Kelling Heath Caravan Park
If anyones ever heard of Kelling Heath in Norfolk they might know what I'm on about....

Dad owned a blue Austin Allegro which loaded with Mum, Dad, Brother, me and everything needed for a two week sojourn in my grandparents caravan always felt like it was somewhat overloaded.... which led to early pant browning incidents when we had to go up "The Big Hill" TM. Its somewhere just north of the M25 and I NEVER thought we would make it (I know now that Dad had to pretty much drop it into first gear to keep us going!) - but we always did.

I've got NOTHING bad to say about those holidays, I remember the taste of a proper cooked breakfast with the smell of the sea in the morning air, unending walks with the dogs and just a great feeling of closesness to my clan (this was helped when the grandparents arrived for the second week, in a VERY small caravan).

I've also smuggled persian rugs into North Cypress which father & I would smoke on the balcony getting pished on the local "brandy" - but thats another story.

Looking back I realise what my parents gave up for me and although it was just a caravan, they were the best holidays of my life.

- Dries eyes, txts father & arranges drink down the pub ASAP - sniff!
(TAZ220 Not giving a toss since, Tue 7 Aug 2007, 13:54, Reply)

never go on holiday with Bert and Ernie
"damn it Ernie - I *told* you, my CDs are filed in order of their Broadway debut."

"oh, sorry Bert (sch sch sch)".

"Are you wearing my turtleneck? Dear God, you are wearing my turtleneck. That's IT we are THROUGH." (slam!)
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Tue 7 Aug 2007, 13:31, Reply)

My liver hates me.
one holiday that sticks out in the memory... suprisingly considering how lashed i got.
my mum and her boyfriend at the time had decided that we needed to go on a family holiday. me (the only child) and his 2 sons.
well me being 18 at the time and his 2 sons being 13 and 15 to spain/. this to me seemed like a shit idea... ( a week away from the local with my mates.. can you imagine how devasted i was) but deciding my mum had put up with me for 18 years i thought i owed her one not to moan about it and just didnt moan.
well we arrived in sunny spain and the first thing i do obviosuly is check out the bar. seeing this my mum comes up to me and says "since were on holiday i wont say anything about your drinking" (she was fine with it anyway but didnt like me usually drinking for a week solid.) Fucking result... so thats me off all family activites for a week. time to bring my liver down a notch!
shorlty after that i met a cockney lad and his brother and we decided to have a drinking contest. which went on for the week (i think we were both winners!) highlights of week long piss up being: (bearing in mind most of the things on the list potray me as a twat. but i was 18 and pissed... and a twat at the time)
*going to some terrible bar down the road and listening to "gasoline" which was two german dudes who played rock covers... and just asking them to play summer of 69 and 500 miles every night (i fucking hate those songs aswell!)
*climbing on top of a wooden parasol thing and falling through it. apperently it looked funny. i didnt see the funny side.
*convincing my mums boyfriend and his son that i did free running by just jumping off a couple of walls hungover.
*an on going rivally between me and some guy i affectionatly nicknamed "cock head" (the name stuck aswell!)
*having some fit girl lick my penis for a dare. (i didnt come up with that one either.. "cock head did")
*finding out "cock head" was actually quite sound. (maybe to do with the above comment.)
*getting photos of me and gasoline!
*meeting some spainish drug dealer who took us in the back of the bowling alley he owned to show us his real gun.
*not getting a tan at all due to sleeping my hangover most of the day.
*skinny dipping about 14 times.
*throwing chairs in other swimming pools.
*waking up to find cuts all over me from jumping in bushes (my free running skills obviously!)
*going down spainish roads at like 90 miles an hour in a taxi where the driver was drugged to the sound of "sun goes down" by arctic monkeys. (fucking scary)
*sleeping in the lift.
and just other stuff which ive missed out.
sorry about shitness.
not about length though women love it.
(MD-Mnmlst, Tue 7 Aug 2007, 13:30, Reply)

We went to Gran Canaria when I was (much) younger...
...and while I was there I got friendly with a few other English kids, as you do.

Two of them were brothers. Richard, and Richard.

Yes, that's not a typo.

Apparently their Mum liked the name so much she called her firstborn it, and then couldn't think of another name she liked as much, so rather than have one child with an inferior name she called the second one Richard as well.

At least they weren't twins.
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Tue 7 Aug 2007, 13:23, Reply)

The Glove Boat
Call me weird (I won't be offended) but I actually liked going on holiday with my parents.

I'm not sure I was as popular with them though...

8 months after I was born my parents had recovered sufficiently to go on holiday. Pre Rakky, they were pretty adventurous types, they generally just stuck a pin in a map and toddled off, or drove across europe till they got bored. But I think they were still reeling from the shock of dealing with this large, demanding, red faced bundle, so decided to go for the easy option and go on a cruise on the QE2.

The day for departure dawns fair, and we pack up the car with my mum's obligatory 18 suitcases and a flotilla of nappies. I'm grouchier than usual and squalled all the way to the port.

We board the ship and as we're settling in to the cabin (with me still screaming my lungs out), Mum unwraps my from my baby bundle to see if maybe I needed changing or was too hot. Nope, but there is an ominous looking spot on my back....

...which 12 hours later was an incredibly virulent attack of chicken pox. I was taken to the ship's hospital where my parents were informed that as chicken pox is a communicable disease I would have to be quarantined. And as I was too young to be told not to scratch, they had to put mittens on me and tie my hands to the side of the cot.

So for 10 days, my parents had to watch me through glass as I cried myself insensible whilst tied down wearing mittens. Apparently they snuck me out one evening, so if anyone was on the QE2 in summer 1975 and got chicken pox, it's probably my fault.

Sorry mum, sorry dad. And I apologise for getting food poisoning in the Canary Islands and meaning that you had to take it in turns to stay in with me. And for being stung by that jellyfish in Denmark. Oh, and getting tonsilitis when you decided we'd have a quiet holiday in Torquay.

I think I now know why I'm an only child...
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Tue 7 Aug 2007, 12:51, Reply)

On a bus
Me and the family used to go on various holidays to tourist locals in and around spain.
On one occasion we went to benidorm (oh the glamour) and we got a bus to some town a bit away.
I was around 14 at the time, and sitting on this sweltering bus, trundeling into the most run down town you have ever seen. Dont even take that romantically, it wasn't rusticly run down, like what you would think of southern italy or something. It was like the outskirts of manchester with added dirt, heat, and spaniards.
Well i was quite bored on said bus, so my head started to wander.
When your 14, your mind only generally wanders towards one thing...on this occasion my mates porn he had leant me the week before.
The bus finnaly came to a stop and the cattle that were all us tourists were unloaded, to which my mum pointed out 'whats that in your pocket?'....shit....

If you know the joy of untimely 'excitement' when there is really nothing you can do about it...you know where to click.
(Total_Waster once pitchforked a dog, Tue 7 Aug 2007, 12:46, Reply)

God, this QOTW
is SOOOO BO-RING.
I just want to go home, there's nothing to do here. Cuh.
I wish I was at home, with my friends, playing Road Rash on my Amiga.
It's not fair, I didn't want to come here anyway, and Nana smells funny.
I want an ice cream.

If you had this same conversation with your parents every year (or wish you'd had the guts to) between the ages of 10 and 15, you know where to click.
( Bert Monkeysex is waiting for the mods to delete him, Tue 7 Aug 2007, 12:16, Reply)

2 or 3
Hello everyone from sunny Holland, first Post ever on B3ta so be nice !

1. We went on a family holiday to the south of France camping. I was about 7 years old I think. OK, it's lunchtime so I sit around the table with my brother on these little fold out seats. Now the ground is both hard and uneven so it's all a little unstable. We are having soup with that nice long french stick things. Powder soup ! Mom puts the powder in the bowl and goes to get the kettle as it is whistling, pours water in and gives it a stir. I then wait as the water is 99 C. I loose my balance messing around with my brother grab the table and it goes all over my legs, from that point it's all a blur really I remember a lot of people running over as I was screaming my head off but at some point a big German nurse who was also at the site heard me, ran over and picked me up and just ran with me under her arm. Next thing I am being held under some water tap by her. Fair play no real long term damage so I suppose I owe her one.
2. We went by Coach for a family holiday to somewhere close to St Tropez. Quite a long way from my home town of Birmingham UK. Anyway we are somewhere in France and it's dark, I am happily asleep shoes and socks off...all good ! I don't know how or why the next bit happened but I had got my middle toe resting on a part underneath the seat in front. The woman in front decided to recline her chair a few inches, no problem except my toe was in the small cogs that control the recline. So i woke with her pushing the seat backwards crushing my toe, I screamed so hard the coach driver pulled over and it took 30 seconds of agony before everyone worked it out.

Not spectacular but I feel a weight has been lifted, first post done :-)
(amsterdam_neild, Tue 7 Aug 2007, 12:13, Reply)

Another French Camping Trip
We had a trailer tent - essentially a caravan/tent hybrid, bringing together the very worst of each.

As my parents were setting it up, I - being a good boy - locked the car and came to help. Unfortunately the car keys were still in said car. As were half the components needed to properly erect the tent.

Then the storm started.

Cue: My dad smashing one of the windows to break into the car, without anyone else in the vicinity seeming too bothered that this was going on.

Two days later, leaving the campsite, the exhaust fell off the car.

Within three days at the next campsite the battery on the car went flat. Someone (ahem) had been sitting in there listening whatever mid-80s dross that someone (ahem) was into at the time.

We were like a less funny Griswalds
(jesseventura, Tue 7 Aug 2007, 12:08, Reply)

Cracking France...

My Family likes to holiday in France, in particular camp in France. Back when I was 13 (2003), we had one of our usually trips. All was well, the French children bullied me (us) but that was soon set right when me and my twin merked them on the water slides by throwing ourselves as fast as we could down the slides legs flailing at all angles; in order to inflict as much pain as possible to our natural unaware enemies.

After a while of this brutal punishment the French retaliated. We would chase each other down the slides and try and damage each other during the rapid descent. It went on like this for a while until one over enthusiastic French boy hurled himself down right after me. He held his legs up high out of the semi-circular tube to try and deliver the definitive finisher move to win the respect of his peers. He did not succeed. He was not aware that this slide had a strange cover, roof like structure half-way down.

I’ll never forget the look of pure terror he gave me as he realised the calamity that had befallen him; that his legs had been caught and then subsequently broken backwards and perforated. He screamed and water literally turned into a torrent of blood.

Anyway, as the only Doctor holidaying on this particular campsite my Dad was called out to try and do what he could whilst the ambulance and fire crews trundled down from the local city. Naturally, he did his best, but this was a compound fracture (bone through skin) and he did not have the proper equipment the boy yelled and screeched as a bewildered English Doctor pushed and pulled at the bone protruding from his skin. The boy survived however, only with (luckily) damage to the ligaments in his legs and his ego.

After this ordeal my Father was covered in French blood, he looked something akin to a zombie movie and decided to clean himself up. Walking to the toilet blocks he got some very odd stares and a discourteous ‘oo-la-la’ from an old French cleaner hag. Obviously frustrated, my Dad exploded in a fit of rage spouting obscenities and through gritted teeth; the tale of what had just happened to him. This cleaning woman then promptly retorted by putting the bucket of filthy cleaning water on his head..... Apparently the ‘oo-la’la’ was a complement.

I was treated as a hero; I had scored a monumental victory over the French not seen since the battle of Waterloo. They were put firmly in their place. Although, I now harbour a rational fear of water slides and a the shame of Dad who came of worse against a French cleaning woman.

My Dad was tetchy and belligerent for the rest of the holiday, thus why it was a bad holiday; normally he’s quite cool.
(It was really a bad holiday my Dad, but there we go)
(Sepalous, Tue 7 Aug 2007, 11:30, Reply)

A holiday that involves someone else's family.
The only lousy holiday as an adult.


A mate of mine's parents owned a seaside holiday home. For a few years in a row we'd spend a long weekend there in the Autumn. Soft scenery, big waves, sea air, lovely. We'd also stock up on booze, dope and have fields full of mushrooms for the picking (hence the autumnal visits).

All was going according to plan until, after a long walk to build up our appetites and a few pints to warm us up, we returned to the house. To our dismay, there was my mates dad sitting at the kitchen table with a half-empty bottle of whiskey. Himself and the missus had one argument too many and he'd given her the "I'm leaving and never coming back" speech.

Fuck. No drugs then. After a sullen meal, we headed for the local village pub where we did our best to ignore his utterly pissed dad and to try and salvage something from the weekend. The next morning my mate took his dad for a round of golf and the rest of us took off across the fields in search of certain fungal produce. My mate returned alone saying that his dad was still in the pub. We had a meal, smoked a few joints and settled down for a night playing cards and drinking hot whiskey.

Then my mate got a call from his mum on his mobile (this was 1995 when they still weren't that common). She'd gotten a "Farewell cruel world" call from a very drunken husband who said he was going to leap to his doom from the clifftops. She'd already informed the police and they were on their way. "Fuckitty-Fuck!" we say, "There's loads of dope and several sheets of tinfoil covered in drying mushrooms!" We managed to hide everything in the boot of our car and waited for the law. A cold and very wet night was spent by us all walking the clifftops in search of his dad. He was found, in the wee hours of the morning, having sobered up and decided to call off his suicide and go home. We then had the toe-curling embarrassment of him blubbing away while he apologised to the police, us and his wife for his behaviour.



We never borrowed the house again. Mind you, 12 years on and his parents are still together.



P.S.

Re: The 'Cheapest Meal' thing.
A mate once made the three of us walk most of Barcelona city centre as he couldn't find a menu that was (A) Reasonable and (B) Contained three courses that he fancied all on the one menu - "No, that has only a nice starter and main - no decent dessert" etc. The twat.
(Fanta Menace Is tall enough to see over the fence, Tue 7 Aug 2007, 11:09, Reply)

Evil sibling
My bro is the biggest cnut in teh world,

First memory of a holiday we went to Lanzarote, parents older bro younger bro and little sis, now being a pair of sprogs (about 7-8) me and little bro thought we would go swimming in the pool straight away, in june with NO sun cream, yes it bloody hurt for a while but to make it worse my elder brother picked a fight and gave me first off a black ear ffs!!! then saw the sunburn and i took repeated slaps while wailing like a harpy. The bar steward.

Secondly on a really cheap hol to spain you know the offers in The Sun for a hol for £2 or something stupid, on the coach (yes a coach to spain from nottingham) down i had a huge bag of sweets from my gran for the whole holiday, now me being a bit of a pig decided to munch em all, must of been about 2 kilos of sweets, now personally i enjoyed but my belly didn't, so getting up i stumble to the toilet to discover my older bro is having a crafty wank on it, so i bang on the door and tell him the joyous news of my impending eruption, but all i get is a 'fuck off im busy' i return to my seat and lie down only to churn my guts up all over my mums new coat and a bit of her suitcase, she was not a happy bunny, AND i got all the blame.

Bastard brother i hope he gets his balls cut with a rusty set of shears

Length? Nottingham to Lanzarote and back
(Menlui laughing maniacally, Tue 7 Aug 2007, 11:06, Reply)

one night stunned
a few years ago, my friend lisa went skiing with her parents. they are lovely people, but on another planet most of the time. her father is a scientist, fantastically bright, no common sense whatsoever. and her mother just has no sense whatsoever. this is a woman who once famously packed her daughter off to school to make a cheesecake in home ec. with gouda.

so, on the night they went away, lisa arrived home from london. she was in her room taking out of her suitcase the stuff she didn't need for the holiday. holding her rampant rabbit in her hand, she turned around, looking for somewhere to hide it. just then her mother walked in. lisa panicked and dropped the rabbit.

"lisa!" her mother said in horror. "is that a -a - a DILDO?"

"no!" lisa said, kicking it furiously under the bed. all she managed to do was to hit the on switch, and it began buzzing frantically between them, rolling around in noisy pink and humiliating circles on the floor.

so she was in disgrace before they even set off. on the last night, she finally managed to pull the hot barman and took him back to her room. she told him he had to get up and leave at 5am, but they were really drunk and completely overslept. when they did wake up, they decided they might as well have one more shag.

at 8am, her mother got fed up of knocking and just marched in. to the sight of the hot barman with his head buried between her precious daughter's thighs. she turned around and walked straight back out, leaving lisa to boot out the barman and shamefacedly get dressed for breakfast with the family.

at breakfast, her dad was buried behind the paper. he didn't look out. lisa got a plate of food and, cheeks burning, just stared at it. her mother was shocked and tearful - she's very innocent and middle-class and probably thought lisa was still a virgin. er. she'd be wrong. by some way. anyway! eventually she hissed angrily,

"so i suppose this is what they call a 'one night stand' is it, lisa?"

"well, i didn't actually - i mean --"

at that point, her dad popped his head around the paper. lisa went even redder. but her dad just beamed cheerfully and said obliviously,

"morning lisa. have a good night's sleep?"

it was some time before she went home again after that trip...
( rachelswipe with a fork, Tue 7 Aug 2007, 11:05, Reply)

I heard in an email that holidays at snopes.com were really good
but when I got there they told me it wasn't true.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Tue 7 Aug 2007, 11:00, Reply)

it's incredibly cheap -
in fact I ended up with more money than I started with! But almost all of the locals are hostile, it's very easy to get lost and spend hours wandering in circles, and the food was pretty basic - there's never anywhere to eat when you need it either. On the whole, I'd have to give holidays at Firetop Mountain a thumbs down.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Tue 7 Aug 2007, 10:55, Reply)

Family Of Five
2 adults 3 kids

In a reliant robin

to burnham-on-sea ...

year

after

year

Not much of it really stands out


Love my parents to bits tho....Don't know how they coped in the early 80's 3 day working weeks etc....3 kids, mortgage..etc
(never-right -getting it wrong since '78, Tue 7 Aug 2007, 10:29, Reply)

Mike Fishcake
"I have the choice of a second rate combo of full-time accountants fumbling shitty musical instruments in a vague fashion to certain over-popular 60s/70s tunes"

I can't remember my band playing 'Happy Camp'??, but then I do drink....a lot.

For your information though, we're not full time accountants:

One of us is a financial advisor, one an administrator for the Land Registry and I'm an I.T manager. But as for the rest, you're cock-on.

Come see The FEDs...coming to a 'Happy Camp' near you soon!

www.myspace.com/fedsuk
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Tue 7 Aug 2007, 10:11, Reply)

Nicaraguan holiday
Dad always liked unusual holidays. He despised those happy, smiling families who went off to Spain and Mallorca for a fortnight of sand and fun. So we had to visit a variety of Thrid World hotspots to "experience culture" and learn about how "the other half" lived.

On one trip to Nicaragua, we were met at the airport by a group of armed men in a 4x4 who loaded our luggage on to it and then drove off at speed, leaving us on the tarmac a little bewildered. After nine or ten hours, dad accepted that our luggage had been stolen. We never saw it again.

Fortunately, there was a taxi waiting at the aiport gates and he agreed to take us to our hotel in exchange for dad's watch. He took us to a reeking hut in the hills and introduced to the the staff, a bunch of heavily armed and unfragrant banditos who gave us pirate smiles and bade us make ourselves comfortable. This was tricky, as the bare hut had no furniture at all, and only a communal bathroom with chickens in it. It was only as the sun went down that dad checked the brochure and discovered that this wasn't the Eco Lodge. We'd been taken hostage by the Mountain Militia.

On the third day, we had a visit from the Red Cross who gave us ration packs and water filters. The kidnappers entertained us with an impromptu show that involved attaching electrode's to dad's nuts and making him dance about like Pinocchio with Parkinsons. We laughed until tears rolled down our faces.

By the end of the week, us kids had fully embraced Stockholm Syndrome. My sister was pregnant by a AK47-toting terrorist boy and I'd been taught to fight with a knife by Carlos, the team leader. I even made a start on a rudimentary beard and stopped attempting to wash. In retrospect, it was much better than any previous holiday we'd had (certainly better than the two weeks we'd spent attending funerals on the shores of the Ganges).

Halfway through the second week, the hut was stormed by special forces and most of the terrorists fled. I was held for a day as a suspect but released shortly after. Dad was beaten half senseless by the soldiers, who mistook his dishevelled and ordure-smeared figure for an insurgent.

Back at home, we asked him if we could go back to NIcarague next year. "Fuck that," he said with uncharacteristic profanity. "We're going to Disneyland."
(frankspencer, Tue 7 Aug 2007, 10:04, Reply)

Holidays are about excess...
...which is a fact that was totally lost on one of my former GF's sister and brother-in-law when we were unfortunate enough that her family (parents, siblings and siblings' spouses/partners where applicable) decided they'd join us for part of our hols.

We were in Tenerife for two weeks but the rest of her family were only there for one, and thank fuck. Every time we went out for a meal in the evening, we ('we' being her sister + hubby dragging the rest of us along) would, as in no few stories below, spend about two hours scrutinising every fucking menu outside every restaurant within walking distance, eventually settling on the cheapest. And because it was the cheapest, it was usually the wankiest. I could have spent as much at McDonalds and got a nicer meal out of it. As the nights wore on, my patience wore out. And this is without the English theme pub cabaret, pub quizzes and fucking Elvis impersonators they preferred as post-victual entertainment. Not what myself and the GF were looking for at all.

The last day they were there, I tried to impress the holiday/excess thing upon them and urged them to just let thier fucking hair (and wallets) down a bit. Not a bar of it. After about 90 minutes of menu-mooching that evening, I'd had enough. I told them that I hadn't flown there at some expense to see how much money I could take back home with me at the end and that with or without them, I was going have a decent meal and a decent night out.

Understandably, this put thier noses out-of-joint a tad but the GF was with me 100% so we shined them on for the rest of the night regardless. We ate a good meal in a decent restaurant, went clubbing, got halfway-to-wasted on shit vodka cocktails and shots therein and finally had a nice slow shag on the beach* in the wee hours before wandering back to the hotel with a spliff as the sun started to rise, spent in pretty much every way.

Now that's the way it's meant to be done, oh aye.

Things were a bit frosty when we saw the family off to blighty the next afternoon, but fuck 'em - the preceeding night and rest of the holiday was a blast-and-a-half for lack of thier company. I made, and the GF asked for no apologies for my gratification at seeing the back of them.

* Without the normally compulsory old Spanish bloke watching whilst playing with himself, which was a bonus.
(thatblokeoverthere not quite as much an arsehole as I thought, Tue 7 Aug 2007, 9:50, Reply)

Time to reverse it again
I took my son and heir to Paris a couple of years back and we dined out at a Greek type place for some reason. Towards the end of the evening there was the traditional bout of plate smashing and one especially tough bit of plaster shrapnel struck young master Steve in the chest. There was blood and some distress but fortunately Dad (me) is on hand to make things better.

I did this by trying to cop off with the guilt stricken waitress. Son and heir somewhat embarrassed by antics of lothario Dad, but friends on hand to look after him.

Just because my folks didn't really embarrass me doesn't mean I'm not going to do the same to my kid! It's character building or something.
(Mr Steve is jobless and fancyfree!, Tue 7 Aug 2007, 9:48, Reply)

Inspired by abefroman
Playing mini-golf. I demonstrated my Nick Faldo drive. Smashed my sister in the face on the backswing and out came some teeth. Again, there were a significant amount of recriminations.
( disasterprone "Pyjamas caused the Holocaust", Tue 7 Aug 2007, 9:38, Reply)

Memories
When I was young, holidays with Daddy were so much fun, he was always up to mischief. For instance, the time he took me to play blind man's bluff at Beachy Head.

He used to take me deer hunting twice a year which was always good fun although I didn't really enjoy when he made me run through the woods with antlers on my cap.

He would always pretend to be disappointed too, like when he took me shark fishing and I fell off the hook.

Ah happy memories of a happy childhood.
( abefroman skating on the thin life of modern life on, Tue 7 Aug 2007, 9:22, Reply)

Learning about alcohol
I was 13, on holiday with my Mum, on my first ever trip abroad.
I was having a great time in Corfu, snorkelling in warm seas etc.

Then we went out on a coach trip for a “traditional Greek evening of entertainment”.

First stop: tasting local produce: kumquat liqueur
Second stop: Greek taverna, where I made some new friends, quaffed copious amounts of the local (free) red and white wines, ate heavily, and danced, approximately, local dances.

Still feeling great when I got onto the coach. Sadly, the twisty mountain roads took their toll, and I was spectacularly unwell. I was assisted off the coach, and back to my room. Where I was spectacularly unwell some more, and then some more..

Eventually I crawled (actually crawled) out of bathroom, and got into bed. I could hear my Mum sniggering from her bed.

This is not the bad bit though. The bad bit was after a couple of hours of uneasy sleep, I awoke to my first ever hangover. It was a dooly. Still not really special though..

The crowning glory was that my Mum had managed to book us into what was ranked shortly afterwards the third worst hotel in Europe by one of the national papers. Personally, I believe serious bribery was involved to get them off the first two spots.

Behold the 'view' from our balcony, and imagine my poor little 13 year old head:















Length? Not too perky that morning.
(BeatsWork, Tue 7 Aug 2007, 4:25, Reply)

Off to Malta!
A few years ago I went off with my grandparents to Malta, which is somewhere near Italy, and I was around 8 at the time.

Now, on the whole, this was a pretty fun holiday, and my first time abroad.

However, there were a few things that have stuck with me since then, and really didn't make it that great.

On one of the days, we went off in a little boat to see some caves, and the water was really horrid and rubbish, which meant I got nice and scared. When looking back, they were probably just a little choppy, but to my mind they were bigger than the boat. Now, to emphasise the problem of me being scared, I thought that you shook when you had the frights, this got the attention of my grandma, who then put her coat over me because she thought I was cold.
There were about 3 other people in the boat apart from me and my granparents, and even at that tender age I felt like a retard having the coat put around my shoulders.
The second escapade, was much worse, and not really full of embarressment.
For a day, we decided to take a boat over to visit Scicily, where we'd see Mt Etna and some little village.
Now, the boat we decided to get on was a catamaran (I think that's what they're called) Where basicly it's like 2 small hulls in the water isntead of the traditional one, this makes them lighter I believe, and in rough seas they go all over the place.
Guess what the sea was like that day?
I managed to get to scily fine, but felt rather poo after it all. Firstly, we visited the nice little village, where there was some museum, and we tourists stopped off at some icecream place. After the years since then, I can still remember crying because they didn't have the icecream I wanted. Yes, I was a spoilt and silly kid when I was younger.
Then, we went off to Mt Etna, which wasn't too great, especially since once we got there, the coach driver decided to leave for an hour and a half while we froze our arses off in the snow, or crammed into a pastry shop. neddless to say, none of use were happy that about 2 weeks after we went there, Mt Etna decided to errupt.
However, the return journey back to malta wasn't fun, same boat, and the same horrid sea and the splashing of water on the windows.
This time, i was sick.
luckily I had a paper bag.
Now here's where I heard perhaps the most stupid question ever:
I had a sick bag in my hands.
i had sick over my mouth
The boat was rocking, so much so that almost everyone else on the boat was being sick too.
I looked like shit even without the vomit on me.
And then my grandad asks me "What's the matter?"
Holy fucking shit! What else could it be? Have i found a kitten and decided to hide it in teh sick bag? No! And surely, holding the bag to my mouth, while throwing up before I could answer, surely wouldn't give away the idea that I was using it for the intended use- to be sick in.
The rest of the holiday wasn't too good either really, we saw a stupid parade where floats and people dressed as romans walked along, and then when we left because we were bored some crazy itallian guy started shouting at us.
Crazy days those were.
(River of Squid has a variety of lemons in his pocket, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 23:55, Reply)

Big Eared Cunt
I hated my mums boyfriend when i was a teenager because he was a complete shit to me. But i will never forget the day we took our caravan down to the south coast and when he was checking a light connection at the back of the top cupboard he got his stupid fucking head stuck in it because of his big wanky ears. I have never laughted with such satisfaction than at the moment as he struggled to loosen his head while shouting "Get me a spoon!"
(svenenuponwherepops, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 22:37, Reply)

Where is PJM?
No seriously - where is he - he hasn't posted since the end of June for Christ sake.
(devasa, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 21:57, Reply)

Singing freaks
A couple of years ago, my boyfriend and I went for an impromptu weekend in Brighton to celebrate our anniversary.

Not only could we not get a room at our favourite boutique hotel with free-standing baths by the huge bedroom windows, looking out over the ocean, perfectly sized for two and perfect for fostering the naughty feeling that anyone with a beady eye could see in, with champagne buckets on standby and heated floors in the bathrooms, we could not get a room anywhere in Brighton or the surrounding areas.

Why?

Because there was a bloody BARBERSHOP QUARTET CONVENTION in town, and they had booked every single room in the city.

Message me if you'd like the hotel's details; it really is beautiful. Take your significant other and I guarantee you'll get laid.
(clumsyeloquence is a girl, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 20:48, Reply)

Oh yes -
and my Dad, whether now when he's on holiday abroad with my mum, or when he was dragging us along the seafront looking for a meal, always used to look at all the menus outside each restaurant, trying to work out which one is cheapest. Three mile amble along the seafront later we find ourselves back outside the first one 'cos it looks the nicest' which by coincidence has steak and chips for 50p less than all the others...
(Calamity wetter than a fish's wet bits - bloody rain on, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 18:14, Reply)

The Joys of Camping
I had amazing childhood holidays. We'd never go abroad (well, we did once and it was so shite you would not believe) and virtually always it would be camping. My dad couldn't drive (he became epileptic in 1982) and my mum wasn't the most confident of drivers, she certainly couldn't have coped with towing a trailer or caravan, so there we were (me and me little sister, 2 years younger than me) squished up in the back of the Austin Maestro or whatever heap of shit the building society Dad worked for gave him as his company car. My dad was a master at packing the car, but it always took about 2 hours to load the roof rack as my dad got a bit OCD about getting everything tied on. You've never seen such tensioned bungee cords - a tornado wouldn't have loosened the tent, pole bag, and whatever else was on top of the car.

Obviously, holidaying in britain inevitably meant it rained a lot. We did a lot of jigsaws, drawings and played card games. We'd often go to those 'haven holidays' type sites with an 'entertainment' thing on-site, with overpriced beer (i'm told) and talent contests. We did have a few good hot holidays - whit week in weymouth, and the first two weeks of august 1990. Then of course there was the hurricane that hit cornwall one year - my dad's OCD extended to using tent pegs you could have held up a marquee with, so whilst the other tents around us blew over or blew away, our (apparently good danish-made tent) took a beating but remained standing. Happy days.

Fondest memory is getting lashed for the first time - those two hot weeks of August 1990. We rocked up at a campsite in Brixham, and my mum says 'oh, I think those people were here last time we were"(87 or 88). Anyway, we're beginning to unpack everything and over come this couple with cups of tea for mum and dad and some fizzy pop for us kids. This couple are also friendly with about 3 other families on the site as well, so there's about 10 adults and a load of kids between about 8 and 15. Lots of water polo, general mischief and going to the local pub and getting a sly pint of devon scrumpy pushed in my direction by my dad or one of his new drinking buddies was the general theme.

I was beginning to get a taste for this scrumpy stuff as we got towards the end of the second week and the head drinker of the adults decided a group barbecue (read: massive session) was in order. So off they pop to the cider farm and get about 5 gallons of 10.5% scrumpy, a load of meat and charcoal and the party kicks off at about 6.30. Me and this welsh lad are kids in charge of fire, whilst the head drinker decides it's mission to get these two 14-year olds larruped. Three pints of scrumpy later and i'm strutting around like some cokehead, being a cocky little shit, not agressive but full of cheeky chat to the adults. For the only time in my life I was in the communal campsite bogs having a lash and my dad comes in, pushes me against the wall, grabs my t-shirt by the neck and quietly but intensely says 'calm down, stop making an idiot of yourself and your parents'. Which worked, because although I got more pissed I didn't get any more lairy.

Did a bit more barbecuing and then the rest is a blur. By this age I'd been given my own little 2-man ridge tent, which was a good job considering I lost control of all three bodily functions during the course of that night. I've never been able to drink scrumpy cider since...

And although they don't camp anymore, my parents still go on holiday with the people they met on that holiday. But now they can afford it they get on planes and go to warm places now.

Length? Too squigy to tell...
(Calamity wetter than a fish's wet bits - bloody rain on, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 18:05, Reply)