Rituals

This is going to be brief, in order to make up for the excessively lengthy post I published yesterday, which probably took about 10 minutes of your life to read.  You're never going to get that back, y'know.

When I was a kid, we always used to go on a long summer holiday to France each year.  Dad would hitch the caravan onto the back of the car and Mum would get some maps out of the library so that we could find our way about; this was a simpler time, before satnavs came into use.  The journey through France had a number of rituals and landmarks that would have to be met.

1. The ceremonial first spotting of a Norbert Dentressangle lorry*.  We were not officially on holiday until the first of these (known to us as Norbert Dextrasol) had been spotted, with HUGE kudos going to the person who made the spot.  On some very exciting occasions, this would happen at the ferry port before we'd even left the UK.  

2. The ceremonial falling out between me and my sister.  My poor parents.  It was a long car journey down through France and there was a lot of squabbling.  I remember on one memorable occasion when I was still very little, when we were arguing so strenuously that my dad screeched to a halt, kicked us out of the car and drove off, leaving us by the side of the road.  For about 10 seconds probably, but it scared the shit out of us, as we stood there, comparing how many sweeties we had and wondering how long they'd last us.

3.  The ceremonial falling out between my parents. My mother is an intelligent woman, with a quite frankly phenomenal sense of direction, which I (to a certain extent) have been lucky enough to inherit (together with a butt that just won't quit). However, she is also unfortunately directionally dyslexic, leading to many situations like this:

Mum: *ascertaining need to turn left* "You need to turn right here"
Dad: *starts to turn right*
Mum *gesticulating wildly with left hand* "RIGHT! TURN RIGHT! NO! RIGHT!" 

I wish my dad had learned to always follow the hand, rather than the words.  There is no disconnect between the brain and the hand. The hand does not get it wrong.  I strongly believe that the chances of my parents getting divorced decreased by around 37% with the invention of the satnav.

4. The ceremonial first spotting of that year's new number plate.  At that time, the new vehicle registrations only came out once a year, in August.  So we'd also be keeping an eye out for the first spot of some fancy pants going on holiday with their brand new car. Again, enormous kudos to the person who made the first spot.

All of which is a hugely long winded way of saying, OMG, you guys, I spotted my first 16 plate on Sunday woohoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

* [sidebar - distressing news on the Norbert front]

Simple Little Happy Moments

This morning I got up early and took Murdoch for a walk across the fields.  When I got back, I went back to bed and I fell asleep for a little while.  I woke up and although still a little drowsy, I could hear Murdoch in the kitchen drinking out of his water bowl.  Then there was the clickety click of his claws across the floor and I saw him come into my bedroom.  When Murdoch has drunk some water, he really likes to lick my feet.  I always joke that he's loading up his licky gun with ammunition.  So I stuck one foot out from underneath the duvet and let him.  

It may seem silly, but it's simple little moments like that, where I know exactly what Murdoch needs and can give it to him that make me feel really happy.  Seeing his tail wag happily at the smallest thing that I can do for him is such an amazing pay off.

Do you guys have little things like this that make you smile?

Happy Memories

My last post was a touch swirling, negative vortex of doom, wasn't it?  Sorry about that.  One of the things I mentioned was the fact that while I always remember not so great memories that leave me with a burning sense of injustice, I struggle to remember happy memories.  So I've made a bit of an effort to think of these things and so this post is quite simply some happy summer holiday memories from my childhood.

When I was a kid, we always used to go on holiday to France.  We'd take about three weeks and head to a Eurocamp or Sunsites campsite, or in later years, we'd hitch our caravan to the back of the car and drive through France until we reached our destination.  This usually took a couple of days, during which I happily passed the time with my head stuck in a book, or when that got boring, squabbling with my older sister.  Fun times.

I have fractured memories of a lot of these holidays.  I remember sitting in a Eurocamp tent playing a game where you had to put on an astonishing amount of clothing before trying to eat some chocolate with a knife and fork, and getting a sticker to put in my camp "passport" for taking part.  I remember being in Biarritz in torrential rain, nearly getting flooded out, but loving the enormous puddles (they came most of the way up my legs!) and the brand new experience of swimming in an outdoor swimming pool (warm) while the rain fell on us (cold).  I remember learning to windsurf and falling of my board while showing off and mugging for my dad's video camera.

But the very best of our holiday destinations was Annecy in the French Alps, an absolutely beautiful lake surrounded by mountains.  

We went there several times and I remember it as a place of almost constant sunshine where I got as brown as a berry spending my days just running around the campsite, dabbling in streams and jumping in and out of the lake.

We had an inflatable Zodiac with an outboard motor and we'd spend happy days zipping across the water being towed behind the boat on a variety of toys.  One thing that we loved was going to the opposite side of the lake to our campsite where it was possible to climb up a cliff and jump off it into the water.  It felt like the smallest, highest ledge and it took an act of astonishing courage to jump off it the first time, before it became commonplace and we'd race each other to get the ledge and jump.  I used to love heading into Annecy, a beautiful town that had the most wonderful ice cream parlour where the sundaes were always served with a sparkler or a fancy tissue paper decoration.  I remember watching the Bastille Day fireworks display - always impressive, not least because of the spectacle of the hundreds of boats that always took to the lake to get the best views of the festivities.

We were almost always accompanied by our neighbours, a family with three kids.  Lucy and I used to spend most of our time together - she was closest to me in age and we could spend hours inventing games - diving off the tethered boats and investigating the bottom of the lake for treasure and things like that.  We even had a notebook that we'd jot down the things that we found.  I also remember one particularly happy afternoon spent in my little tent with Lucy obsessively learning the John Barnes rap. You've got to hold and give, but do it at the right time....