Haven Cala Gran Holiday Summer 2019 (part one)

We had a total blast this summer in my favourite place.

For the second time since Owen was born, we went on a family holiday and back to the wee corner of the world that feels like home - Blackpool.

Well, technically, Fleetwood, but hey, we were there for the main attraction.

It took me a full on year to pay for our holiday and save for the spending money - last year we went with barely any money and it was a very tight squeeze!

This year I was determined that we would be able to eat out, to spend money on souvenirs and do some of the things that we wanted to do the year before.

Then I quit my job about 3 weeks before we went due to stress and faced the prospect of no wage when we came home from our holiday - great timing, as per.

For a while, it looked like we might need to call time on the idea of going away, but we had looked forward to it for so long...and paid for it....so off we went.

Man, Blackpool is expensive.

We stayed in a caravan at Cala Gran holiday park, which is home to an arcade (hours of children pouring my hard-saved money into machines every night), an entertainment venue (where you dream of sitting on your bum with a glass of wine, watching terrible, but funny holiday shows but instead the children just want to pour money into said machines in the adjacent arcade) and a pub (where you dream of sitting on your bum having a cheeky half pint in peace, but horrible children grudgingly half eat some of the most expensive pub food ever in between trying to head out to the adjacent arcade with my hard-saved pennies  which are burning a hole in their pockets, or running excitedly to the just-out-of-sight park where the four year old keeps getting stuck on the climber).

There is also a small swimming pool (adjacent to the pub, so mum can watch dad playing with the cherubs in the pool while having a cup of tea - ha ha, win!) and an outdoor water park thingy (where you can watch your kids run around while shouting 'be careful' and 'don't do that' at random intervals instead of relaxing.

I don't know if I'm just more cynical as I have gotten older or if arcades are actually more geared to ripping all of your cash out of you for very little fun or return.  Well, that and inflation, I suppose.  It just irked me (and all of the other parents I saw standing in the queue for the prize shop at the end of the week to redeem their tickets) when what must have been about £100 equated to three keyrings, a Hulk Hogan bandana and a set of stickers.

"But the kids had fun"

Yes.  Yes they did.

We all had a blast on holiday - but it is knackering.  But noticeably easier than the previous year.  The older they get, the less tightly wound they appear to be at the beginning.

Last year was crazy - just absolutely constant.  With Ethan, we always have to be 'doing' something and he never seems to be happy with what we are doing - just looking ahead to the next 'thing' which is kind of exhausting and relentless.  Especially in a holiday situation!

He was definitely more chilled this year - not massively - but it was certainly a bit more pleasant.

The first evening was spent paying grace to the gods of Arcadia by lining their metal trays with offerings of coins from children's pockets (we won about 400 tickets at the 2p machines).

We spent so much money on our tea that I felt obliged to put in a complaint online ( £54!!) and I nearly felt like taking a swing to Lidl to just buy food to survive the week.  There's something really weird about living on barely nothing week to week for the last 5 years and then suddenly allowing yourself to splurge - you almost just can't do it.   It doesn't feel pleasant!

We spent the first day in Cleveleys, mainly because I had to cash a cheque at the bank, taking a stroll, marvelling at the 1990's vibe and fully comprehending that this is where every older person ever is holidaying.  It's a bit like Blackpool back in the day where shops still sell some random as heck items outside in baskets marked "£1 per item" and you can pick up anything from a walking stick to a vibrator.

It was actually quite comforting to take in sights such as market stalls selling some pretty questionable clothing in xxxl sizes, wigs and underwear, all of which the kids enjoyed having a giggle at while we shout-whispered "PUT.THAT.DOWN" with crazy eyes while trying not to laugh.

We lunched at a very reasonably priced cafe which was very busy and had a Monet theme, which gave it an air of 1980's Granny's Glasgow house chic (dusky pink, Monet pics in gold frames with gold lamps) , which again was quite comforting and hearty.

I had a very nice 'barm cake' which Dave had a lengthy argument with me about ordering due to the fact he said he would "just be asking for a cheese roll" and I had words with him about the fact a roll and a barm are two different things, which after a quick Google, he realised they were NOT!

HA HA, Dave!

(If you have any interest in this - a barm cake is made with excess foam from beer making! A roll is not!)

It may have been a more heated argument than it needed to be...aherm...

Thankfully we had the comedy break of watching what was a woman armed with a full-on water gun standing in the middle of the road outside, shooting seagulls who were swooping down on those who had chosen to eat at the pavement cafe.  So that was funny.

A quick walk along the water front (very windy) where we talked to dogs (not people though) and the boys (including Dave)  obviously decided that  every bench, concrete fixture and pole was some kind of elaborate parkour trail, so it was more me walking like I was the head of a troupe of crazy, not-very-coordinated, loud, monkeys that I didn't know were following me.

Honestly, I wonder what we all look like sometimes.

"But the kids had fun"

Yes.  They did.  And I hear you.  But honestly, sometimes I wish it was just the kids and not also the fourth, large man-child joining in and that we could walk together nicely while the kids play.  That would feel a little tiny bit less like I was in charge of some kind of uncontrollable mass sometimes.

When I finally herded them all back together, there was thankfully (!) a small arcade across the road (yay!) and of course, son number one needed the toilet, so in we traipsed, spending more than we had intended on yet more tickets (which we later discovered we could feed into the ticket counting machine back at the park, so I felt like I was beating the system just a little bit...ha ha, fuck you, Haven arcade!)

Back to the car and then back to the caravan, where we decided on the camp Papa John's for tea this time (slightly cheaper, kind of) and the back to having the money hoovered out of our pockets by small children who fed it all into the shiny machines.  While I of course wished that I was sitting in the entertainment bit having a glass of wine and watching the kids join in the horrible entertainment instead...but no....

"But the kids had fun"

They did!  And so did I, really...

Part 2 to follow...

Summer Holidays: Mine and Theirs

6 weeks of summer holidays are bearing down on us all at a rate of noughts.

When I was wee, the summer holidays were amazing; 6 (or sometimes 7) weeks of playing outside with my friends late into the night.

I was lucky - where I lived we were free to roam the streets, as the streets were quiet and there were barely any cars.  The houses were all knitted together and there were endless places to ride your bike or push a scooter or a skateboard or go rollerskating without bothering anyone.

We'd meet at the park - without the aid of text messages or phones and we all had watches on our wrists so that we knew when to come back home for tea.

Sadly, my own kids will never really know the joy of this kind of childhood.  It was pretty free.

We lived our lives in hours of imaginative play.  We made our own microcosm of the world in the small area in which we lived.

There were acorn fights (bad idea), games of football (great idea) and skateboard tours (amazing idea).

On wet days we put on our raincoats and all squeezed into our dens, our hideyholes, mainly in bushes or broken down fencing and pretend we were spies or that we had a huge club of detectives who only met once a month.

We had our best bestest bestesest ever friends and we had our sworn enemies.  We loved and lost.  We fought battles.  We played massive tournaments that went on for weeks.

We used stones to draw on the paving slabs and we used our jumpers for goal posts (inevitably someone always lost their jumper).

We ventured out of our zones too - we went to the beach. We cycled as far as we could.

I doubt our parents could have imagined that we went as far or did as much as we did, but we did it all, and without any adult supervision; you simply came home at the agreed time and then went out again until the next time-slot, often begging for 'just an extra half an hour, pleeeease?'

Times have kind of changed and where we live kind of isn't conducive to sending kids out. They'd have to walk up and down a 60mph country road to get anywhere good.  And when they got there, the chances of meeting any other kids are slim to none, seeing as it seems to be less of a thing to let your kids roam the streets.

When I was wee, my mum didn't go to work, so I never had to go to childcare and anyone who babysat was generally doing it because I was already at their house, eating their food and watching their tv, as they did at ours when they happened to disappear in with me for hours on end.

I never went to Out Of School Club. I never had a childminder.

I was so lucky that I was able to stay at home and play.

As my kids gear up for 6 weeks of chilling and eating and going to different childcare venues (and staying at home with us for sometime I might add - we had to use all of our holidays between us!) and getting all of these 'paid for' experiences, like face painting and cooking and going to play centres, I can't help feeling a bit jealous.

It would be very nice to have a long break and lots of fun things to do.

But I can't help feeling a bit sad too, that they aren't going to be racing their bikes at the park without adult supervision, that they won't be doing stuntman-worthy tricks on the swings or seeing how fast they can go on the roundabout without falling off.

Those were the best days of my life.

Keep Your Hands Inside The Carriage At All Times: Blackpool Pleasure Beach...(Part 1)

  We are not supposed to be holidaying this year.

We are skint.  We are beyond skint.

But when someone gives me the chance to review my all-time favourite place in the whole world so that I can tell everyone how fabulous it is, could I say no?

NO!

Of course not!

We stayed right beside the first hill lift!

We are literally just home from one of my favourite visits ever to The Pleasure Beach in Blackpool.

I have been going since I was a wee toot, but there is just something magical about taking your children somewhere that you love, especially when they are both old enough to appreciate the delights for themselves.

We appeared at the gates on Monday, the first week of the Scottish school holidays, and although it was quite busy due to end-of-term school outings and swathes of Glaswegian holidaymakers, it was relatively quiet compared to what it will be like in a few weeks - we literally walked straight to the front of the queue in the very official and efficient ticket office, where we were issued with our wristbands and vouchers for the day.

Noah's Ark - now no longer a ride, but kept as a beautiful entrance display.  A bit of history!

When I was a wee lassie, you simply wandered around the Pleasure Beach at whim, buying tickets at the booth in either singles or books and they were graded in terms of ride thrill factor (i.e, white knuckle was a couple of A tickets, B for mid-level thrills and C tickets for junior rides).  You can still buy tickets for individual rides, but the park now charges an entry fee of £6 (which includes use of some low-level attractions) and if you are planning on riding at all, you are always much better off buying a wristband, which at £21.99 for adults and £19.00 for juniors is a bargain (when bought online) - especially compared to a lot of other attractions in Blackpool, such as Merlin's recently refurbished Blackpool Tower attractions and The Zoo, both of which charged a fortune!

The Pleasure Beach has certainly moved with the times, and it is simply amazing how many people are involved in just getting everyone through the door.  The huge Ticket Office with multiple queue lines means that you get your tickets quickly and easily, while being given park basics before you set off - a helpful leaflet is available on the 19 rides which children can go on, with or without an adult and you also get a park map, coupons for eateries within the park (of which there are many!) and your park passes, so you can go in and out as many times as you like throughout the day.

Perfect!

At the entrance you also have the option to purchase a very beautiful piece of machinery technology, which Dave has dubbed 'The Tamagotchi Thing', which is in fact a Queue Bot, called The Speedy Pass.
I highly recommend the Speedy Pass if you are visiting with small children.  There are so many fantastic rides and beautiful rollercoasters at the Pleasure Beach, that it would be rude not to at least try to go on them! We used one, and I have to say that we never had to wait more than a couple of minutes to get on some pretty queued out rides!  It was great and really took the stress out of theme parking for us grown ups.

Traditionally, Dave and I ride The Ice Blast first,

Blasted to the top of this tower?  Yes please!

 but now that we have two small children in tow, we head straight for the family-friendly stuff, which as a white-knuckle thrill-seeker should kill me a little inside, but in my old age I'm getting all mellow and romantic about stuff, so we head straight for the famous Sir Hiram Maxim's Flying Machines - one of the oldest (if not in fact the oldest) operational ride on the park, opened in 1904.  Rumour has it that Sir Hiram Maxim himself didn't really admire his 'failed invention' and was disappointed at the fact that it was just a 'glorified merry-go-round', but I'm sure if he could see the longevity and joy it has brought to millions across the generations, he would be more than a bit chuffed.

A beautiful day for some flying!

Arty shot

Boys together

Me and my little thrill seeker

I swear they've never changed these signs!

Ethan - 'I not ascared anymore!'

There's nothing like a bit of flying through the air at speed in a captive flying machine to get your day off to a good start!

Next we headed straight to another of my old favourites, and one that I rode often as a child - The Alice In Wonderland Ride.

No, it's not Disney-esque in any way, but it is a really old and much loved interpretation of Lewis Carroll's famous children's book.  I love it because it's never changed - it is well maintained, and I notice a new section has been added to update it slightly.  And a new photo opp outside!

Fab new photo opp

Gorgeous lettering

Track porn!

Serious stuff

The Alice photo calendar - a family tradition!

Spotted!  Pretty sure this is a new addition?  Correct me if I'm wrong!

After Alice, we headed over to the BEST ride on the park by far.  IS it a rollercoaster? No!

Is it a static ride?  

No!

It's my all time favourite.

The Derby Racer!

Now it's changed a lot in recent years - it was given a gorgeous makeover in 2008, and the original racing mechanism is now sadly locked, but it's still quite easily one of the most underestimated joys of theme park revelry.

Magical sounds from the Verbeeck organ!

A glitterball horse!

 Proper horses which race very fast on a carousel to the tune of a mini wurlitzer type organ, which is really fabulous.  The tune playing when we were on this time was 'Walking On Sunshine'.  Perfect!

Excuse the blur - it's hard to hold a camera and a boy on a horse!

I always do a full blown grin with teeth and everything when I'm flying around on this one.  I always feel like time could stop and I could ride it forever - it's everything to me.  It's like time stops and I'm 5,6,7,8,9,10 again!  Amazing!

Check out my girlish grin *titter*

After this, the kids were antsy to get going towards Nickelodeon Land...so off we went! 

Waving to an old friend - The Grand National twin track racing rollercoasters!

An obligatory visit to the loo!

My favourite woodie - The Rollercoater (or newly named Nick Streak)

Crossing the bridge into small children's heaven!

Best view ever!

The miniature railway was looking fine today!

So early, Valhalla wasn't switched on yet!

 I practically skipped along the path and up over the bridge as I passed all of my old favourites in the bright sunshine!

What a lucky, lucky day!  To be continued...

Part Two can be found HERE

Doughnuts and Rollercoaster Grease

In 1995 I rode my first Arrow Rollercoaster.

Custom built for The Pleasure Beach, Blackpool, The Pepsi Max Big One was, at the time, the tallest and steepest rollercoaster in the world.

                                   

The hype surrounding it, for me, was intense.

Every year, since I was a wee girl, we had been patrons of the Pleasure Beach - a theme park whose heritage has inspired the theme parks of today.

My best childhood memories involve sitting on the the children's wooden rollercoaster, being flung around on The Junior Whip and torturing my Grandad's arthritic back on the teacups.  We'd spend hours playing Prize Bingo in the stall beside The Alice In Wonderland ride, queuing for 'just one more ticket, please' and watching the adults ride the bigger, faster, scarier rides, hoping that one day I'd be big enough to go on.

There was nothing better than taking a stroll around the park at night, when all the lights were on, and the magic infused itself into the whole atmosphere.  Those were the best days and the most amazing nights, full of fun-fuelled screams, the smell of popcorn, freshly-made doughnuts, chips and rollercoaster grease.

The year that The Big One was built, I was too short to ride, by just a few inches.  I was absolutely gutted.  At 12 years old, I was rather small for my age, but I was also the biggest thrill-seeker and prided myself on being a seasoned white-knuckle rider.

The other coasters in that park had shaped my passions.  From the children's wooden coaster (The Zipper Dipper), the aptly named Rollercoaster and the Big Dipper to the racing double whammy of the Grand National, I had grown up on a diet of old-style, real wooden racers - each of them unique and equally full of character.

As I grew up and returned to the park, year on year, the surroundings changed, but the rides stayed the same - old faithfuls in a world of nauseating new thrill rides and seemingly ridiculous and sometimes overbearing health and safety rules.

Riding these coasters became not only about the thrill and the speed, but about nostalgia and a love for an age which passed all to quickly.

Returning only annually to an old haunt, you become sensitive to any change which has happened in your absence. And as funding, commercialism and consumerism rose to the fore, some of my old friends began to disappear from the park.

The much-loved Log Flume replaced by a new steel rollercoaster, the Junior Whip out of commission, the Turtle Chase where my sister and I had screamed with laughter, fallen into disrepair, never to return.  Some rides came and went too - mere carnival rides to placate the masses while they waited for the next 'big thing' to happen to the park - something which some are still waiting for.  They'll never be satisfied.

A change in management, a double-dip recession and security features changed the place I knew and loved so well into something I barely recognised.

The year that I became a student at university was the year I took all of my friends to visit. It was the year before they closed the Haunted House; a ride which I had been gathering my courage to enter since I was a kid.  I entered it now with my friends, screaming with equal parts fear and joy at the ridiculously un-frightening bits and pieces laid out within the walk-through ride.  We had such a great time that year - being the park 'professional' I was the one who pointed out all of the tips and hints about the best time to ride, the best seat to sit on and the rides which offered the most screams.  We had a ball. Timing our visit to coincide with the Illuminations in Blackpool, we somehow and totally by accident managed to be in the Big Wheel that sat on the end of Central Pier when the lights were switched on in the whole resort.  What a view!

The year that my Nana had to have a wheelchair to visit in order to keep up with our long walks and fun around the park, was the year that I stayed in an apartment separate from my family, with my husband-to-be and our best friend. We bought beer in the bar where The Funhouse used to stand, which was now just really another stall for customers to buy over-priced things they didn't really need.

Sitting in that bar, I could smell the new lacquer on the timber that made up the Viking themed pub beside the massive water-ride, Valhalla, and tried to imagine my younger self in this very same space, some years earlier - slipping on slides, tumbling into ball pits and laughing with my Grandad, who used to take my sister and I here in the evenings for some fun before bedtime.  How things had changed.

My Grandad had died a year earlier and sitting here now, with a view of the old cable cars that we used to ride together (no longer in commission), and the ancient Noah's Ark ride above the main entrance, I thought about all the time I had spent in this park and everything that had come before.

My childhood travelled in flashes in my mind; my sister and I on the Paragliders, waiting for the Derby Racers to begin while listening to faux-organ music chimed out in fairytale-like bars,  chasing my Grandad through the Chinese water maze, laughing at my Nana who had sneaked on the Carousel - all of it not so long ago really, but felt like aeons away...

I thought back to my first ride on the 'new rollercoaster', the Big One, that first adrenaline-fuelled ride.

It was the year our lives had changed.

I'd turned 13 - I had become a teenager.

It was the first year we'd been to Blackpool without my Grandad, who couldn't come due to ill-health.

My lovely, strong, funny, capable Grandad, no longer able to chase us through the park's gardens or accompany us on mini-dodgems was a patient in a mental hospital, destroyed by clinical depression.

My Nana had suffered a stroke, and apart from losing the strength in her left hand side, hadn't the energy, nor the inclination to find fun at the bingo machines any more.  She'd come with us, but that year was particularly strange; we all felt the missing part in our family machine.  She tolerated a day at The Pleasure Beach with us, but once we'd had our fun with the new wristband facility, which took the place of the old ticketed system we had known just a few years before, she was keen to return back to our holiday flat for some rest.

It was a strange time for us all.

The last ride of the day was the best - we'd saved the best and biggest for last.  It was like some kind of baptism of fire.  I'd waited all year for this.


                           

I'd stood against the measuring pole: I was finally - just- big enough.

The queue was huge - an hour I stood, on my own in my wee fleecy jumper in the cold, beside grown men and women who egged each other on in the queue line - winding each other up about how terrifying it was going to be.

They laughed and joked with each other as I stood beside them, nervously waiting my turn in the slow-moving line, watching train after train travel slowly, slowly up the hill and plummet in a screaming thrill of twisty, fast, exciting, nonsense.

As I moved into the rollercoaster station, my time had come.

I stood at the metal gate as the last train emptied it's passengers onto the other side.

They were all laughing as it pulled into the station - one woman was crying, real fear etched on her face.  The folk who disembarked all laughed, chattering with excitement about what they had just been through.

I was shaking at this point.

As the gas brakes released the metal barriers, I pushed forwards, seating myself into the comfy black padded seat of my carriage.

The coaster filled instantaneously - everyone breathing hard and fast as they filled up the seats, pulling the metal bars over laps and clicking the seatbelts, which felt all too little protection for our tiny, fragile human bodies in the face of this demon.  Nobody sat beside me.  I would make this journey alone, this small girl in the teddy-bear fleece, legs barely touching the fully-tightened lap bar.   .

The men in boiler suits, the engineers, moved up and down, checking the lap bars and tugging at seat belts, making sure everyone was safe in that quick and easy throughput.

The small klaxon sounded and the train motioned forward, smooth as you like, straight into the black and white tunnel.

At that moment I gulped - my heart skipped a beat and I realised - here I was, finally living up to what I said I'd do.  I was finally taking the most terrifying ride of my life, my goal, my dream, my nemesis - there was no turning back.

I thought about telling my Grandad about this when I got home - how brave I'd been.  I looked down as we slowly climbed the lift hill.  I waved at my Nana and my Mum and my Sister.  I felt proud, as much as they felt proud - like I was going to the moon, or completing the first rocket launch or claiming my ancestor's land.  They waved back - grinning and shouting.  It was a long climb to the top.  As we got higher and higher, the click-clack-click-clack-click-clack, the guffaws and screams from behind, the feeling of heavy metal bar over my lap and the smell...the comforting, wholesome smell...

Fresh made doughnuts and rollercoaster grease...

The best day of my life.

What The Blethering Boys Are Playing Today: Lego Fort

As it was a long weekend this weekend, Dave took some time off to look after Thomas while I was at work. And the boys both love spending time with Dad, so Ethan stayed off nursery too.

What a fabulous time they had!

The highlight of the day has to be a visit from Auntie Jacqui and a new toy (a Lego truck!), after a spot of lunch at a bar.

Thanks Auntie Jacqui!

Lucky boys!

As with all new toys, this fuelled their imaginations and led play into new territory.  Dad, Jacqui and the kids all built an amazing Lego Castle!

Check it out!

The Lego men had a good day too by all accounts.

They had a couple of new friends added to their number.

Lego Marge is pretty cool.

So is Lego Grandpa Simpson!

Our kids have never watched The Simpsons, so this is definitely one for us adults.  I can see us trying to collect them - they are really cool and a total ride down nostalgia lane for Dave and I! 

Happy boy!

It was great to come home from a long day at work to see two happy faces and a calm and cool Daddy.

Family time is the best time.  Next time I hope I get to join in too!