I'd recently talked about my holidays as a kid, specifically our caravan park holidays.
Nothing but good memories from these times.
Over the past two years I've started to return to the place I visited as a kid but this time with my own 'tin bids' in tow. My mother, on a whim, decided to purchase a static caravan after seeing one for sale in the area we went to in the early eighties (when The 'Duran of Seagulls' and 'Howard Shaft's magnetic Keyboard band' ruled the charts with an iron lisp.
So each year we spend a long weekend there (usually over those 'sunny' bank holidays) which to be fair is probably enough for a holiday. If the weather isn't too great then you've got a choice over the hypnotic 'slots' or a quick traverse around the kinky pound shops.
We've just returned from a break last weekend: it was indeed not so great weather wise (a walk on the beach front was akin to Phil Mitchell from Eastenders Street rubbing your eyes with a floor sander. We effectively went to the seaside without seeing the sea. I wasn't too concerned to be honest. I was floored by a back injury and the combination of super strong pain killers and the local Co-Op wine rendered me Martian. Plus I'm rather keen on a once a year flutter in the 'junior gambling dens', more of which in another tale...
The site my mother has her 'static-carahome' on is much smaller and quieter than the ones we stayed at years ago. I think it might be owned by the WA, or perhaps the Daily Mail. It's a pleasant affair with lovely, Sunday-esque landscaping. No games with your balls are allowed and cars have to be pushed around with your fingers in neutral.
I also find it very serene and relaxing. Come dusk when the site lights become pert and lively, a beautiful hue descends on the surrounds. It's a perfect photograph opportunity and has a cinematic quality about it. I should have really taken my own camera down and caught these moments...perhaps a short film could be set here, a Lincolnshire coast trailer park flick or a post Eldorado soap opera – 'Golden Spades'...yes...that's it....Golden Spades a celluloid paean to faded seaside glamour.
Come darkness and the greyness of the earlier day becomes transformed immediately (and fairly dramatically) by the neon lights. Slightly tacky as they are, they still manage to evoke something deep inside me every time I see the lights and hear the chaotic aural bursts of sound of the amusement arcade.
To round the night off we played old school electronic card bingo (hey – we're talking four sheets here...you need a mind as sharp as Gore Vidal to control your winning destiny here).
Talking of winning...our swag for the evening included a child's Swatch watch, a jubilant picture frame and a green 'Swiss' vase. You don't get that kind of entertainment on Las Ramblas!
We headed back to the caravan and the wind and rain battered it's thin shell but I cooked us up a treat in the 'open plan kitchen and dining room' and opened another bottle of French red and retired to the boudoir a happy caravanner.
Apparently caravanning is back in vogue and it's not too difficult to see why (some of the posher places have en suite DVD's and wireless kitchen taps in High Def)...so go on - give it a whirl one year.
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