So holiday season seems to be over. The last of the schools are opening their doors this week and slogging starts in earnest. But all this got me thinking of our family holidays past. You know, when most hotels didn't come with a TV. Where the pool was communal and all the entertainment was free and non-motorised.
My maternal grandparents retired in the late eighties from the Iscor clogged skies of the Vaal Tiangle to a quaint caravan park on the Natal North Coast. They lived in a mobile home called a Plett - a big caravan with a permanent patio attached. This became MECCA to us grandchildren, cousin Jess aka Gecko, my sister and I in particular. Not only did we love this granny and grandpa more than Oros (the drink du jour of the tartrazine age) but Mtunzini ticked all the right boxes for us. Permanent summer. Swimming 10mths of the year. Only 10 rainy days every 12mths.
The sun rises at 4am in the summer. And we kids usually slept on the convertible sofas in the lounge. Old people are early risers and a vivid memory was my granny making us tea every morning, with 3 sugars nogal. We were only allowed 1 normally so already granny was a rebel and rule-breaker. "Don't tell your da, right!" in her cockney, Pomeranian accent with a wink and click of her false-teeth. God rest her soul.
We spent the entire summer in the pool. I remember my grandpa telling us off for being in the pool so much he said we were going to go mouldy. I remember all us girl grandchildren learnt to swim in the pool of that caravan park, each earning a big, shiny old R1 coin for our efforts and achievements. One Christmas we all got goggles as presents. We spent so much time under water that my grandpa called us La Loutre, or French for otters! By the end of the 4 week holiday our porcelain complexion resembled that of Bulgarian Gypsies complete with cozzie lines and freckled noses.
We only used to head back home at feeding time it seemed. I remember being eternally hungry. Of a persistent rumble in my tummy. Thinking back I can only surmise it was all the fresh air and exercise. My grandparents being WW2 escapees were never going to be up for any culinary awards but the spartan meals they did put out appealed to every fibre of the child in us. Bully beef sandwiches. Canned ham, home-made potato chips fried in a pot on the gas bottle out on the patio with minty peas.There was only Weetabix for breakfast. Which we ate with full-cream milk (my parents were of the powdered generation). Gallons of lemonade which my grandpa bought in the old glass 1lt Sparletta bottle and stored in a crate in the garage. Braai's. Always chicken. Even now that smell takes me back to 1990! And my granny's pineapple fluff pudding made with a tin of evaporated milk beaten by hand, a packet of jelly and a tin of crushed pineapple and lined with Marie biscuits!
We were old enough to look after ourselves, entertain ourselves. Living for the nights when they would burn the sugar cane and all the cane rats would come running through the caravan park with all the local ethnics running after them Good eating they reckoned and kids being kids we were always so puzzled why they were eating cane rate and we weren't!?!
Or daring each other to run up and touch the trunk of the avocado tree where the big python lived. Spending hours on the trampoline after lunch - 'cos we weren't allowed to swim but bouncing was healthier, erm? Playing pertanque with the park directors' kids when they were home from boarding school.
On rainy days we would play Bidgie. Gin rummy to mere commoners. We would play with my gran for real money and for real points. She was a wicked and ruthless teacher. There was no Mr-Nice-Guy with her. You learnt very quickly how much a ace was worth and not to hold onto your cards. You learnt to keep a straight face no matter how good a hand you had. And you learnt to "read" people. At the end of the game, after we had played from Ace though to King, granny would tally up the points, do a little doodle in her book and announce who owed what. We would all sit there with our velcro wallets and hand over our 5c or whatever silly figure it was. To this day we all reckon we actually owed her a hang of a lot more money but she going easy on us.
These holidays punctuated our year. We spent so much time at the coast we began to refer to ourselves as locals. We knew more about the ecology of Natal than of our native Free State. We cried on the "leaving days" and the first thing we did when we got home was count how many days til our next visit.
Those days are over. Granny and grandpa are long gone and the cousins have moved onto the cooler climes of Canada. We are older with children of our own and working on making our memories. I sometimes forget those times but just once in a while a smell or sound instantly transports me back to a moment from the past.
As the digital age encroaches I am planning a resistance. I think I may be alone in this. Her majesty will be dragged outside while there is still nature to enjoy. I will demand that her cousins come on join her so they can make the memories I have. I will seek out places without DSTV. Where fun is DIY
For now it's her majesty waking the birds and me whose less-inclined to remove myself from the linen but I am planning a whole lotta fun for the years to come. I hope you Will join me in this movement.
Til then....
Toodles
