1970s Holidays

 I never went abroad as a child with the exception of my near fatal visit to Lloret de mar with my sister, Mother and Aunt Greta when I was a ten year old.

My memories, apart from the drowning centre mainly around large ants, the smell of leather goods in the thousands of shops my mother dragged us into and fields of hotel filled flooring.

The rest of the very few family holidays we had were in a beige caravan in Scotland, complete with orange melamine cups, midges, and family arguments.

Holidays were never happy affairs when we were children. 

A thing that changed considerably when, as older teenagers, we were invited away with my elder sister and her family to Spain, where we sat at restaurant tables, were allowed to drink and were treated as adults for the first time in our lives.

My parents were not bad people, they were just a little sad and unable parent very well, but that did not mean that they did not want to, for I remember after my father had uncharacteristically made my sister and I laugh as we sat in the back of the car and only after he had got out to do something, my mother made a pointed comment that he wasn’t all bad. 

Another dampener in another rain covered lay-by near Drumnadrochit.

Next week,(easyJet permitting) my family will be meeting up in Sitges at The Santa Maria. 

I’m only popping over for three days but it will be enough to remind me of those first teenage holidays where we’re had fun for the first time and learned how to be adults