Childhood Holidays

I woke up this morning to the sound of rain outside my open bedroom window. Not the Cornish mizzle that we usually get at this time of year but big splotty, splatty drops of rain that plip-plop loudly onto the window sills and remind me instantly of when I was a child. In particular, of the lovely holidays we had every year. It's the kind of rain I associate with our holidays to Anglesey in our little Sprite Musketeer caravan, playing card games or colouring pictures in our colouring books while listening to the rain drumming onto the metal roof. It got me thinking ..... there are loads of things that remind me of those holidays. Sounds and smells mostly, that instantly transport me back there. 

Sadly I don't have any pictures of our old caravan but I found this one the internet. 

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When I had my market stall, I could never figure out why the flapping of the marquee made me sleepy until I remembered that I used to fall asleep to the sound of the caravan awning flapping in the breeze, a soothing, reassuring sound, guaranteed to give you the best night sleep ever. When I worked at a holiday park near Looe, I would walk around the site doing my rounds in the morning and the smell of bacon frying would bring back such a flood of nostalgia that I instantly craved a big juicy bacon butty, cooked in the cute little frying pan on the cute little Calor gas cooker in the caravan. Even the smell of early mornings reminds me of my childhood holidays. Before all the new roads and bypasses were built, the trip from Sheffield to Anglesey took about 4-5 hours and in order to miss all the traffic, we would get up and 4am. Even now, if I have to get up early to go anywhere, it always brings back that feeling of excitement and adventure that I used associate with going on my holidays.

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I still love Anglesey, it still feels like going home, a familiar place that has hardly changed at all. I would love to go and spend some time there re-discovering the places I used to go as a child. To catch that tantalising first glimpse of the sea on the journey to Wales, usually around the Colwny Bay area and to feel the thrill of finally crossing the Menai Bridge, knowing that the holiday has almost begun. To hear the seagulls that hopped on top of the caravan every morning as if to say "come on, it's time to get up" and walking to the camp shop, a tiny little building that sold pretty much everything you could need, feet wet from the morning dew slipping and sliding in my flip flops. Imperial leather soap, the Old Spice that my dad used to wear, freezing cold showers in the shower block, freshly cooked doughnuts from the cafe on Benllech beach, beach towels blowing in the breeze pegged onto the guy ropes of the awning, playing in our rubber dinghy on Lligwy beach, attached to my dad with a huge piece of rope to stop us drifting out to sea but secretly, thinking how cool it would be to be rescued by the life boat. In fact even after my parents upgraded our little touring caravan to a big static van, still on the same camp site that we always went to, I continued the tradition and took my own daughters there.

I often think that if I were to leave Cornwall, Anglesey would be somewhere I could see myself settling and who knows, maybe one day I might just do it :-)

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Childhood Memories

Whenever I go to the car boot sale on a Sunday morning and drive onto the field to park, I get the overwhelming feeling that I'm getting out of the car after travelling from Sheffield to Anglesey at the start of the summer holidays I had as a child. It has that same feeling of fresh sea air, warm sunshine and anticipation, I know that sounds odd but it's a really nice, nostalgic feeling and it always makes me smile. We went to the same place on holiday every year, a friendly little camping and caravan site in Pentraeth, Anglesey and while a lot of people might find that a bit dull, to me it was fabulous. As a child, the most exciting thing was getting up at 4am, whispering to each other in the cool night air as we packed everything into the car and set off on the long journey. Amazing to get all that just from driving onto a field in Cornwall.

It's strange how the most mundane things remind me of when I was a child. Recently, we had a new water treatment system installed and as a result, we aren't allowed to use a whole load of things like bleach and antibacterial liquids because it kills off the bacteria that digests the icky stuff in the system. One of the other changes I've had to make is my laundry powder. Apparently, powder can solidify and clog up the drain pipes and the system itself so I've had to change to a laundry liquid. In addition to this, I've had to change from a biological detergent to a non-bio one, again, to keep the little buggers alive. Anyway, just after the system was installed, I nipped off to the shop and grabbed the nearest bottle of non-bio liquid and dashed off home to do some laundry and the minute I opened the bottle, I was once again, instantly, transported back to my childhood. Back to that cute little caravan on Anglesey and to the smell of freshly washed laundry, sunshine, salty seaside air, bacon, frying in the morning and freshly cut grass. Those amazing holidays we had in our little Sprite Musketeer caravan were filled with long sunny days on Lligwy beach playing in our dinghy in the tidal pool left behind after the tide went out. Eating sandwiches on the beach while wrapped in a towel with salty hair and sandy hands which had gone all pruney from being in the sea so long. Playing cricket on the camp site with the friends who went there every year at the same time as we did and usually getting told off for spending more time upside down doing handstands than fielding the ball.

Lligwy Beach (Source)

As well as the obvious things that bring back holiday memories, such as candifloss and hotdogs and hot, freshly made doughnuts covered in sugar, sometimes, it's something completely out of the blue that triggers a memory. Like Imperial Leather soap. I know ..... weird! One whiff in the chemist the other day and I'm standing in the toilet block on the campsite, putting 10p in the hot water meter so I could have a shower first thing in the morning, always in the freezing cold because no matter how hot it was outside, the inside of the shower block was always freezing cold or having a quick wash before going out for an evening walk on the beach and stopping for fish and chips on the way back to the car.

Oh, and I think I have finally managed to figure out why I get so sleepy at the market when it's windy. I'm fairly certain it's because the flapping of the marquee canvas reminds me of falling asleep in the caravan listening to the awning flapping in the breeze!! Weird :-)

So, here are a few more things that remind me of my childhood,

Sweet peas, pickled cucumber, pipe tobacco, freshly baked bread, old spice aftershave, Imperial Leather soap, bilberry pie, frying bacon, the sound of the knitting machine zipping merrily along, 4am, Dandelion and Burdock and Mum's meat and potato pie cooking in the oven.

What sights, sounds and smells remind you of your childhood? 

I would love to know :-)