Holiday Camp
I have a confession. I have to admit it, I have been traitorous. Centuries ago I could have possibly been tried and hung for my traitorous activities. If my religion was Catholic I would be straight down to the confessional box in a jiffy. But I’m not, so I will admit it, right here and now, there is no need for forgiveness because I enjoyed it and I don’t care!
Here goes…. We have just returned from a Sun Readers holiday! There I’ve said it.
You can see why I feel a bit like a fake. There was not one motorhome in sight and for this I feel truly sorry, having said that, it was kind of camping, just not with the wheels. Being holed up in a static caravan in Cornwall with my husband, my Mum and my husbands Mum should have struck fear into my heart, but maybe I was going through a melancholy, calm stage of my life because the thought didn’t make me reach for a bottle of Rioja or consider a visit to the docs for a prescription of Valium!
My husband (who prides himself on ‘taking me to the best places’) began collecting the vouchers in January “£9.50 each, what a bargain” he proclaimed triumphantly when he was awarded our first choice and our third date choice of accommodation.
So, here we were tramping down the M5 with ham sandwiches in my Mums Rover 25, in October, are we mad!
It took a long seven hours to get there, Elvis had been round and round on the I-pod (or P-pod as my Mother-in-law calls it, she also calls a Blackberry a Blueberry, but we all know what she means) infact if I heard Rags to Riches one more time I could quite easily become a JLS fan……mmm maybe not, things aren’t quite that bad.
As the roads became more and more narrow and the sat-nav became more hysterical we realised we weren’t far off the caravan site. Pulling into reception we were welcomed into the Hi-de-hi world of the British holiday camp by very friendly reception and bar staff, who seemed to spend most of their time helpfully driving around the site fixing holiday-makers caravan heating systems, but more of this later. A big draughty bar and cavernous ‘cabaret bar’ welcomed us with the promise of Bingo at eight, a guest act at ten and a disco at eleven. Considering there was only about twelve people and one fluffy Pomeranian staying on site they were highly ambitious and determined to entertain us.
So, please remember, I am usually singing the praises of hiring a motorhome for touring pleasure and adventurous fun. Now I am going to explain the concept of staying in a static caravan (it seems apt Halloween is only around the corner because this could make for scary reading). Please make yourself comfortable.
Picture it, looming up in the distance was a row of caravans, highlighted by the slowly sinking sun. Number 30, a Bluebird model, silver rated in the brochure and a credit to its rating. We opened the door and were nearly toppled from the top step with the wall of stale tobacco that met us. Now I’m not for a moment suggesting all the caravans had this problem but for four non smokers this wasn’t a great welcome! This is the point where I must take the opportunity and point out that we do not allow smoking in our hire vehicles so whether you decide to go on a smoke free mobile holiday with MotorhomesUK or spend your January afternoons cutting out vouchers you can at least make an educated decision about whether you are ok about spending your holiday smelling like twenty Bensons. Apart from this, and the three quid we spent on Oust (which didn’t work) the rest was pretty good. Everything worked in the van, apart from the heating and the hot water at first! It seemed the previous occupant had enjoyed him/herself changing the settings and basically messing the whole system up. Never fear, Mother-in-law was on hand to morph into Pete the plumber and eventually fiddled so much with the boiler it gave up the fight and sputtered its protest in a stream of VERY hot water. Result.
The bedrooms were tiny, the walls were as thin as A4 and the bathroom floor was permanently wet but apart from this we knew we were going to have a great time.
We took the coastal path to Polperro the next day, down to the tiny little harbour for crab sandwiches and glasses of cider in the Three Pilchards pub. The sun was out, it was t-shirt weather and the mixture of lunchtime cider, sunshine and holiday camp excitement made for a heady cocktail. We couldn’t wait for the evening cabaret. My Mother-in-law could hardly contain herself, my Mum didn’t show as much verve and my husband was positively adverse to spending a whole hour in the Cabaret hall. He soon changed his mind when he joined the other five campers in the room to enjoy an evening with the local ‘songstress’ who threatened if we didn’t all look a bit more lively she would go home and do her ironing. After listening to a rendition of Cher I considered doing the same!
It’s tiring being on holiday, and after a day strolling the warm sunny streets of Padstow, eating Rick Stein fish and chips (he actually turned up, my husband refused to take a picture of him or ask for his autograph so we have nothing to show for it and he did look a bit grumpy, probably because people from Sun holidays keep taking pictures of him!) After we had bumped up his bank balance by going mad in his deli and patisserie we headed to Bodmin moor to the Jamaica Inn. Half an hour later having dredged up everything we could remember from the Jamaica Inn episode of Most Haunted we returned to camp to take advantage of the pool and sauna (oh yes, this was a ‘proper’ static site). There was a large pool which, incidentally, didn’t induce an icy heart attack on entry and the sauna was great too.
After the previous night ‘a la cabaret’ we intrepidly made our way down the dark path to tonight’s entertainment. The ‘act’ was busy in the bar whipping up a willing audience. This consisted of about seven, to quote him, he would have liked ten but the Pomeranian had obviously decided to spend his evening in his Bluebird due to extreme exhaustion from walking the hills and an overdose of Cher tracks. He ought to try seven hours in our Rover with Rags to Riches and Burning Love after two traffic jams, four ham sandwiches and four E-numbered over active campers after two bags of midget gems.
So, back to the ‘cabaret’ it was a guy called Kevin. He had a tough job to do but was up for the challenge.
“Have we any Elvis fans in the room” he yelled optimistically. Yeah, we know Rags to Riches! It must have been the vodka but for some reason me and my husband screamed “Yeaaaaah” and therein lay the problem. From now on we were singled out. We did the dance to the Frankfurt Special, we did the actions to Born to Rock, for three minutes we were Elvis and Ann-Margaret. Then our vodka ran out and we had to invest in another £12 round in order for us to get through an improvised version of In the Jungle where my husband, bless his heart, donned a rubber Lions head and had to roar all the way through the song. If this is striking fear into your heart, you are probably right, I did warn you Halloween is around the corner. The clock crept to 11.00pm and Kevin decided to express his thanks for our support by singing The Wonder of You as his grand finale. Unfortunately for him my husband was so tipsy by then when Kevin invited him to do the Woooah bit he hijacked the mic and continued without Kevin and sang the whole song alone, eventually standing at the end for his big moment in front of all his adoring fans (all seven of them) the wonder of yooooooooooo!!!! It was at this moment I knew why I had married this man!
The ‘mums’ were in stitches and even the chilly Bluebird could not dampen our spirits as we returned to crawl into our lumpy short beds.
This story might put you off holiday camps forever and I will be perfectly happy if you shun them in order to hire a motorhome for your summer holiday. However, the moral of this story is to try something different, have a good time and enjoy every minute, like we did. Life is too short to whinge and moan.
Anyway, have to go now to sharpen my scissors for next years voucher cutting, maybe next year we might upgrade to a Bluebird Gold rated, or maybe we might just take one of our motorhomes instead and think back fondly on our first CHAVS holiday, which of course stands for Cheap Holidays At Various Sites!
