» Family Holidays

Siloth
As a nipper, my parents used to take me and my sister to a caravan near Appleby in Cumbria, along the banks of the aptly-named Eden River. Rolling fields, frolicking deer and glorious sunshine abounded. Despite having such beautiful surroundings all day, they would frequently succumb to wanderlust and drag us off to various alleged amusements and day trip destinations. The worst of these was undoubtedly Siloth, a branch of purgatory on the Solway Firth that even sounds like a Lovecraftian horror.

I don't know how many of you reading this live in Siloth - although the fact that you all have access to electricity suggests none of you - so if you take offence to this story, you can assume that I just turned up on a bad day. An exceptionally bad day.

Highlights:

-The gale-force wind, which was scattering untethered pets and buffeting hapless pensioners. It never let up all day and, we suspect, all year: the trees across the bay were growing horizontally.

- Being told by my family that, no, I could not just go to the arcade and play Rampage (10p for five credits!) all day. Instead, we would have fun. Madness.

- Approaching a miniature fair ground which was shut until spring. This was in July.

- Being given a dubiously nutty whipped ice cream, which is hesitantly licked until a small swarm of flies turned it into a writhing mass of black dots.

- Finding that the only beach accessible by foot was made of sharp rocks - though a sandy beach was visible, it was seperated from the rocky beach by some kind of giant concrete factory that opened onto the ocean.

- Eventually driving over to the sandy beach, where we were met by dark clouds and light drizzle, as well as the horrible feeling of having grit forcibly inserted into our faces by the wind.

- My sister being made to build sandcastles by the water. This consisted of her sitting down and crying while my mother scooped slop into a bucket.

- Me and my dad aborting our walk up the coastline when he finally accepted that there was nothing for miles. It looked like a depressed art student's experiments with perspective.

- On the way back to the car, finding entire families huddled in sand dunes at the back of the beach, clearly gripped by the same madness that affected my parents.

- Passing a church wedding in the drizzle and the wind and noting how they didn't seem to be having a good time of it.

- Having our one brief moment of happiness - a family game of pool in a warm hotel just down the road from the church - spoiled when we were kicked out. Apparently the "wedding" was actually the funeral of an 18-year-old soldier who'd died when he crashed his vehicle in a training exercise. The family didn't think a damp, ruddy-faced family hammering pool balls with sticks isn't a suitable accompaniment to a wake. Selfish bastards.

- Discovering that the arcade that I'd seen that morning with the Rampage machine in it had closed early for "personal reasons".

- Being relieved at the thought of a boring car journey back to Appleby and thus discovering the difference between "boring" and "actively unpleasant".

No apologies for length. I don't see why my family should be the only ones to suffer.
(Thu 9th Aug 2007, 10:16, More)