No one can accuse the Bristol Post of not having its finger on the pulse. “Millions of holiday makers expected on south west roads as schools break up,” goes the headline today. I mean, who knew?
To be fair, the story beneath the headline goes much further than this. It turns out that there will be more cars on the road than usual and that “routes into the southwest – such as the M5, A30 and A303 – are expected to be particularly busy”, adding helpfully, in case we didn’t know where the south west was, “holiday makers will join commuters on these road, with many travelling past Bristol to get to holiday destinations in Devon and Cornwall.”
My guess is that this is probably the same story that the Post ran at exactly the same time last year because it has a timeless lack of quality about it. And it is certainly what we experts call a statement of the bleeding obvious, like bears which defecate in the woods and popes who turn out to be catholics.
The accompanying photograph is, of course, one of motorway gridlock, with caravans in tow, not going anywhere any time soon.
I have been part of this Friday crawl before, starting the drive full of enthusiasm, desperate for a week’s R&R and then spending most of the day in heavy traffic, arguing with the family and finally arriving at the caravan site only to be at the back of a queue of a hundred other cars. And it’s usually pouring with rain, as it hasn’t been for the last three months. And I have finally made it to the destination, I often feel like I want to go home again. The site’s entertainment is usually woeful, expensive and with a selection of terrible beers. “John Smith’s smooth, Carling or Strongbow, Sir?” “I’ll have a glass of wine, please”. “Certainly. Liebraumilch or Hock?” “Oh shit.” “That’ll be £18.50.”
You know the old saying: if we had the weather, no one would ever go abroad. I used to agree with it, but I’ve done a 180 now. I have had the occasional warm and sunny stay away in England – I think it was in 1990, but it was so long ago, I could be wrong – but even then I did not get the type of rest I wanted. Everyone seemed to want paying for everything and paying at an extortionate price too. Awful “family” pubs, attractions, which were usually unattractions, if there is such a word, and the constant nightmare of trying to park anywhere near the town, beach etc. I came to the conclusion that many of us visitors were actually getting in the way. “If you bloody grockles weren’t here, things would be so much better.” “Yes, but you’d have no one to rip off!” “True. That pasty is £4.50, mate”.
In our final years of going on holiday in the south west, I began to regard it as a bit of a penance. With the advent of low cost airlines to Spain and Greece, suddenly it was cheaper to rent a small apartment in Corfu than it was to hire a mid-sized caravan in Newquay. Even taking into account the additional cost of airfares, it was not that much more expensive to fly away and guarantee the sun tan lotion would actually be needed. I rather like the sedentary type of holiday where my main exercise involves walking to my sun bed and then walking to the bar. When we were away in England, we would spent hours trudging round shops packed with tourist tat, along with just about everyone else who was on holiday there because it was raining so much and there was nothing else to do, except get wet.
There are some advantages of staying at home, I grant you. Real ale is in short supply in Greece, for example (although Corfu’s Royal Ionian brewery is doing a fine job in changing all that) and you just can’t buy decent bacon abroad. Perhaps they have different types of pigs? But these are not compelling reasons not to travel.
I do not envy the summer caravaners or, especially, campers. I can tolerate a cheap-as-chips Sun holiday outside the school holidays but the thought of doing it at the height of the summer season fills me with dread. And camping? Well, it takes a special type of person and that person isn’t me. I have always required a bathroom visit at some ungodly hour – this is not something that has recently occurred as I slip into old age: it has always been a factor in my life – and the prospect of trudging in near darkness, having had to get dressed, answer the call of nature and then return to my sleeping bag renders me fully awake. Fully awake and cold. And then I find myself getting up, on holiday, at 6.00 am. And it’s bloody raining so I have to sit in the small awning, reading a book, shivering and wishing I was somewhere else, like home or like Greece.
And therein lies the disappointment to me. You look forward all year to your holiday and then when it comes, you spend ages driving slowly or not at all and the weather’s crap and when the weather’s crap you spend even more money.
If we had the weather, no one would go abroad. But we don’t have the weather and never will in this country. And it always rains in the summer holidays. It’s the law, you see.
