France early '90s
On the second day my dad got stung by a wasp which triggered a major anaphylactic reaction. He then got rushed to hospital with (apparently) minutes to spare and spent the rest of the week in bed doped up on antihistamines.

My Mum stayed with him for the entire time. Me and my brothers were too young to realise the seriousness of this and were left in the care of a friendly family from Dorset.

Ended up having a brilliant week on and around the beach without parental supervision. Didn't find out what happened until years later. Still feel guilty as hell cos my Mum was frantic and we were just selfish little shits for the whole holiday.
(Milo Minderbinder, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 17:53, Reply)

When we were young...
...and my parents had divorced, we were super poor, no car, and couldn't afford to go on holiday.

BUT, we did live in Torquay, which is a touristy kind of place.

So we used to go on holiday by staying in a campsite. A campsite right next door to our house.

Kids don't care where they are, it was fun, but we were under STRICT instructions from my embarrased mum not to tell anyone where we were from.

Though I was never sure how she explained away the cat following us on holiday.
(inflateable, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 17:38, Reply)

Weymouth early 80's
I don't think my Dad enjoyed our trip to Portland Bill. A 5 or 6 year old little me aimed a stone for a mighty throw into the sea but it slipped out of my hand on the back lift and hit him on the forehead, cutting it open.

I'll never forget the look of rage and bewilderment as he touched his head to find blood pouring down his face and him shouting, "Argh bloody hell, you little shit you cut my head open, come here!" and me running off in tears to the comforting shelter of my mothers embrace, "Leave him alone it was an accident". Thanks mum, I couldn't have done it if I'd tried.
( abefroman skating on the thin life of modern life on, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 17:32, Reply)

Icky memories
We always went to the same place, every year. Two weeks, usually glorious sunshine, with most of the time spent on the beach or in the hotel pool. After a long day doing bugger all, we'd go back to the room and me and my sister would have a bath before dinner (Yes, together, I was about 6, she was 4).

Found out years later that my lovely new sister was conceived in the room. While we were next door in the bath.

*shudders*
(Mrs Trellis GIN, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 17:17, Reply)

daddy swipe
this time. my dad looks like lou from neighbours and has a yorkshire accent you could cut with a butterknife. although he is now fluent in spanish they can't understand him because of the accent. before he learned spanish, he subscribed to the "just speak english a little louder" theory. in fact, he invented the theory. now, he just speaks spanish to everyone, regardless of provenance. this is always amusing in indian restaurants.

so we're in cephalonia and i am a rather sarky 17 year old. we wander into the middle of nowhere looking for somewhere to have breakfast and there's a greek guy, complete with bristling zappata moustache, alone in his rural restaurant.

"we are 4," my dad shouts unnecessarily loudly, pointing at us. the guy looks up and stares at him. "FOUR!" dad bellows again, gesturing at the table. the guy continues to stare.

"we. are. FOOOOOUUUUURRR," dad howls, purple in the face. "table. for. four. four." eventually the lean greek guy grins, his white teeth gleaming in that massive moustache.

"i can see that perfectly well, mate," he drawls in a cockney accent...

fast forward a few years, and my parents have bought a house on a beautiful clifftop in southern spain. it's about 20 mins on foot from the nearest town, so we were wandering along the coast road for dinner when we saw a sign that said "RESTAURANT" with an arrow pointing up a dirt track. a bit further up was a sign saying "los olivas" and a quaint little restaurant with a beautiful garden with a few people sitting at wrought iron tables.

"i'll check it out," dad said, and blundered on through the gate. he sat down at a table and was promptly ignored. after a few minutes he got up again and approached a huge spanish gentleman. "la carta?" he demanded belligerently. then we saw him get redder and redder.

he'd only walked into a private garden. the restaurant was up the hill...

and finally, when my parents were putting the house together, they rang me for a chat one night. dad said, "your mother's in a mood with me because i ran over a garden gnome at the garden centre."

garden gnome? when i spoke to my mother, she said he'd reversed into a ten foot ornamental stone fountain, knocked it flying into another display, and promptly driven off...

given that as an example, is it any wonder i have such shonky experiences with men?!!!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 17:11, Reply)

One year my dad and I decided to go to france
Just the two of us as my sister and mum lived elsewhere.
We drove from belfast to dublin, got the ferry over to liverpool, drove down to dover and got the ferry to calais. This all took a couple of days.
We disembarked in calais and went to get some dinner and argued about something, I can't remember what but it was the thousandth argument we'd had on the trip.

so we drove straight back home

length, four days there and back
( VampireMonkeyOnSpeed a super sexy sexual sex terrorist sex, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 16:58, Reply)

Second childhood...
We were reasonably broke as kids, holidays were always in a car to a wet camp site somewhere.

Packing enough stuff for a family of four into a Datsun Sunny was no mean feat. De rigour was sitting on pillows and sleeping bags, a tent as a foot rest. Cans of beans strategically tucked into walking boots. Holes drilled in tooth brushes to lighten the load. Carrimats flapping in the breeze like flags on derby day.

Squished. Hot (pre a/c) and fractious.
On one memorable holiday, after enduring four days of solid rain in a (small) tent in Inverness, we mutinied. Drove to sunny Exeter in a day, 12hrs solid.

Car ordeals in our family, in short, have a bit of previous.

How nice then, as the 'rents reach their dotage, to be able to recreate those nostalgic halcyon days of yore, courtesy of Ryan air and Italian air traffic control.

We'd just bought an old pile in rural Italy, and had inherited some bookings from the previous owner. The place needed a lot of love, and, specifically, duvets, sheets, pillows, guests arriving the following week (fuck) with nothing to sleep on.

My wife was out there already, a couple of days previously I'd got a text message from her which just said "Car in ditch, stuffed". Rather ominous. She was out there early with her ma (who gets vertigo if she looks up too quickly), and her dad (who's a mason).

Our parents had not met up to this point, neither set at were at our wedding, (hey we recognise car crashes when we see them) my dad being to the left of ghandi and hers to the right of ghengis, sparks were bound to fly.
[Whilst we were protesting outside sellafield, he was helping build it]

Her mum in this instance had to crawl up a 1 in 3 hill on her hands and knees (she's 74) to get home, they got a tractor to pull the car out of the ditch, not before the tow rope had sprung loose and broken a helpful 4x4 driver's window. All boding well for a splendid convivial vacation.

I'd raided IKEA, packed with military precision (14.9kg per bag etc) and was heading down there with my parents and my son..flight was Stansted-Ancona. Well early start from home(4am), checked in, got to the gate....flight cancelled.

Massive bunfight as everone rushes to rebook cos the next flight..is the next day. Alternatives? A flight to Rome in 7 hrs time...and an novel five hour drive the other end...I got the last car for rent in Rome, we had to get there.

We all ran the gamut of emotional responses that journey, high points included having to be escorted out of a village by a local after spending half an hour in their hilarious one way system, then taking the 'short cut' which was hair pinned to fuck for two hours - ok in the day, a nightmare at night (we landed in Rome at 8pm).

Finally got to the house at 1am, 21hrs after we'd set off, stressed to fuck, with my dad vowing never to get in car with me again (following the forgetting to put the handbrake on and car rolling with my nipper in it incident and another couple of minor 'lapses of judgement').

My parents met my wife's parents over breakfast for ten mins before they had to leave, they were catching the flight home.
My dad then proceeded to have cardiac arrythmia leading to a mild stroke whilst building a bbq, and my mum burst into tears when she woke up the next morning, jealous of what we had bought.

Other than that.. it was a breeze.

Length? Have you ever spent seven hours at Stansted?
(Countryslicker, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 16:44, Reply)

Caravans have the thinnest partition walls.
There's nothing quite like the sound of your mother pissing into a bucket directly behind your head to give you deep psychological trauma.
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 16:40, Reply)

help?
does anyone know mike fishcake as i think the poor fellow has a mental incident about to erupt if it hasn't already. It would be worth checking on him.

It must have been hell keeping that lot under wraps.
( bazza van der trance , ooh baby baby, baby baby. Get up on this., Mon 6 Aug 2007, 16:24, Reply)

Reggie Perrin, Anyone?
There's an episode of the comedy "The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin" where Reggie and family are sitting in a car in the rain at the seaside, getting on each other's nerves.

It was filmed in Charmouth.

I know, because the exact same fate befell our family holiday to Charmouth in 1977, one year after the drought. This was the year it all came back down again.

This was the year my sister and I spent a whole fortnight in the back seat of a Ford Cortina mk IV, watching the rain and trying to stop Lassie the Whippet from sneaking a crafty lick of our ice-creams when we weren't looking.

Occasionally we went to Lyme Regis, for a change of view.

If we weren't in the back of the Ford, we were in the caravan, staring out at the rain. This bit resembled an episode of "Father Ted", only without the catholicism.

Which was a pity, as it would have livened up things no end.
( Stevedix http://www.stevedix.de/blog, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 15:44, Reply)

How could I forget?!?!?
Holy fucking shit I've only just remembered this real life diary entry (this was pre-blog :-P) nearly 10 years ago. It wasn't actually a family holiday, but it was at a place where family holidays take place, so with that tenuous point in mind, take it away with a lengthy-as-fuck post. Yes, it's long, so if you have the attention span of a gnat, just scroll down, read the next post and don't complain. Rargh.

Originally posted here: www.teamfishcake.co.uk/article.php?id=86

=======================================

The story goes a little something like this:

Mid February 1998 a friend told me of his expedition to a certain holiday camp in Wales for a week. The way he described it, it made it sound relatively ok, so I decided I would give it a try. However, upon arriving at this holiday camp in the middle of May, things were not what I had been led to believe.

For those non-British people, holiday camps are a strange British tradition. One of Britain's many strange traditions. You'll get the idea of what they're like after reading this.

The name of the holiday camp has been changed…

Read on…

Arriving at "Fort Happy Camp" was highlighted by the typically dysfunctional family-style groups, behaving like dinosaurs, stomping their fat, ugly way through what appears to be a fucked up council estate with a bit of metaphorical sugar sprinkled on top.

These families must think to themselves: "Right, we've not had a good family row for ages, so we'll go to 'Happy Camp' and piss people off by blasting our insignificant ramblings into the eardrums of passers by". Not that the passers by give a shit, because they're too busy acting like twats anyway.

There are many different types of people that go on holiday to 'Happy Camp'. You get the "Anti-family" types like I just mentioned, you get groups of "Ladz!" going on holiday, seemingly for the reasons to insult and offend people, drool over underage girls, get their brains shafted by mass amounts of piss-diluted beer and think they're good because of it! However, there are also the groups of "Girrrlz!" that act in a similar way.

God, I am so fucking bitter…

You can always tell which people don't want to be there. Obviously there was me, sat in the bar, writing this lump of hatred, but generally, it's the teenagers that are in the "Anti-family" who reeeeeally look embarrassed to be in the kiddies organised "Entertainment" section playing "Pin the tail on the fuckwit greencoat" or something equally as dire.

It seems like you're being forced to have fun all the time. It's like "Look! There's someone who isn't laughing stupidly! Let's go and be dead funny, like, just 'cause we're CRAZY guys!!!!!!!"

You always get the mandatory twat of a greencoat who has seemingly been released into the real world after living on a diet exclusively of caffeine and slapstick movies. They think they're funny - they think they're really funny, yet it's pretty much evident that they were constantly bullied at school, dragged up by crappy excuses for parents, and fucked by strange men in dirty raincoats. It's the only possible explanation for a potentially dignified person turning into a hyperactive - probably drug-addled - arsebiscuit.

Holiday "camps" go out of their way to try and un-evolve the human race. The selection of events they put on is an utter pile of dog shit. I noticed one of their notice boards proclaim that they "cater for every conceivable music taste".

Bullshit.

If it's not 60s/70s music, kiddie disco crap or old people's ballroom shit then they don't want to know! Rock? Techno? Blues? Metal? Classical? Drum and bass? Bavarian oompah music? No! "Every conceivable music taste" ? What a load of dog's cock.

'Happy Camp' is basically fascism with a big smiley face.

It seems that 'Happy Camp' is promoting stupidity! People may say "It's having a LAFF innit!?!" I hated it! People come and listed to cabaret by sweaty untalented songbotherers, dance to shit songs and wear crappy 'comedy' t-shirts.

It's so misleading calling 'Happy Camp' a family place.

IT'S A FUCKING KIDDIES AND OLD PEOPLES PLACE!!!!!!

Either people are supposed to convert to old people - wearing beige and grey cardigans and listening to fucking crap singers belting country songs out of a knackered old synthesiser and a knackered old voicebox, or piss around like spoilt little bastards.

The choice of things to do there was amazing.

AMAZINGLY SHITE!

It was crusty. The crustiest piece of bum crust from a crust-monsters crust-mobile during national crusty week doesn't even compare! It is wank!

'Happy Camp' is a shite excuse for a holiday. Entertainment in a can. Fun for lazy bastards. I don't want to go ludicrously over the top with fun! I would just like, once or twice, to be able to park my arse down of an evening, and have a relatively quiet bottle of Newcastle Brown in a pub. Oh no.

Oh fucking no.

'Happy Camp' have decided for me that I don't want a quiet time. So, I have the choice of a second rate combo of full-time accountants fumbling shitty musical instruments in a vague fashion to certain over-popular 60s/70s tunes, or a "disco" with "Happy Happy" songs raping my ears.

It's a place for unimaginative lunatics. Ok, if you've got kids, it would keep them amused, but so would a few cardboard cartons and a box of matches. They'd love that. I personally think that the American concept of "summer camp" is a great idea. Basically, kids go away somewhere and do activities for a couple of weeks. So, you pack the kids away somewhere, who cares where, and then pretend they don't exist for a few weeks! You get the satisfaction that they're hopefully enjoying themselves. If they don't, then just bullshit them with the idea that it's "character building" or a "learning experience". Lovely.

Actually, I suppose it was a learning experience for me. Learning that I'm never going to go there again! When I eventually have kiddies of my own, I'll shove them in a parcel once a year, and mail them to someone else to look after them for a week or so. It would be kinder than taking them to 'Happy Camp' anyway!

Unfortunately, the weather was nice when I went to 'Happy Camp', so of course you get the inevitable consequences of nice weather. The ugly people come out. By God's bollocks they're ugly. Fat blokes with beer bellies the size of a large child, and bigger breasts than most women, wearing a nice pink sunburn that I'd love to go and give a big slap to, just because of their obnoxiousness.

And, of course, the women. You know that a place is tacky when you see more than one woman - and I bet that you've seen a few of them too - with tightly permed, greasy bleached hair wearing a leopardskin style top, with a cigarette hanging out of her messily lipsticked gob.

What is it with these maniacal old witches?

Are they fucking breeding or something? All I can figure out is that somewhere, some sick, twisted and fucked up human being is misleading these clueless bints into believing that the aforementioned combination of UNfashion looks good! You'd have thought that they would have got the idea by now! And, just for the record, they always wear stupidly-heeled shoes, carry a silly plasticky handbag and have a raspy, croaky fart of a voice that sounds like they have terminal catarrh.

Then there's the spoilt little git of a child. "I want a drink! I want a burger! I want to go to the beach! I want to play Ridge Racer! I want a FUCKING LOBOTOMY." Screaming their way through the prison-esque eyesore of a complex acting like a little Mussolini, letting everyone, and I mean everyone know that he is unhappy. Little bastard.

I tell you: judging by the attitude and personality of the fucknut staff you get working at 'Happy Camp', You'd have better luck holding a decent conversation with one of the vending machines! The bar staff just grunt at you as they demand the entire contents of your bank account for a scraggly pint of watered down demi-beer, The greenjackets will try and make you do something "Fun!", The receptionists make you feel suicidally guilty if… no, not if, because there's something wrong with your stuffy apartment, The security guards eye you up suspiciously for just being and you just know that the canteen staff are pissing in the gravy. Bastards.

This is basically a warning to people - 'Happy Camp' is not a place for normal adults!

Stay away if you want to remain sane! Stay away if you don't want your friends and family to disown you for being a clueless wanker!

Luckily for me, because I was sharing my apartment with 5 others, I didn't spend too much money on my sentence at 'Happy Camp'. Only £47 of my hard-earned cash was pissed away. Oh, there was the small matter of wasting 5 days work holiday on this crap though.

God, I feel sick every time I mention that word. "'Happy Camp'". YUK! It was like, when I told people I was going away, and they asked me where, I'd tell them, and, judging by the look on their face, it was the equivalent of telling someone that I had small, insignificant impotent genitals.

Have you ever seen the film "Groundhog Day"? Basically, Every time the lead character wakes up in the morning, he re-lives the same day - Groundhog day - until he changes his attitude. Well, 'Happy Camp' is exactly like that. The same every day. Example:

Morning:

Wake up late, burn your fingers on the crappy cooker trying to grill cheese on toasted cheap and crappy bread bought from a dirty overpriced on-site not-very-super-market.

Afternoon:

Go down to the arcade, waste your money on fruit machines and insult your arteries by slamming your fat slab of a face full of greasy undercooked cheeseburgers and soggy fries.

Evening:

Either blow your money on crap arcade games again, overspend at the bar, join the old farts in the 'pub' whilst in the background, there's some crappy arsehole called "Mr Eric " who is allegedly here to "Entertain with music and comedy", or, the cream of the crap, Spend a night in the fucking disco with fucking little sprogs on the fucking dancefloor dancing to fucking trashy pop tunes whilst a smarmy fucking bastard of a greencoat badly DJs. Crap. Or, you could do none of the above, and AVOID COMING TO 'Happy Camp'!!!

The lowest of the low-lights for me whilst I was at 'Happy Camp' must have been, and this really happened, dropping my sunglasses into a turd-filled toilet. Yep, after squeezing out a junk-food fuelled arse sausage (junk food ones are the worst type, they're really hard and feel like they're coming out sideways) I wiped my arse (which, if you're one of the archetypical people that come to 'Happy Camp' is a strange thing to do) and then, just a split second after I flushed...

My bastard sunglasses fell into the rapidly disappearing crap cocktail.

My gut reaction was "Shit! I don't want to waste a 60 quid pair of sunglasses" and, as my reactions got the better of me... I quickly... rolled my sleeve up... and... without having chance to prepare myself for the scatological encounter I was about to experience............................. I plunged... my hand... deep... into the toilet bowl... which was still full... of what had previously been... the contents of my rectum. I'm still emotionally scarred now, after having my own faeces stuck to my skin, and even after spending 20 minutes washing my hands and glasses, frantically scrubbing them, it still makes my skin crawl at the thought of it to this very day.

I noticed a shedload of people wearing designer labels around the "place of the damned" which got me puzzled. People generally wear designer clothes to make themselves look good, and stylish.

THESE PEOPLE MUST HAVE FORGOTTEN WHERE THEY WERE.

They were in 'Happy Camp'! That alone made them look like twats!

All day, every day at 'Happy Camp' is as mentally stimulating as hanging around at night outside chippies with the local satankids. I generally felt embarrassed to be there!

So I decided to leave early. Fuck 'em. So I gave them my money, supplied them with cash so that they can do more of their evil work. So what. I didn't care by that point. Goodbye 'Happy Camp'. Goodbye Forever, you weak-arsed fuck of a holiday complex.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we must rise against this evil tide of so-called "holiday camps". Boycott them if you want to stay sane! Leave them alone! Take them to a deep, deep hole in the ground and bury the fuckers, greencoats, holidaymakers and all. We must do it. For the sake of our nation's dignity!

Let them soak in their own detritus!

Let them burn in the vast pits of hell!

Let them rot in their own pitiful excuses for bodies!

The holiday camps should be destroyed and pulped to a mashy, gooey substance and dumped in our enemies territories. Then, and only then will we be safe from the tyranny of this sort of behaviour. There is no excuse for it.

THIS HAS BEEN A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT ON BEHALF OF THE 'Happy Camp' TOURIST BOARD. HAVE A NICE DAY.
( Mike Fishcake teamfishcake.co.uk - better than your mum's face, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 15:17, Reply)

Marksta - I was at Butlins Pwlhelli at the same time :D
(see page 6)

I was at Butlins Pwlhelli 3 weeks before that storm flattened it as well :D

It wasn't actually that bad, apart from a shitty little girl that kept nicking my coins that I'd won from a 2p coin-slidey machine thing.

Bastard.
( Mike Fishcake teamfishcake.co.uk - better than your mum's face, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 15:01, Reply)

When I were a lad...
We quite well off as a family, but never had enough money to go anywhere further than Wales on holidays as a family.

This changed when I was about ten years old, and my parents saved enough money take me, my sister and my brother to Malta.

Malta is kinda like the anti-Wales. There were massive lizards everywhere, the locals were nice and it was so hot that it was impossible to walk anywhere, so you had to drive to the beaches.

This is no mean feat, as driving on Maltese roads is kinda like being on a rollercoaster, only with carriages screaming towards you honking their horns like madmen.

This was brilliant at the time, and really exciting for a ten year old.

It turned my dad's hair grey overnight, though.

(Long time listener, first time poster, etc.)
(Bigglet forgot the precise time and date on..., Mon 6 Aug 2007, 14:55, Reply)

boys
really are disgusting. my brother, who is now a respectably bald accountant, went to france on a school trip when he was 11.

in just his room of 4, one of them didn't wash his hair or shower all week. one of them shat himself. one of them didn't clean his teeth although he went to the extent of faking the noise in the bathroom to fool the teacher. why? they all bought condoms. again, why?

and my brother?

my mother, who had lovingly packed for him before he went, was utterly mortified at the post trip school slide show. as a picture of my brother gurning like a fool on top of the eiffel tower on the last day came up, the woman behind her hissed: "i wonder who that horrid little boy is? he's been in the same clothes all week..."

why are boys so dirty??
( rachelswipe with a fork, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 14:40, Reply)

GhostGhirl13
As a young teen I was taken round various National Trust properties by my parents who had splashed out on membership and were determined to make the most of it.

Although at that age I had no concept of "Goth" I would stand in the windows of whichever castle or stately home I'd been dragged to, let loose my long tresses and look longing out into the grounds beyond. I hoped that someone would look up from below and think that they'd seen the ghost of a lady lost in tragic (yet somehow romantic) circumstances.

I now realise that if anyone had been fanciful enough to have thought I was a ghost, it'd be that of a lank-haired scullery maid who'd fallen into the dishwater due to her own clumsiness.

Click to welcome me "Back2B3ta"
( e.m.m.y. foxtrot uniform charlie kilo india tango, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 14:40, Reply)

holidays are coming
i was always really jealous of my mates whom stayed at home when their 'rents went away.

then there was the mates that were MADE to go away. 50 weeks of the year, they had to stare at a f*ck off mahoosive trailer tent or caravan on the driveway. Third week of july it becomes everyones problem when they take to the road. Usually in France though, so not all bad.

It felt real bad when ones mates are brutally taken from our company and uncontactable for 2 weeks. Those days did many things. some people found new friends, some found old friends again. It forced you to do something social and probably with some different people to the norm.
It doesn't happen anymore with mobile phones.
Theres a sad thing.
( bazza van der trance , ooh baby baby, baby baby. Get up on this., Mon 6 Aug 2007, 14:35, Reply)

if you like camping holidays
then you'll love being destitute. It's like a camping holiday that never ends!
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 13:57, Reply)

Holidays
for me always bring up a bizzare memory. My dad, being OCD, was always obsessed that the taxi driver taking us to the airport was in league with a team of crack cat burglars whom would be alerted of our extended house leave and rinse us of all our worldly goods (!).

To this end, he would always have my brother, mum and me put on an elaborate show of "saying goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa" as the taxi drove away. This involved screaming goodbye and waving to our non-existant (dead, actually) grandparents which, for a child of five, is somewhat disturbing.

What I still fail to understand, other than what the taxi driver must have been thinking as a family waved manically to invisible people, is why he chose to leave the feeblest, least able to protect the house people possible as our imaginary guardians?

Best part is that, one time, we got burgled anyway and they stole the TV... old people are useless :)
(GomiNoSensei has decided to stop lurking as of, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 13:12, Reply)

fat camp
When I was nine, I was hugely obese. My parents took the opportunity to send me to one of those fat camps in America where rotund pre-teens can burn off their kilos of tub with healthy outdoor pursuits and vegetables.

I thought I was fat, but when I met my room-mates, I became the Nicole Ritchie of the camp. Jed was so fat that you couldn't see his eyes and, from a distance, he looked like an out-building. If he laughed, his body continued to ripple for some minutes afterwards. I believed he affected the tides. Chip was fatter still. His ankles spilled from his shoes like a haemorrhage of pliant lard and his face was little more than a stub of nose emerging from waves of jiggling flab. If you put your hands near his mouth when he was eating, you might lose one. His parents dropped him off from a flat-bed truck

Day one: assualt course. A former marine screamed himself purple at us as we tried to negotiate the course. Jed rolled for much of the distance, picking up twice his body wieght in sludge, while Chip had to be winched from a concrete tube after a fire team had rubbed his flanks with butter. I fell from the three-metre wall and landed on a ginger-haired girl from Minnesota. She seemed to have no skeleton and I was unharmed. At lunchtime, Chip went into a faked anaphylactic shock when he was allowed only one cookie. A hit team with rubber truncheons had to placate him.

Day two: Psycological counselling. We had a group focus session in which we were required to bare our feelings about being fat. Jed told a story about sitting on a succession of family pets and squashing them dead. He had once eaten an entire "All-You-Can-Eat" buffet at Hungry Hippos and been banned from the restaurant for life. Chip admitted that he had eaten so many pizzas on one occasion that share prices for tomato puree had risen five percent. His parents had rigged up a feeder for him from parts of an industrial grain silo. My tales of eating one too many Hobnobs paled in comparison.

Day three: confidence dance. A ball was held for the male and female fat-campers to increase confidence and repair years of damage to self-esteem. Jed smuggled in a hipflask of brandy and ended up making out with a girl from Alabama - only on closer inspection it turned out to be a storage tank containing 1000 litres of fresh water. He left shortly after that (his parents collected him with a trailer). Chip turned out to be a hell of a dancer. He jumped around the floor like a rotund Micheal Jackson on speed - until someone realized he was having a fit and sedated him.

Day four: It was lonely without Jed. Only, we saw him on the news that very evening. His parents had stopped at a diner on the way home, where Jed had eaten too many nacho chips and gone batshit on additives. He had to be shot with a tranquiliser gun. Me and Chip laughed so hard that Chip fell off the bed and went partially through the floorboards ino the room below. In panic, he soiled himself and introduced a timid boy in a bunk below to the experience of scat. This made me laugh even harder - so hard that my appendix ruptured and I had to be taken to hospital.

I came home after that. Eventually, I lost all my weight after seeing a poster of Peter Andre and vomiting non-stop for a week. Happy days.
(frankspencer, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 12:14, Reply)

Yarmouth
Went to Yarmouth with a lot of my extended family. We stayed in Caravans. A few things I remember about the holiday.

One: One night, all the ladies (aunts, nan, mum etc) went to the local entertainment centre, had a few bevvies and tried to make their way back. Cue lots of laughing as my nan managed to fall down a ditch and piss herself laughing..

Two: I encountered (for the first time) one of those tell your fortune machines. You know the ones. You put in your ten pence, the puppet inside the machine moves it's hands over a crystal ball, then you get a little printed slip with a random prediction on it.

Thing is, I didn't know how it worked, and I managed to convince myself that the creepy looking woman (I didn't know it was a puppet) inside the machine was going to break out of her cabinet and get me.
(Ok, I'll get me coat, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 12:05, Reply)

Lucky escape
20 years ago, my dad decided to take us for a trip to France in March. Other than the fact that I got really car and seasick on the way there, the whole two weeks were fairly unremarkable, if a little damp.

Due to a promotion in a scummy, unpopular in Liverpool tabloid, we were getting the ferry back from Belgium, rather than France. This meant we had a much longer drive back.

As mentioned in the first paragraph, I used to get carsick (not helped by my mum chainsmoking). Despite leaving with plenty of time to spare, the frequent stops to allow my to throw up on some very scenic grass verges, we rolled into Zeebrugge just in time to see the ferry leave. Cue my dad screaming at me about how it was all my fault and how it'd cost a fortune to get back now.

His rant was curtailed by me pointing at the ferry we had just missed as it first rolled heavily one way, then the other, before taking a sudden turn and sinking.

We had missed being on the Herald Of Free Enterprise when it sank by about five minutes
(ScousersPet, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 11:51, Reply)

Some animals are too tasty to live.
As I mentioned before, my family holidays always revolved around eating the local wildlife, mainly seafood. Lobsters, scallops, razorfish and a variety of fish. Everyday we’d be out in the boat hunting something down. As well as the sea food staple we’d get rabbits and wildfowl.

I was about 8 on the day in question, me, my uncle and my dad in a small boat checking the lobsterpots, when we spotted some geese sitting on the sea. Out comes the shotgun BLAM. The next 10 minutes were a bit of any eye-opener for my still forming mind. Most of the shot was caught in their folded wings so although they couldn’t fly they where very much alive. Flapping and honking, each goose was hauled aboard, my uncle held the head, and then with a violent whiplash motion broke the neck. During one of these maneuvers the head came clean off…my eyes flicked between the headless goose, wings flapping, pumping great gouts of blood in the air, and the glassy eyed head still in my uncles hand, beak mechanically opening and shutting in some sort of silent scream. It was not a fluffy moment.

We arrived back at shore with our collection of dead animals, me sprayed with blood excitedly recounting the headless zombie goose story to my mum…who it’d be fair to say, went fucking ballistic.

Divorced now yes they are.

.
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Mon 6 Aug 2007, 11:49, Reply)

School potholing trip!
Hooray for young teenage lads forcing their way into damp, dark holes.

The venue of choice was the Mendip Hills. Not too bad except for a then friend of mine who decided that it would be a good idea to get hammered on cheap cider on the way down. The vomiting started slowly with him desperately trying to keep it in, occasionally dribbling in down his cuff. The guy next to him said "if you're going to do it, just get it done," leaned over and opened the minibus window.

He yakked all down the side of the minibus at 50 mph, nicely pebbledashing the side windows for the rest of us.

While the teachers pretended not to notice, the next poor bastard who forgot his PE kit ended up having to wash the fucker.
( Kroney, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 9:52, Reply)

Executive Decision
Met a mate of mine in the pub last night, and he told me the following family horror story:

My mate, who I shall call Colin, was aroun 17 or 18, and off on a camping holiday with the family into France. Along the long and torturous route, he discovered his Dad's stash of beer and cider, and proceeded to indulge while father dear drove ever onwards. by the time they arrived at the campsite, and put the tent up, Colin was feeling a little worse for wear, so he headed off to the campsite toilets to releive his burden.

It's one of those 'hole-in-the-ground' types, so down come the trousers and pants, assume the squatting position and...... vomit copiously into the ready pepared trouser / pant bucket in front of him.

His spare clothes are all in the tent, where his family are, so he has a choice of

A) Remove the offending items and leg it back accross the campsite hoping no-one notices his nudity.

B) Drain as much vom as possible, and then pull them back up, getting sick all over his delicate parts and facing a deeply uncomfortable waddle back to the family unit covered in stinking beer / cider vom.

Click to find out which path he opted for.
( Sonic James Doom forgetting the date since... umm..., Mon 6 Aug 2007, 9:16, Reply)

How shocking...
Back in the mid 80s, we had a trailer - pop-up camper. And for several years we would take the various vacations with it. One such year, mom and dad thought it would be great to go to Southern New Jersey and go to the 6 Flags Amusement Park called (and still is called) Great Adventure. The park itself was great, lots of rides for a 14 year old, (so this was 1985). Chili-dogs galore and general mischief.
Part of the camper set up we had was a screened in tent that we would have a table set up in, with the portable propane gas stove all all. Dad in his usually fantastic wisdom, has a light attached to the top of the center support pole, and as such tapes the wire to the metal pole and its plugged in to the electrical switchbox provided. Apparently there was something wrong with the wire though. My mom for some reason, grabbed the center pole and all of a sudden started to shake and gyrate. Not sure whats going on, I ask dad, who was cooking something on the grill, what was happening, said, looks like mom is getting elecocuted. He yelled "Kerry, let go of the pole", this works in theory, but when the person in question cant let go, you only have one choice, disconnect the wire. We did, and mom was none to pleased about it, and made my dad get rid of the whole light set up and buy a brand new one from Sears so it didnt happen again. Happy Times.
(Subway Riding the rails underground, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 2:21, Reply)

few and far-between
I spent most of my teenage years in a family that suddenly expanded from 4 to 8: my dad remarried a lady with 4 kids of her own. We weren't rich, either - in fact, we were poverty-line, in South Africa, so we went on one (1) actual holiday in a 5-year stretch.

It was to Durban, and my only memory of it is a good one. I was having one of those teenage growth spurts, so a trip to a pizza restaurant turned in to a scene from Little Shop Of Horrors: I ate all my own pizza, and most of everyone else's. Nyom. 8)
( bnt what, me worry?, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 2:08, Reply)

Majorca
Went to a SOL hotel in Majorca when I was around 9 with my parents and sister. Was lots of fun, the usual games, bingo by the pool, kids club with medals and certificates.

There was this german kid staying at the hotel who was... really weird. He would splash us constantly, dive bomb us, and be a real pain in the ass. We weren't too nice to him back either, you know, kids can be nasty and all that. In fact my friends and I *may* have ganged up on him and bullied him slightly.

Anyway, 5 days later we found out his dad was dying of cancer, it was his last holiday. The hotel management spoke to my parents and we ended up looking after this kid for some reason, he stayed in our room overnight while his dad died upstairs.

Very sad really.

But on a happier note once me and my sister threw money from our hotel balcony at the spanish people below. It was probably quite dangerous now I think about it.
(borovan, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 0:55, Reply)

Puke monster
I grew up in a simple, poor family in the east-end of London. We didn't have much and when holiday time came around, it meant heading off with the tent to find some wet corner of the uk to stay in for a couple of weeks.
Being a few years younger than my brothers, my family had a short time of bliss before I joined them on the annual adventure. When I did, it became clear that holiday time could become a thing to fear (and I mean apart from being trapped in the car with my parents and Johnny Cash for a four-eight hour stretch.
Anyway, from the moment of birth (until the age of about 20) I would be violently sick on almost any car journey. Even the simplest of car rides would set me off. Once, they were only backing the car out (so hadn't technically started travelling yet) and I barfed all over my mum.
To me it became a normal part of the routine. Getting in the car? Take a few plastic bags (and remember to check them for holes). It used to be so bad that even the smell of a car would make me want to vomit. I still have to fight the complusion to this day.
So our holidays would usually involve dad trying to drive us somewhere and having to stop every ten minutes so I could either get rid of a bag of puke, puke on the side of the road or (if it was really bad) lie down until the feeling went.
The saddest thing is that when we finally reached the campsite, we would then spend the next two weeks driving round countrylanes in the rain, whilst I puked away in the back.

Anyway, I probably sound like a right girlie twat. What I didn't know back then is that I have something odd about my brain (apart from being bonkers).
I can't really be arsed to explain but it's something to do with serotonin levels and funny eye & ear things. Whats nice about it is that I can sometimes get travel sick by walking.
Lovely.

*barf*
(EvilMeister, Mon 6 Aug 2007, 0:48, Reply)

And while i'm on the subject
Me and my uncle once stole 94 lemons from a nearbye field, conveniently with sod-all in the way of a fence, while on holiday in spain.

the Picture is Here
(Lordfudgington is hiding the expense report filed on, Sun 5 Aug 2007, 23:35, Reply)

Family outing to spain
This was sometime late last year.

I was staying in a villa with my parents and a friend who had come on holiday with us. Now, this was during the stage of my life where i was drinking more than i could handle on a regular basis, so i was farely used to feeling ill at somepoint in the night, but generally i could look after myself, if i was ill i was ill, but i would clean up and have some water and i'd be fine by the morning (as i'd done some nights previous). Me and my mate took it in turns drinking and looking after each other, was all a good laugh.

Then.

on the 4th night of the holiday ( i think it was) we were hitting the cider hard, and about to turn to the vodka redbull to keep us up a bit. Now, i'm the type who doesn't like to wait for my next drink, so i did the smart thing and made vodka cider redbull. ugh. the second pint was just as bad, and i kept topping it up for a while untill i gave up and stumbled to the toilet, feeling the need to empty my bowels. Around half an hour later, my mate discovered me sat naked and comatose on the toilet, sick dripping down my stomach and (as i'm told) matted into my pubic hair. how embarrasing you may think, but oh no, i'm not done there. rather than pick steak out of the region of your friend you hope never to see before his stag do, said mate goes and knocks on my mums door. "Jane, you best come have a look at your son". Cue my mother, proud at my recent GCSE results (i was 16) cleaning sick ...from me, while i rather abusively insisted that "i have not been sick" and made a carry on while they tried to leave me presentable.

to top it off, they put me to bed, and upon asking if i was going to be sick again, i gave the negetive. 5 minutes later i had re-decorated the walls.

Best of all, i earned the nickname "Carrot Knackers" from my dad, and was reffered to as such at all times. i think even the neighbours knew. and also, when i sneezed the next morning, chunks of semi digested chips came out. nearly forgot that.

Sorry about the length, but if no one complained then neither should you.
(Lordfudgington is hiding the expense report filed on, Sun 5 Aug 2007, 22:55, Reply)