An Old Norfolk Proverb

Having just travelled the familiar road from North Walsham to Fakenham on a Bank Holiday Monday, I have come up with my very own Norfolk Proverb.
'Caravan behind you, happiness. Caravan in front of you, misery.'
This would also apply if you are towing a caravan (or thought you were), so I like to think there is something for everyone here.

Home Sweet Home

...and so, having spent a week exploring out west we are now back on home turf. The car still doesn't start unless you roll it down a hill, which was great in Wales but not so much in Norfolk, and I have a mobile phone which makes me look like I've just stepped out of 'Murder She Wrote', but apart from that we had a great time.
The journey home was uneventful but tedious, especially once we hit King's Lynn. That winning combination of a dearth of decent roads and a plentiful supply of caravans conspired to make the last 40 miles slow and frustrating. I worried at one point that I might not make it back in time for the start of term, reminding me of the situation a couple of years ago when several colleagues were absent at the beginning of the Easter term due to the volcanic ash fiasco. Somehow I don't think the Head would accept the excuse that I was stuck in East Rudham behind a Ford Ka trying to tow a five berth caravan.
For Bryn and I our first priority on arrival was to find Ronnie. He seemed reasonably pleased to see us in that inimitable nonchalant feline way, but distinctly more underwhelmed by the reunion than we were. Then, after a quick check of the post to make sure there wasn't anything exciting like an inheritance from a long-lost great aunt or a flyer about a new offer at Lidl, it was time to tackle the washing. What you need to know at this point is that before we went away there was already a massive mountain of ironing sitting there staring at me. I did what was absolutely necessary for the holiday and left the rest. As the laundry fairy doesn't seem to have made an appearance this week it is, as you would expect, still sitting there. The trouble is now there are three loads of washing at various stages of dampness waiting to join that pile.

Then, about an hour ago people began to say they were hungry. I'd forgotten about the whole meal thing to be honest. I would love to say that I managed to produce a delicious pasta dish in seven minutes from scratch, or that I got a nutritious fish pie which I'd prepared last week out of the freezer and had it on the table within half an hour, along with fresh runner beans from the garden. What actually happened was that I began searching through the cupboards and fridge, desperately looking for something I could feed to my family which didn't come ready prepared with its own penicillin. I didn't have much luck to be honest. Meringue nest, kidney bean and marmite surprise anyone?

Family Holidays Part Five: The Journey Home

...and so the day would arrive when it was time to go home. By now there would have been so much rain that a local farmer would be called upon to tow us off the site and we would bid farewell to 'Le Camping Merde de Cochon' with mixed feelings (of joy and ecstasy). Armed with nothing but a personal stereo, some new batteries and a 'Best of Meatloaf' cassette I would settle back and resign myself to the journey ahead. This would invariably include a breakdown somewhere near Limoges(the car, not the passengers amazingly) giving me even longer to reflect on all the new phrases I had learnt over the fortnight such as...
'Merde alors, tu pues!' (Bloody Hell, you stink)
'Tu n'as pas entendu parler de savon?' (Haven't you heard of soap?) and my personal favourite
'Le mec anglais sur l'emplacement numéro 38 est complètement fou' The English bloke on pitch 38 is completely mad.
(Please forgive the errors - bit rusty - de savon or du savon?)
We would eventually arrive back in England to find that they had been experiencing the hottest, weather for decades whilst we'd been away, and that the whole country was walking around looking tanned and gorgeous. Still, at least we were back and it was all over for another year. I could have a shower, sleep alone again and set about tracing my real parents.

Family Holidays Part Four: Warning, Contains Scenes of Adult Nudity

So, as we all huddled in the caravan with the rain lashing down outside, tensions were running high. Poor weather and three teenagers with no TV or gadgets to amuse them is not a good recipe for a perfect holiday; in fact you have all the ingredients for total family breakdown and years of messy legal wrangling.
Such was the pressure that my dad decided now would be a good time to do some yoga. Picture the scene. A smallish caravan, three disgruntled adolescents playing their 97th round of pontoon and a 50+ man doing yoga, NAKED, in the very tight confines of caravan floor. 'Why naked?', you may ask. Well don't. Just one of my dad's little idiosyncracies, a penchant for letting it all hang loose. We were all used to it but others, such as the cleaner and my Japanese student friend, were not. I'm amazed that my dad has reached his mid 70s with not so much as a restraining order to his name.
Anyway, the yoga was over, so my dad got up to put the kettle on when he spotted a French man outside walking back from emptying the toilet. My dad is a friendly sort of chap so he stood at the door, gave a cheery wave and shouted "Bonjour, Monsieur". "Merde alors!",came the reply, as the poor man scurried back to the safety of his own van. You may be fortunate enough not to be familiar with the intimate workings of caravan doors, but many of them are those 'stable door' designs where you can have the top part open and the bottom section closed. My dad claims to this day that he thought the lower part was shut but, needless to say, 'Monsieur le campeur' got a full frontal he wasn't expecting.
I don't know if it was the poor weather or whether word got round about the flasher in the van on pitch 38 but we soon had the site pretty much to ourselves.

Family Holidays Part One: Journey and Arrival

So, as I stagger towards the end of term (I've always thought that Gok Wan's efforts would be much more profitably spent on a series called 'How to Teach Good Knackered') I begin to reflect on that greatest of oxymorons 'The Family Holiday'.
The majority of my childhood/teenage holidays involved the caravan, trekking off with my parents and two brothers to various corners of the UK and France towing this mobile torture cell, sorry I mean 'home' behind us. If it was ever in front of us then we knew we were in trouble.
As we know, every holiday begins with the journey. Now, I am sure that this points to a huge character flaw in me, possibly even a personality disorder, but when I'm going somewhere I just like to get there. The less time spent in the car/air/train/sunshine community minibus the better. Unfortunately my father does not share my point of view, preferring to take his time, stop every hour and shun major roads. Don't forget, these were the days before Sat Nav so we would spend many a happy afternoon getting lost on country roads with pensioners on push bikes overtaking us and probably covering about 15 miles in the process. On this basis driving down to the South of France could take several days.
Eventually, after days spent in a hot vehicle (no air con in those days) with precious little to do (batteries on 'personal stereo' went flat at Calais) we would arrive at 'Le camping Merde de Cochon' or similar. Great, time to get out, stretch your legs.... Oh no! We children had to remain in the car until dad had 'put the stays down'. To this day I am unsure what exactly this means, but it seemed to take an intolerably long time and involved much bad tempered shouting from Dad and encouragement and placating noises from Mum. We would finally be allowed in to the inner sanctum, with stern warnings to take our shoes off. The kettle would go on, tea would be made and for a few glorious moments all would be well with Famille Bennett. It would, dear reader, be all too short-lived...