The problem with drinking beer, I have found as I get that bit older is that it goes and sits in my bladder waiting until the most inconvenient time to begin to carry out it escape plan. So I wake up and it is still dark and I need to go, no choice. I clamber out of bed and the sleeping compartment, zips are just not just not good when you are trying to creep around. The realisation of the distance to the toilet block, making itself known inside my brain. I pulled on a pair of shorts and a t shirt unzipped the front door emerged and stopped. It had stopped raining and the sky had cleared and the whole of the sky was full of stars. It was beautiful. The Milky Way arched overhead there was no moon and very little other light, just stars. I found the Plough and Cassiopeia and various other constellations and then a meteorite flashed across the sky, it could have been a dying satellite but I don’t care.
I did consider waking the family up and dragging them out to see this, well for a brief moment at least, but decided against it. Then the reason for my conscious state reasserted itself and I headed off down the path.
The following morning as I sat with my wife eating breakfast, very fresh bread and cheese and ham and coffee, I tried to work out what was different, the food was good, I could go on for minutes about breakfast alfresco with fresh bread and good coffee. The company was good, my wife and I even after 13 years and two children seem to like each other and with minimal effort make each other laugh. I suppose it was the site of my youngest daughter wandering off to the shower, following her absent minded sister. She is 9 and I still worry when she goes down to the shops all of 150 yards down the road. Here my first thought was, did she take the toothpaste and my second was, is there any more coffee. Maslow eat your heart out. This was a place where not only did I feel comfortable with my children “wandering off” to explore, but also and perhaps more importantly my wife was calm about it, well, she was pouring the coffee for herself and after some deliberation me.
As I wandered around the site, with its mix of caravans and tents, there were so many children, playing or just being. There adults on the whole keeping a very watching brief as the mixed and match. I took the girls swimming in the small indoor pool, well they swam and splashed and I tried to float gently in the corner. There were no attendants or life guards, we were responsible for ourselves and I was happy and calm. The campers a mix of British, French, German, Dutch, probably the majority and a smattering of other nationalities, were relaxed and at ease. I suppose it is the transient nature of these places that mean the there is no real time to get cross.
On our final night we ventured down to the site restaurant, a starter was Escargot, something I had never had, and I knew my children had never had the pleasure. The fourth member, being a vegetarian for over 25 years and we needed someone needed to be the designated (insert your own reasonably pejorative term here) in case of over kill. Inspired by Horrid Henry, if you don’t know, its not that important, we settled down to wait. After for me 2 beers and coke and fanta for the girls a small bowl arrived containing a green tinge concoction. Using the long forks that came, I went first, finding and skewering a snail and popped it into my mouth. I tasted garlic first, I like garlic, I chewed a bit and then swallowed. Hiding my sense of relief, I flicked a glance at my two children, “that was OK whose first". Unfortunately the panic in their eyes I hoped to see, failed to materialise and they both dived in and with little if any fanfare popped a garlic coated mollusc into their mouths. So that was it, no drama as we polished off the rest of the dish. They both wandered off to “ play” and I ordered more beer. My wife, stopped reading her book, long enough to peer over her glasses with distain and the world carried on. So another “adventure” ticked off.
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