Day 1
Jiff and I set off for Clacton at around 1200hrs. Jiff and I arrived in Clacton at 1600hrs. Let's never speak of that journey again. Thank goodness for phone-enabled Google Maps, that's all I'll say.
I spoke to my father and he congratulated me on my mad navigational skillz, obviously inherited from him. Then I spoke to Mum and she harped on about Billy Butlin for 20 minutes. Having satisfied our parents that we were alive and safe in our caravan, we took stock of cupboard space and shower power, that sort of thing. Jiff relaxed after the harrowing journey. We'd spotted a 24-hour Tesco right opposite the caravan site, so we drove over and stocked up on pizzas and washing-up liquid. We spent the rest of the evening watching Ricky Gervais DVDs, which we could've done at home.
Day 2
After an uncomfortable night on the world's smallest and boniest mattress, we decided to explore Clacton. We left the car in a very organised car park, patrolled by a man who clearly had a degree in car parking. He took your money and told you precisely where and how to park. He'd packed cars into that little space like sardines in a tin, but without the need for a tin opener. The man was a genius and I hope they paid him well.
And so we explored Clacton, which involved walking up the pier, which was full of amusements, fair ground rides and other tat, and then walking through the modest town centre, which has recently been spruced up with fountains and stuff – hey, a bit like Peterborough! But actually with less naked pikey children running through them. Mind you, it was overcast. The whole time I was looking for a toy Angry Bird, as my little sister's birthday is coming up and that's what she wants. Every arcade we walked past had a claw machine full of them, but my goodness, they're impossible to grab. I could've used all the money I spent failing to get one to just buy one. I'm still looking for one now.
We stopped at a little fish and chip kiosk – “Susie's Al Fresco”. Yeah, Al Fresco. Went to school with him. Little Italian feller, had a moustache by the time he was 13. Anyway, the chips were good. Having eaten, we left the immaculately organised car park and drove to Clacton Factory Shopping Village, one of those 'designer outlet' things. It was still a rip-off. And it reminded me strangely of Ely, a megalomaniac of a place, a village pretending to be a city.
In the evening, back at the ranch, we went to see what the, er, ranch had to offer. A bar/restaurant called the Boathouse, a crappy amusement arcade where the only prizes in the 2p machines were tickets and the Guitar Hero was switched off, and a clubhouse with 'entertainment'. The kind of 'entertainment' that makes you want to slowly murder the entertainers by asphyxiating them with their own furry costumes.
Day 3
The mattress problem was solved: there was a spare mattress under the bed and it didn't have springs.
We were planning to go to the zoo today, but we got up too late. So instead we took a leisurely drive up the coast, towards Walton-on-the-Naze. I spent the week wondering what the hell a Naze is, and I've just Googled it and it's a bit of peninsula. Awesome.
We stopped in Frinton-on-Sea because my mother wanted us to. Apparently it had stuffy by-laws long after most other towns had given them up, like not allowing public houses and forbidding washing to be hung out on a Sunday. It finally got its first pub in 2000. It's one of the weirdest and blandest places I've ever been to – an odd juxtaposition of model village quaintness and modern '70s towerblocks. It's also the only place where I've ever encountered a 'Warning: blind people' sign, and then seen some blind people trying to cross the road. I don't get those signs anyway. As Jiff proved today, seeing a blind person warning sign does not alter your driving at all. You notice the blind person, but you can't slow down because that'd confuse them, and you certainly don't want to stop for them because they won't see you. If anything, there should be 'WARNING! CARS!' signs for the blind. Y'know, audio signs. Oh, bless them.
I paid 20 pence to use the loo in Frinton, and got another first – automatic sanitary towel bins! You wave your hand, and it opens, allowing you to deposit your 'doings' securely and hygienically. Never mind that you'll flush the toilet with the same unclean hands, open the cubicle door, turn the taps... jeez Frinton, for 20p I expect better things. Especially in a place like this. Mind you, automatic pad bins are probably an important by-law in Frinton.
And so on to Walton-on-the-Naze, a truly lovely little seaside place, so removed from Frinton you can't believe they're on the same small stretch of coast. It's pretty, with just enough tat to keep plebs like me happy, but not enough to make your eyes want to throw up. It has shops that sell buckets and spades and cheap sunglasses and painted seashells. I only wish the weather had been a bit nicer, because in the sunshine this place must glow. The clouds didn't stop me taking off my shoes and having a little paddle in the sea. The beach was deserted. It was awesome. You can see why they call it the Sunshine Coast – the beaches are lovely and the sand is clean, which is one of the things I look for in a seaside town. That's why Skegness is shit and Cromer is paradise. Well, it's obviously not the only reason Skeggy is shit, but it's a rough indicator.
In the evening the weather started looking a little bit nicer, so we parked the car on the Clacton seafront and had a walk round the amusements and on the beach. Still didn't grab an Angry Bird. Speaking of birds, there are absolutely no attractive women in Essex. You may think they look sort of all right on the telly, but they're caked in make-up and then airbrushed. I'd noticed myself becoming less and less attractive as well, like it's a curse. We didn't use either of the campsite's two swimming pools the whole time we were there because I was too busy hiding my face, Quasimodo-style, thanks to a spectacular break-out that occurred the moment we got there. And every time me and Jiff spotted a girl who might be attractive, she turned out to either have a face like a bulldog, or she was 15. I reckon they're all right until they hit 18, then they're slowly but surely transformed into gargoyles. Oddly enough, the men were all right. In fact, more than all right. We felt sorry for them, doing their best with what Essex had given them: munters.
Day 4
Went to the zoo. Colchester Zoo. Follow the elephant signs! To be fair, it is well-signposted, even if the signs do make you feel like you're about five years old. It has to be really, because Colchester is apparently Britain's oldest recorded town and negotiating it by car is like trying to make dinner plans with the Riddler.
So we saw some animals. It's a good zoo. That's all I can say about it really. A zoo is a zoo is a zoo. Nothing hilarious happened there, but we did see a child fall out of a pushchair onto its face because its mother hadn't bothered to strap it in. Other examples of bad parenting were also rife, but none of it was malicious – just sort of careless in a chavvy way. Anyway, who am I to get on my high horse about it? We'll see how well I manage when I've got kids. “Jiff... JJ's got his hand in the fire again... sort it out will you?” Don't panic, that's just an example. I'm not really going to call my child JJ.
Jiff bought me a cuddly toy wolf. I liked the leopard the most, but they didn't have any toy leopards so I got a wolf. His name is Seth and he was very expensive considering all he will do is sit on our Sky box collecting dust for the next few years.
Jiff and I got loads of KFC and took it back to the 'van. Then we started cleaning up and packing.
Verdict
Essex is essentially the North of the South. It's where the real southerners come for weekend breaks, and it's cheap and cheerful in much the same way as Blackpool. You know how some Coronation Street residents bugger off to Blackpool at this time of year? If Eastenders wasn't so depressing, some of that lot would go to Clacton once a year too. Actually, what am I saying? They'd go to Turkey. But you get my point. I hope.
The only major flaw with the Sunshine Coast (apart from chavs wearing so much white you can't look at them... remembering how ugly the women are, maybe that's the point) is that it only has one chippy, Susie's, which after the first time we went seemed to be permanently shut. So we ended up eating a lot of pizza and KFC, but that's what we do at home anyway.
This holiday wasn't as exciting as I may have made it seem. A lot of the time we just lay around the 'van, Jiff playing Angry Birds on his phone while I read Dan Brown, with the news on in the background, the full hideous glory of the phone-hacking scandal unfolding before our eyes. I wasn't watching it. I was on holiday! Give me a break! It's exciting to live through history though. People will talk about the scandal for years. By 2050 it'll be in the school history books, and Rebekah Brooks will be compared to the likes of Hitler and Stalin. I'll save a copy of the last News of the World forever, and tell my grandchildren about how my profession used to be reviled because newspapers called 'tabloids' were full of sleaze.
No comments:
Post a Comment