Mid summer. The rain is tip tapping away at the skylight and I can see a mix of grey skies or black clouds floating by.
Since when?! When I was a diddy thing yes we used to have rain but nothing as extreme as lately! And this was only 20 years ago!
Got me thinking about our summer holidays. 6 of us used to go away every year, just down to Cornwall from Bristol. Me and my little sister, my parents and my grandparents. We used to rent this lovely little bungalow in Perranporth for a week - few minutes walk from the high street and chippy, and more importantly, dirctly across the road from the beach!
Every morning me and my sister would wake up and go to my grandparents room, purely as a noelty of having them in the same house. We would usually read or play games for about an hour snuggled in with them until it was an acceptable hour (7am ish!) and my parents got up! Then it would be all pile into the kitchen! We would sit around the table playing games while my mum and nan would cook a full english breakfast, followed by rounds of toast, with the windows open - heat starting to flood in, birds cheeping, gentle ocean humming...
After this we would decide what we were doing for the day. Beach day, shopping, activity park... If it was a little cloudy we would go to the opposite side of cornwall as the weather was always different for each side!
Now we were never well off, always struggling by, but my parents always made sure we had the best days we could possibly want on our holidays.
We would normally be done with our daily activities by about 3pm when we would wind things up and return to base. From here we would then decide what was for tea. There was a lovely chip shop just around the corner where we would often go - mum would go and collect it with dad while nan buttered bread in the kitchen, and grandad kept me and little sis entertained! Or we would go to our favourite restaurant Pickwicks (still there to this day) in the high street - the black cherry thick shake was amazing! We had some great moments here. Just a few years back we went in and placed our order with the waitress. But bless my dear nan hadn't been paying attention and after we finished saying what we wanted, asked the waitress if she wanted our mains order too! 6 roasts as a starter would have been excessive I believe!
Evenings would be spent in our bungalow playing silly games like beetle, ludo, snakes and ladders... Or as we got older, yatzy and uno! Then off to bed at a reasonable hour, happy and ready for the next fun filled day.
New years day this year I had my little boy. As a mummy myself I would love to give him the experiences I had as a child, in the same places. Unfortunately, the economy thinks otherwise! The prices have gone crazy in the last few years, and for the first time in 26 years, even my family are not going away. Its devastating really. But then I wonder, if we had booked a holiday, what would it have been like?! It seems we have summer through winter and winter through summer lately! Could we have done beach days? Would we have stood a full day at a kids adventure park in mackintoshes and welly boots?! And when will it all go back to normal?! I hope day after day, but for now that is all I can do.
So I shall sit here, eating a freddo for comfort (yes at 7.30am!) and sipping my tea, and remembering the good times.
There will always be next year...
