Dreaming of holidays
Ever since retiring from the restaurant business over two years ago, I’ve been promising myself to visit my niece who works as a scuba-diving instructor on the island of Bali. One of those jobs for which your own career advisor would give their right arm.
But then, Hartlepool Life, the Choir, and many other pleasurable pursuits got in the way of my Globetrotting dreams.
Just as I decided that I could do with a sunny break, this dreaded virus has scuppered my modest plans of driving to Spain for a couple of weeks. Quarantining for fourteen days after my return, I would tear my hair out!
So, instead of heading abroad, I’m thinking of getting on my bike and burning a few more calories than I would just cycling to the Headland or the Marina. Maybe the Coast to Coast. After all, during lockdown, I watched on YouTube a guy who travelled half the world on a unicycle. Mind you, I fell asleep too early the other night and missed out on the £50 repair voucher kindly offered by the government, so I’ll have to watch a few more videos on how to repair a puncture.
As an independent teenager, I spent a few of my Summer holidays with friends. Those were truly memorable days. We did not have much. A tent. An inflatable mattress. A blanket. A camping stove. A fishing line or a spear gun. And lots of enthusiasm.
The 60-mile train ride to the coast from my hometown took two hours as the Wild West train stopped at every single village on the way. A bus then took us all the way to the last stop on the line. A deserted beach on the Annaba shore where the forest met the sand and the clear-blue Mediterranean.
Before putting up the tents, we first jumped into the inviting sea for a quick splash to announce our arrival.
We then chose a spot at the back of the sandy beach just by the pine trees where we all pitched our two-man tents. Some were more tattered than others. Mine was actually my older brother’s who had hitch-hiked his way around Europe in the mid-sixties.
Duties were shared according to talents. My love of cooking from a very early age meant that I was in charge of the camping stove and pans. Another one was responsible for the washing up and general cleaning. The unlucky other two had to try and catch some fish.
Every morning, before breakfast, one of us went to a local bakery to buy our fresh daily bread and the small dairy for our milk and freshly-churned butter. A local farm provided us with fresh vegetables, often for nothing as the farm hands felt sorry for us.
Breakfast consisted of large bowls of milky coffee, buttered baguettes and homemade marmalades and jams lovingly provided by our mothers.
Our other meals were mostly made up of pasta or rice dishes unless we were lucky enough to catch a fish or two. On those rare occasions, out came the charcoal and the wire rack which I placed over a few stones and the result was some of the freshest and best barbecued fish I’ve ever tasted.
Those were some of my most memorable holidays. World travel was totally foreign to me then and this was well before the term “Staycation” was even invented.