What Butlins Taught Me

How was my weekend, you ask?  

I'll show you:

....yup.

Went to Butlins on a hen do.  I adore the place. If you're not from Britain and haven't heard of it, it's a venue/holiday village thing where:

a.  Parents with kids (what other kind of parents are there, Becky? Wake up, dear!) who aren't posh enough to jump on a plane visit on a yearly basis visit so that they can get pissed at the always-open bars while their children run wild and are loosely controlled by staff in red coats (...called Redcoats), who are hysterically trying to grin and perform their way through severe hang overs.  In retrospect, I feel very sorry for whoever had to wear the Bob the Builder costume all day.  It must have reeked of discount vodka breath and kebab farts.

b.  Grown ups visit for themed no-children-allowed weekends (because kids would leave with full blown PTSD if they were allowed to witness one) to dress up in fancy dress and drink until they genuinely believe they are in the decade that weekend is dedicated to.  This weekend, I was a school girl in the 90's.  I am channeling my inner "Perry off of Kevin & Perry Go Large" in the above image.  I don't have time to explain Kevin & Perry today.  Maybe in another post.  Or you could Google it.  It's sort of like a more embarrassing, British Wayne's World but with gratuitous zit popping and a poo in the sea.  High brow filmage at its finest.

I'm so pleased I was invited to this hen's weekend long, liver pickling event, because every time I go to Butlins in Minehead, I feel like I'm visiting the mother ship.  My family would occasionally go while we were growing up, and I LOVED it there.  Middle sis and I would have free run of the funfair, arcades and kids' shows while our family and family friends would get merrily tanked up and wave us on our way.  I'm pretty sure little sis learned to crawl in one of the chalets.  And if I ever convince her to come on an adult weekend now that she's eighteen, I'm certain she'll continue the tradition of scooting around on her hands and knees to get places, albeit for a different reason.  You can't turn around without being offered a shot of something strong,sugary and unnaturally coloured.

Butlins in all its wonky, sometimes scruffy, boozy, silly Britishness helped shape me as a person (for better or worse...), so I'm going to share with you a few life lessons I've taken from my visits there both as a child and an adult:

1.  The best time to ask your parents for something they'd otherwise say no to is when they're a bit tipsy.  

"Can I go on that ride?"

"Yeah, go ahead!"

"Can I have some money for the arcade?"

"Crack on, love!"

"Can you sign this bit of paper so I can get my nose pierced?"

"Sure I can!"

2.  Once you've been to Butlins, any holiday that doesn't have something at least a little bit crappy about it doesn't feel like a proper holiday.  I'm sure the food has improved since I was treated to full board visits in my youth (because we were fancy like that), but I would cheerfully guzzle down scrambled eggs that looked and smelled like fetid frogspawn in the morning before jaunting back to our chalet to have a quick shower where you BY THE LOVE OF GOD, DON'T TOUCH THE WALLS IN THERE!  AND WEAR FLIP FLOPS OUR YOU'LL DIE!!"  Everything's been done up in the accommodation there now, but I won't lie - I was kind of pleased last weekend when a friend and I got the one room where the light flickered constantly in a raver stylee.  It's like they knew I was coming and wanted to make me comfortable!  I was home.

3.  If you like privacy, an adult weekend is not for you.  Strangers wander in and out of each other's accommodation pretty freely.  Mostly because most of the buildings are a confusing maze of identical..ness.  In our case this weekend, we saw a streak of rainbow colours and hair flash past the living room door.  It turned out to be an overexcited stag wearing little more than pants (thank God), braces, a tutu and more body hair than you'd get if you stuck both my pets together with duct tape.  He turned out to be non hostile, so we invited him in and promptly gave him a make over and some beers.

4.  If you want to be a human sized strawberry, stripper cop or overweight batman of an evening, then, my friend, it is your God given RIGHT to be so.

5.  No matter how tiring, cold or malnourished you are by the end of your visit, you are guaranteed to feel nostalgic and sad the second you turn your back on the place.  I remember leaving once as a kid and taking in the white peaks of the pavilion, the lights of the fairground and the sharp, stabby winds blowing off the sea and gagging to get back to simple, straight forward, seaside fun.

Til next time, Butlins.  Til next time.

*salute*

Christ, I'm tired.

Back In The Shire (The Swan...shire)

I'm baaaack!! Spent the previous week on my back in a foreign country (Lindos, Rhodes).  

Not like that! Filth. 

I've returned with a smile on my face and have also changed in colour from transparent white to a more opaque beige.  Closest thing to a tan I've ever had.  Might even be able to pass off as a human for a little while.  Needless to say, I'm gutted to be back in reality, where all the cooking and cleaning isn't done for me while I'm busy pickling my liver with local beers and cocktails. Also, it's hard to leave behind something that looks as pretty as this:

 

Pretty surroundings not own back/backside, but thanks for saying! ;)

 I had a go at that "relaxing" thing I'd heard so much about, and I think that for a couple of days, I think I even managed to crack it!  Burned through two really bloody good books:

• Maya Angelou - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (suggestion courtesy of http://shewantstoread.blogspot.co.uk/ if you're looking for summat to eat with your eyes.  Handy blog!).
• Karen Joy Fowler - We Are All Completely Beside ourselves

Came to the conclusion that for me, food + booze + books + heat = complete and total bliss.  Who'd have thought?  Only trouble is, all the fooding and the boozing has only served to reinforce how much I love fooding and boozing.  Which is making my resolve over last post's grand announcement about going sober for October go a bit wobbly.  Much like a drunk person's.  We'll see.

Another side effect of all the relaxing I've been dabbling in is that I seem to have further hindered my ability to run.  All the focusing on CrossFit and sitting on my backside in between sessions has rendered my cardiovascular fitness all but fucked.  I tried to run three miles yesterday, and had to walk even during that, which rarely used to happen unless I'd hurt myself.  Seems I'm back to square one-and-a-bit on the running front.  I have a 10k to do tomorrow along Swansea's sea front and Cardiff half marathon to do in a couple of weeks.  Daunted isn't even the word!

On the other hand, I find my new total lack of aerobic fitness strangely encouraging.  Because I now know that my recent inability to run very steadily or far is more physical than mental, it feels much more fixable.  Fitness is simpler.  You just do more of the thing you find yourself crap at until you're not as crap anymore.  I got complacent with running, and my sudden onset rubbishness has given me a point to start from all over again, so I'm able to make it a priority without hating every single second of it.  If that makes even a blob of sense.

The next two races I'm going to do are going to be a nightmare, but I know I'll finish, whether it means crawling around the route and weeping for my mummy.  But by jove, I'll be doing it!  Cant wait to tell you about them =).

Tis The Season

Ho-ho-hopeless: My current Christmassy window display. Observe sad, limp lights on the right.

It's that month!! The one where you can eat anything you like and not feel bad because some bearded guy in flip flops was born in a shed a long, long time ago!

"Oh, go on then seeing as it's Christmas!"

*eats butter from the tub with a spoon*

I'm pretty fricking excited this year.  I've bought a tiny tree in a pot (see picture above... And try to ignore the Korn doll that appears to be bumming a small replica of Whinnie The Pooh's Tigger) and my fairy lights are loosely secured with what I can only guess was joke sticky tape (because it ain't fuckin' sticky!). 

I'm going for a lonely-drunk-who-dug-their-decs-out-of-a-neighbour's-bin vibe at home this year. Successful, no?

And I've not bought a single gift yet.  But's that's okay because I have a plan up my jumper sleeve:

Enter a state of idiotic, grinning denial until the last minute when I'll have to face the cramped streets of Swansea and probably die, crushed up and suffocating in a fellow shopper's armpit.  

The perils of being both short and disorganised.

Anyhoo, so this is my second Christmas from within this whole cohbitty thing - living in a house with that guy I met when he recognised as the pissed girl he'd seen. The one who'd dropped her bank card down an impossibly narrow crack between cashpoint and pavement and couldn't get it back out.

It's a comfort in knowing that one of longest relationships I've ever been in started with the male party's first impression of me being "pfft...tit!"

I digress. Last year, we went to our respective families' homes - he to England, and I to Carmarthenshire (or as he calls it "the Iron Age"). This year, the probably justifiably terrified sod is joining me and my family for festivities.  But next year, I've no idea what's happening.  And it scares the bejesus out of me!

I'm a quarter if a century old and and I've done the same thing every single year since I was first crawling around on the carpet in a party dress. Not much change on that front, either, I suppose. 

... I dunno.  Sometimes I wear jeans now.

The thought of having to be a grown-up and pretend that I'm cool with eventually having to be anywhere other than in my mum's living room with a stocking I'm much, much too old for but all the more appreciative of, makes me want to hide under a big pile of soft things and sob like a toddler. 

I LOVE my family's annual Christmas/all-day-all-ages-piss-up.  And for all the sleepiness, petty squabbling and unexpected food coma-naps, I never want to change a thing.

So because I'm feeling nostalgic and loath to let go, I'm going to use this post to share with you a couple of my family's Christmas highlights:

The Uno Saga

Most families love a board game.  Especially simple ones like Uno, which are straightforward enough for the young and plastered alike to enjoy with ease.  Unless such games involve my stubborn and often grumpy step-grandad, and my then-teenage and equally mule-like sister.

What started out as a friendly post-dinner game turned into an increasingly aggressive squabble about the rules, culminating an explosive "FUCK OFF!!" from my sister. Neither party spoke for a month.  I don't know why, but confrontation is just that much funnier when everyone's in little paper hats and trying to stifle burps.

Nowadays, we just watch a standup DVD after lunch instead.  Much safer.

"Who am I most like?"

Last year. My grandparents' house. Everyone is settling down around the TV bar from nana, who is upstairs faffing about with something or other.  Conversation turns to who most resembles whom in the family.

Me: I don't think I'm that much like you or dad really, am I mum?

Mum: You're a lot more like your nan than me.

Me: Oh? Why's that?

Mum:  Well, since she's retired, she's been a little more...y'know?

Me: No, what?

Nan descends the stairs, wondering why she's being discussed. Everyone pisses themselves laughing.

The jumper she's gone to put on upstairs is inside out.

..............

Only a couple of specific memories there, but there are regular features to my family Christmas that I couldn't imagine missing out on:

- Being awoken at 6am by mum's super-subtle "coughing" because she's grown accustomed to children trying to wake her up at 4am every December 25th.

- Being told to "piss off out of the kitchen" by my step-grandad while he's cooking.

- Falling out with either sister at least once for a grand total of about 5mins because we're tired and because "just fuck off, okay!"

- Drink being forced in spare hand because hand currently in use only contains a half full beverage.

- Sulking from step-grandad as he believes that we're not drunk enough and are therefore not being festive enough. Suspect he secretly desires Yuletide rave.

- My nan occasionally refilling the quality street tin with toffee pennies because she knows that if she puts them all in at once, I'll weed them all out in one sitting.

...Eee... Christmas!!! Hope you're all looking forward as much as I am.

Now, I need to dig out Elf and A Muppets Christmas Carol soon otherwise Christmas can't officially happen yet.