his factor fifty, as the sun was out, and then went off to have some fun.

In the intervening time, which was not without incident (our conductor somwhow contrived to break her foot whilst playing the hilarity that is soapy football), the sunblock had obviously worn off. Many of us got burned, but Henry began to resemble a telephone box. Honestly, if you could choose a colout for someone to go for sheer comedic effect, it would be that one. The image was completed with his small, worried white face standing in stark contrast to the rest of him.

That night, he was sick nine times. The next day, he refused to put on a shirt because of the pain, and didn't leave the hotel all day. One of our teachers was peeved, to say the least, at ahving to stay with him.

Things didn't get much better for the sun sponge. On the way back after a few days of constant misery, he was already in low spirits at the beginning of the twenty-four hour coach journey. Disaster struck, though, when three hours in, at midday, on the middle lane of the italian motorway not far from Milan, the caoch broke down. With it went the air conditioning.

Obviously, this being the middle lane, everyone was packed into the front half of the bus, should a car blunder in to the back of us. Apparently we got on the national news. The temperature reached 36 degrees. A number of phonecalls to four different police station later, and there still seemed no sign of rescue.

It took three and a half hours before the italians decided to do anything about us. Henry was a broken boy by the end of it. I don't think he'll be going back next year, somehow.
(WarneMarsh My priority for frivolity begets quality jollity, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 15:35, Reply)

Attempted rape
The shameful onanism I recently spoke of pales into dry crusty flakes nestling amongst my navel hair in comparison to a truly, truly awful episode. The one where i was sat in a camping chair, next to a 12 year old girl, surrounded by the four of our combined parents, all of whom demanding to know why I had tried to rape her.

Referring to my previous escapade, you'll note that I had the horn big time on one particular holiday, the one where i learned to wank properly but ended up mortified that my whole family heard me do it. So it was with some vigour that I had been persuing Louise, a perfectly slim, devastatingly pretty, pubescent little girl with a fair handful, in my estimation, of pert little boobs.

OK. She wasnt that pretty, she was ordinary. She had no boobs, that was just me and she was a little plump if we're being honest. However, the one thing going for me, is that she talked to me occasionally. This wasn't love this, was the real thing. I was going to marry this one.

We were part of a group of about 10 kids whose holidays often co-incided at the campsite, and had got to know each other quite well in that hazy summer holiday way you do when you're young. She didn't appear to fancy anyone obviously, or at least i was ignoring it if she did. 2 weeks in and I am positive I'm there, I really am. I had a good omen earlier which confirmed that I was absolutely right.

We were all on the beach, sunbathing, Louise lay near me but perpendicular to me, our heads close together, we formed an 'L'. I noticed that when she lay on her back, her hip bones were raised above her stomach, stretching the elastic of her bikini bottoms taut. From my point of view I could just about see some pubes. FUCKIN PUBES! Thats pretty much her entire fanny, or at least thats what I would be telling my mates when I got home. I would dine out on this for many years to come. This was genuinely, honestly, to date, the greatest sexual experience of my life. (20 years later, it slightly saddens me that to see a 12 year olds pubes again will cost a lot and society now frowns upon such activities)

A plan was forming. By the end of the holiday i would get off with her. It would be one of the greatest single achievements of the modern age. By the next day, not only would i get off with her, i would feel her boobs. By the end of the week; anilingus. Definitely.

In my mind, I had escalated. I was unaware of this at the time. I had recently discovered that my knob now worked, you know, made spunk and everything, and my racing teenage hormones were in overdrive. I would have this girl dammit, even if it meant burglary.

(Quick disclaimer, when you're 13 the legality and morality issues are utterly irrelevant, they just dont exist. You're just 13 and your body is out of control).

Being a total chickenshit meant I could now barely look the girl in the eye. She was oblivious to her impending pole vaulting session. It was now the last night of the holiday. Internally, I was screaming to do this. Just ask her just ask just ask just ask on and on and on and on...

The beach group hung out in the evenings in a big field with a small pond in the middle. We would sit in long grass, snaffle mini beers and some people smoked fags - one girl claimed they 'warmed her up' which still makes me laugh now. Over the course of the evening, I had positioned myself carefully next to Louise. I hadnt listened to a word anyone had said for hours, I couldnt hear them for the excruciatingly loud din of my internal monologue, now sounding like a drill sergeant. By some fucken miracle, almost everyone had left for the evening, only my brother and her older sister left.

A few sharply raised eyebrows and a jerking of the head in my brothers direction saw him on his way. Louise's sister left with him (years later i would find out he had been snogging her for 2 weeks already, he was 10, her 14. This pattern would repeat throughout my life and continues to). Louise had 'nt noticed our sudden proximity and the slightly threatening atmosphere now descending.

I made stupid comments about the stars, the colour of the sky, the pond, the crickets anything really just make your fucking move you total and utter cretin. I went for it.

Her position was sitting down, legs outstretched, propping her torso up with her arms, angled behind her. I was lying on my side, on her left, (think David Brent posing for the photos after he did the 'simply the best' training session), twiddling bits of grass with my fingers, and trying to disguise a 3 day hardon.

I reasoned, partially correctly as it turned out, that if i just knocked one of her arms hard enough she would fall backwards, I could then roll on top and kiss her. She would initially struggle, but eventually acquiesece and practically beg me to do everything a man should.

I was successful at the start. Out of the blue, I hit her arm in the middle, it immediately gave, and she fell backwards with a loud thud, the momentary thought that I might have actually really hurt her passed, she'll be fine. I rolled on top and pinned her down, i shut my eyes and I kissed her.

I kissed her ear. Revulsed and totally confused, she had turned her head violently away, she scratched me in the face. She started to cry. the back of her head was slightly cut as it had hit the grassy but dry and slightly stony ground. I couldnt believe my plan had failed so early on stage 2. I was utterly utterly devasted. I stayed there long after she had ran off. I contemplated a wank but found myself strangely unable to get aroused.

After that its all a bit hazy. As you do when youre 13, you have no idea of consequences. Half an hour later, all thoughts of the evening had evaporated, it was over, i didnt get lucky. Maybe another day, another girl. I wandered back to the tent.

As I approached, I saw a group had gathered, my parents, some other generic adults, all huddled round someone sitting. Louise, head bowed in her hands, obviously upset and sobbing. Time slowed down, I was aware of being manhandled by my dad into a chair, next to Louise. This is of course is where we came in to my little story.

Looking back, it's all a blur now, she had been confused as to why the boy she quite liked as a friend had suddenly decided to try to break her arm and kiss her and talked about strange bulges in shorts poking her in the tummy and all sorts and everything was blown out of proportion. I didnt know that sex had barely registered by that point in her life. (this was a while back..) Her parents marched round to mine demanding to know why their son had tried to allegedly rape their daughter blah blah its was all a big mess. I told my side, i tried to kiss her! The parents eventually figured out that it really wasnt all that bad, my father diplomatically calming down her father, it was our last night, lets all make up, say sorry. We all got to bed eventually.

By the time the lights went off, I had a raging hardon again and was dying to find out if i could crack one off on the sly.

But you know about that one already.
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 15:18, Reply)

teenage holidays
with a huge group of your mates, however, are the best thing ever!

post a-levels, pre university, 19 friends and i descended on kavos. this was 1996 and it was tacky but not as bad as it is now. highlights included... god, where do i start....

the hot bartender who made us our own cocktail every night and who looked obscenely like the brad

pulling the hot bartender on the very last night

snogging different guys every night of the week and everyone being single not in boring couples with babies so it was ok to do it

my busty friend sam losing the world's biggest lilo when it blew away and legging it down the beach like pamela anderson on speed

my friend jo having to ask three different guys in two weeks "excuse me, did we have sex last night?" (the answer was no every time, we were naughty but not complete slags, thanks!)

watching my friends nan and laura fall out of the sky when their paragliding boat had to do an emergency stop because of some twat in a pedalo cutting him up

my thick friend dora saying "mmmm, look at that paella" when a guy walked past carrying a parrot. she was looking at the tray full of its shit underneath it

the guy who walked up and down the beach all day with a ring do-nut on his cock carolling blithely, "do-nuts. sexy do-nuts..."

rescuing a guy who was being chased by a mad greek with a knife after spending the night with a girl (apparently this is illegal in greece if you're not married? never checked that out, frankspencer, can you help?!)

watching a tramp run off with my mate's can of vagi-sil. fuck knows what he thought it was

being able to swim and sunbathe all day; drink all night and not feel tired even for a minute in 2 weeks

god, now i'm depressed as fuck, those were really and truly the days!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 14:59, Reply)

Once...
I went on holiday by mistake.

Yours,

Withnail.
(scentless_apprentice takes two bottles into the shower!, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 14:51, Reply)

woooh we're going to Ibizaa!!!
Extended Family holiday in the White Isle 1989
10 of us in 2 apartments
* 3rd night, roof of the balcony collapses onto us while we are having dinner. Result: 2 of our party having to have stitches in headwounds
* 4th Day, my brother stabs me through the hand with a carving knife after I accidentally rip the cover off one of his skateboard magazines. Result: Stitches in my hand, hand bandaged, no swimming for me for the rest of the holiday
* also on the 4th day, the skinny stray cat my soppy mum had made friends with gets squashed by a car right in front of her eyes. Result: My mum balling her eyes out for the best part of a day
* 7th day (day we are due to go home) the stomach ache Id developed a day before is diagnosed as acute appendicitis. Result: Me spending 3 weeks in hospital, missing the first week of Upper School and driving my mum to a near nervous brakedown
* Day finally arrive back into England, my understandably emotional mum crashes our car into the back of an Ice cream van on the way back from Luton airport
( bigmeuprudeboy is using powerpoint or paint...have MERCY, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 14:48, Reply)

My Dad had claimed a "whiplash" injury
and with the compensation, took my brother and I on our first post-divorce family holiday. Two weeks cruising round the south coast of Turkey on a massive wooden yacht.

"What paradise!" I can hear the ladies squeal, except I was 15, pale, painfully skinny and looked absolutely stupid in shorts. All of my T-shirts were of the black band-named variety, I fucking hate seafood, I was the youngest (aside from my detested sibling) by at least 15 years, and I can't fucking swim.

The boat was of the type you see on posters in Turkish cafes; long, double-masted, with 8 bedrooms, inhabited by couples and a group of cackling middle-aged sisters. So there I was, lounging against the deck rail watching my Dad and a few of the other people larking about in the water, when a dim brickie from Essex (complete with standard-issue blonde wife) crept up behind me, grabbed my ankles and somersaulted me over the rail.

The gentle play of a summer sun beating down on the softly rippling Aegean Sea was lost on me as I sploshed through the surface, taking in an acrid lungful of brine and promptly losing consciousness. According to my brother, the wife was braying like an asthmatic mule at the comedic antics of her husband, neither of whom cared that I couldn't swim, and both unaware of my rapid comatose descent to the bottom of the bay.

By the time I'd been rescued baywatch-style and been revived mouth-to-mouth style by the deeply-moustachiod Turkish captain, the wife was in tears and the brickie throwing a massive strop along the lines of "how da fuck woz I ta know 'ee coodunt swim. Fahking shtoopid takin' 'im on a boat, wonnit."

I came home lobster-sunburnt, brain-smashingly bored, even thinner from a calimari-based diet, and with an indepth fear of all seaside holidays that still stings ten years later. Thanks Dad.
( Grrrmachine the indifference engine, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 14:36, Reply)

Ooh!
Forgot about this one. Doesn't involve parents but does involve Wales and caravans.

A mate loaned me his caravan which was on a site in Wales. So me and the two guys I worked with plus GFs fucked off down there for weekend break.

First night there we all got hammered in the local club and, unbelievably stupidly, got in mates car to drive, drunkenly, through the campsite. And the inevitable happened.

Driver going way too fast on an unlit caravan site totally misses the sharp right-hander and carries straight on, through a fence and then demolished the veranda of a caravan. Nobody hurt so we got car out and scarpered.

Woke up the next morning to a hammering on the door. Mate went to door and I could hear a coppers voice. Shit! Double shit as mate *hates* coppers.

"Did you have an accident last night sir?" asks copper

Don't lie! Don't lie! Don't lie I'm furiously thinking.

"Err - aye" says mate.

"Good job you admitted it son" says copper bringing his hands from behind his back and showing mate his numberplate. "Found this embedded in the caravan you hit. If you'd lied I would have nicked you"

Still cost us over a grand for the damage though. Free weekends can be expensive.

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 14:34, Reply)

Caravans
As briefly mentioned previously, both sets of parents had those horrid tin boxes that you drag around with the car (travelling the length of the country at 50mph max is NOT FUN!). As soon as I came of age (age enough to tell them "Fcuk off, I'm staying at home") I vowed never to enter another.

I must, however, relent that they are a vast improvement on the canvas option. Earlier this year I went on our annual fishing trip with a couple of mates. For several years now, we've squashed into an inadequately sized tent come rain or shine in the pursuit of good fishing and a 3-day p!ss-up. I never minded really, it was rough but we are always too p!ssed to care.
I must admit, though, that despite my trepidation and reservedness at my mate taking a caravan this year. I have to admit that it felt like a 5* hotel compared to that pissy little tent and the solemn pact of no wanking that the 4 of us made held up (to my knowledge anyway).
(Greencloud Wanted to go fishing on, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 14:24, Reply)

Three is a crowd...
I'd just been dumped horribly so my sister and I decided to go on an Interrail adventure around Spain. I was pretty messed up at the time and thought an adventure would do me good so I agreed. However, it wasn't until the last minute that it was declared by my ever-tactful sister that we would be joined by her "friend" who she was absolutely just friends with and who she would not be under any circumstances sneaking off for covert shags with.

She was lying.

So there's me (who had some sort of uber-flu which meant when I wasn't weeping and trying to top myself, I was snorting and crying about how I couldn't breathe), her and her boyfriend crammed in a two man tent for 10 days. We got about 5 days in and I decided that enough was enough, I was getting out of this horror, and I went and spent 2 days in Amsterdam by myself which was much more fun.

Reading this back, they must have been relieved when I finally buggered off!
(beelee, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 14:23, Reply)

If..
One more person says "ickle" in their posts I'll,I'll,I'll - err - go down the pub and get drunk!!

Honestly - it drives me crackers...

So. Obligatory story.

Once went on holiday with my older brother, a mate of his fromm the army and my whiney fucking cousin. It pissed down from the moment we put the tent up until the day we left.

Whiney cousin was driving me batshit so I kept sending him on errands to the campsite shop. These included.

Tin of tartan paint
Bag of nail holes
Sky hook
and a Long Stand.

Campsite owner eventually came down and bollocked me as whiney cousin would burst into tears every time he realised that I was taking the piss.

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 14:21, Reply)

Penlan Holiday Village
Near Cenarth, West Wales. My parents actually bought a chalet here, and I have no idea why - it was a god-awful place. I have memories of going there at Easter and seeing the breath in front of my face when I woke up - the reason being that every chalet was just a wooden frame with wooden slats on the outside to make it look like a wood cabin (read: shed) and fake wood veneer paneling on the indside. Aside from the chalets being draughty as all fuck, the heating it did have (oil heaters fed by a coin-operated meter) was completely ineffectual.

You'd have thought, then, that this would make it a good place to go, providing you went in summer. Well, despite the fact it was in the middle of nowhere, the entire site was like a timewarp back to the 60s, and you got the feeling it was never quite finished back then. There was a swimming pool, but the stale smell of urine was enough to put anyone off. The bar had a stage (with Phoenix-Nights style silver streamers decorating the rear, so you can just guess what kind of entertainment they put on) and a "cinema" which played VHS videos through a projector - I think the only films I ever remember showing were Pretty Woman and Short Circuit. Then the arcade - If I remember rightly the games were Outrun and Kung Fu Master, and a load of 2p fruit machines.

So - given all of this - imagine the shock when I learnt my parents were charged around £3500 a year (back in the 90s) for "management fees" which as far as I could see just extended to twice-yearly grasscutting around the chalet.

The whole place was so Po it couldn't afford the o and the r.

On top of all of that, my parents seemed to think that as a 14 or 15 year old teenager I'd want to spend time going on "walks". Joy.

Then once or twice a year we'd be lucky enough to go to Oakwood (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakwood_Theme_Park) - whilst the Wiki article makes it look alright, back in the mid-90s Alton Towers it was not.

I've not been back to Wales on holiday since.
(d371ght back again since, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 14:16, Reply)

family bloody holidays
I hate camping. When everyone else was going on package holidays to Spain, we had to go bloody camping in rainy places like Holland Belgium, Scotland and Yorkshire. I don't ever want to hear that the Amazon rain forest is the wettest place on earth, its not, --any of those places in a tent is. --Plus it may be trendy now 'cos of various assorted Jap pop singers, & Jamie kufcng Oliver, but we had to go in a bloody VW camper van. But that meant we had to drive around in it all year too. I hate VW. None of us 4 siblings have ever gone anywhere near the great outdoors ever again. Beware wholesome, eco-loving parents--inflicting those sort of 'holidays' on your offspring will turn them into global warmers par excellence. Now I just like concrete and aircon.
(cherrypie, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 13:52, Reply)

my grandparents were so poor
that one year their holiday was going on the Long March.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 13:40, Reply)

If the caravans a rockin'
What joy it was to get invited to join the girlfriend and her family on their annual Cornwall caravaning holiday. As there are only three bedrooms (one for her, one for her brother and one for her ma and pa) I had to sleep in the living room. Arse!

One night, after everyone had gone to bed, in snuck in the girlfriend for some snuggle time. Despite some heavy pressure from me, she drew the line at a kiss and cuddle and hopped back to her room. Double Arse!

Throwing caution to the wind I decided to milk the balls and relieve some built up tension. Next morning, no-one can look at me and I can tell something is clearly wrong.

I decide to collar the girlfriend and ask her whats going on. "You had a wank last night didn't you!" I protested my innocence. "Everyone could feel the caravan rocking. EVERYONE KNOWS!".

Triple arse! I had to think quick and decided to blame it on a twitch on my foot, which would explain the rocking. I even had to keep up this pretence by twitching my foot every now and again whenever I laid down.

*edit - sheesh - looks like everyone wanks on caravan holidays. Yay me! *


Click "I like this" if it annoys you when people put "click I like this" at the bottom of their posts.
(plant rolls out of bed like a fat wobbly tub of lard, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 13:34, Reply)

Dissapointed.
I had all the settings for a suicide inducing family holidays from hell for several years. Coming from a 'broken home' (aaahhh..) I had two sets of parents who both decided to try their hands at holidaying in touring caravans.
Plenty of parents-shagging disgustedness there then? Not a bit.
I never heard either set of parents shagging, I never got caught having a wank (only happened a few times admittedly), I was never poisoned / bitten / stung, or had my life seriously endangered.

Perhaps it's some latent regret of child-parent shame absence that convinced me to take my mother to barbados (I and Mrs [then Mrs-to-be] Greencloud were in our early twenties and living together by this point). My mother had gone through a hard time. Step-dad had died and she had been forced to sell the house etc etc. We booked a week in Barbados on the cheap anyway. Getting on very well with mother at that time, it was decided that we'd all share a room (so we wouldn't have to pay for single-person supplement as well as her flights).

It was around that time that I realised my mother was turning into an alcoholic. She proceeded to get completely hammered every day and be loud & obnoxious to various members of staff and the public at every opportunity. We managed to palm her off onto a couple from Sunderland one night (not even for a shag - just for a break!) only to have her bring about 15 piss-heads back into our room to see how 'lovely they look asleep together'.

I'm sure the words "Never Again" were exchanged several times on our return. So it is with great dismay that it actually happened again. We booked up to go to St Lucia a couple of years later for a well deserved winter break. We must have booked about a year in advance, as i remember it was at a christmas party that my wife realised that we'd booked to be away over mums 50th. She felt terrible that we'd miss this 'milestone' and invited my mother along AGAIN. This time she was utterly shitfaced (I don't mean happy party drunk - i mean grumpy bitch alcoholic drunk) for the whole holiday, as well as being downright abusive and racist toward all the staff, bearing in mind that we're milkbottle white in the middle of the carribean. She ruined the holiday we'd paid a fortune and waited over a year for.


Woohoo. I have had a torturous holiday with family!!! I just had to wait until I'd left home and was about 26 and paid for it all.
(Greencloud Wanted to go fishing on, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 13:30, Reply)