Blackpool

We have had an ace day!

We parked at Cleveleys by the beach late last night, and planned the day over a leisurely coffee in bed this morning. Lucy came and dived in bed with us and had to be beaten up, and we had a happy start to being on holiday. In the end after a lot of indecision we took the camper van up to the Pleasure Beach and parked it there whilst we went out for the day.

This was a little happiness in itself, because last year camper vans were barred from that car park, so I wrote to the management and begged them to have a change of heart because we liked it so much, and then it turned out in the end that the car park man had told the management that we were just too nice to be barred and so they made a special exception for our camper van, which is brilliantly kind. We had a joyful reunion with the car park man, who is our friend and who we haven’t seen since last season when he had to tell us sadly that the management said we were banned.

We have to try and park it discreetly, which I can tell you is no easy task, in case anybody else sees that it is there and wants to park theirs there as well despite the big notice that says No Camper Vans Except The Enormous Scruffy One Trying To Hide Behind The Dustbins, We Know It Is There, Please Don’t Go On About It.

We got our bikes out and cycled down to the Tower. It was the most fantastic time. The sun was shining and the tide was in, and the light sparkled on the waves and enormous seagulls shrieked and dived, and we could taste the salt spray.

Blackpool was exactly the way it should be. There were fat ladies with jewelled sandals and tattooed ankles and big round shoulders shaking as they laughed, and children rushing about and shrieking and pushing each other, and an Indian family taking each other’s photographs and saying: “Chapatti!” instead of: “Cheese!” and then falling about laughing, and men with tight T-shirts and short hair and piercings gently carrying little babies, and toddlers in pushchairs getting sticky with melting ice cream, and it was perfect.

Cycling was brilliant. The dog was hugely brave and galloped alongside us except sometimes when he got distracted by other dogs’ interesting wee, and then we all had to stop and wait until he realised he had lost us and caught up, which must have been hard going because he really does only have very little legs.

There was so much to see I felt as if it was all going to leak out of my ears. There were hotels called optimistically aristocratic names like Claridges and Belvedere, and I was disappointed to see that my favourite shop sign which used to boast Genuine Hand Made Fugde And Belgium Chocolate has been taken down and replaced by one which is more accurate but less enjoyable, and amusement arcades called splendid things like Slots Of Fun, and bingo noise spilling excitedly out on to the prom, and the ace thing on the pier that people get in and it catapults them up into the air and they bounce about for ages, which gives me a dreadful appalled thrill every time I see it.

We bought Oliver’s cricket shoes, and Mark took him in to Jungle Jim’s Amazing Kids’ Play Park, whilst Lucy and I had a walk round the glorious Winter Gardens and looked at the fountains, and breathed in the fish and vegetable smell of the indoor market, and I told her that it reminded me of my childhood, and she said that I was a boring old fart, and we all went to Waterstones and bought a new book, which was brilliant.

We ate doughnuts and candyfloss on the way back, and got really sticky, and then played on the beach for a while. We have a family beach game which we have played for years, where you aren’t allowed to cross a line drawn in the sand, and we try to make each other trapped in a circle. I got trapped twice, by Oliver.

In the evening we had dinner in the camper van, and watched a DVD chosen by Lucy about aliens and American teenagers, and now Mark and Oliver are reading and Lucy is writing to some online boy in America who we have all decided is too dopey to be a secret  paedophile, and I am writing to you, and the dog is completely unconscious on the floor. We are all yawning and sleepy and exhausted and happy. It has become windy outside after all the sunshine today, and we can hear it blowing and the waves crashing, but we are safe and warm in our lovely camper.

We are going home tomorrow. I love holidays.