Holiday from hell. Part Two.

Last night I gave you a wee blogabout my chavtastic holiday last year, just to prepare you for tonight's installment.  Off we go then.....

This year money was super tight.  Being on maternity pay sucked, how people are expected to live off a measly £124 per week is mental, I was nearly forced to sell Tom or send him down the docks to bring some cash in.  Instead we collected those vouchers from the paper - get 10 vouchers and you to can have a Holiday from Hell for only £9.50 per person.  Well, £9.50 plus money for entertainment passes, linen, upgrades, cot hire etc etc So the total bill was more like £130 - but it's still a bargain.  I dutifully collected the vouchers every day, filled out the form with my top 5 choices and top 5 dates and kept everything crossed that we got somewhere.  And we did!  It was choice number 5 on my list, gah.  But a cheap holiday nonetheless - so can't really grumble. 

Friday morning we loaded up the car with a whole pile of shit, basically the same as in this blog but now I also had Tom's stuff to squeeze in.  That was OK - all he needed was his swim trunks, pants, t-shirt and car keys.  I had my list of usual essentials - straighteners, knickers, vodka, iPhone and charger.  That is all I need for a weekend away.  We said goodbye to the cats, handed our keys to our cat-sitter and off we popped. 

The drive to our holiday destination started well with some arse-hole practically doing an emergency stop for no fucking reason on the dualer - good job we have new tyres and brakes.  We survived that drama - Tom shouting blue murder and the total idiot in the car and my hopes of a nice relaxing nap well and truly shattered. 

We arrived at our destination after about 3 hours of driving.  Imogen was grumping as she'd had enough of being strapped into a car seat.  We drove into the holiday park and then Tom nearly drove over a chav.  A teenage chav at that.  One of these youths who thinks they don't need to look when crossing the road, maybe it's uncool nowadays not to look - far more cooler to be splatted by a car.  Tom was ever so slightly annoyed at this young person walking in front of the car, so decided to stop and remind the young man that he better look when crossing the road.  I think the words he used were "Next time I won't bloody stop" ahhhh.... welcome to our holiday.

We were slightly early for checking in, so went for a wander and some grub.  More over-priced microwave meals, but Imogen enjoyed her macaroni and Blaine, well he was far more interested in the switchies and seeing how much money he can con out of us.  Eventually we checked in.  The caravan was nice, in a quiet location (this time we scored lucky with a quieter park) appeared clean.  Imogen's cot hadn't appeared, but we had been informed it was on it's way. Great!  So far, so good.

We booked Blaine in for all his activities that he wanted to do (more bloody expense) and got chips for tea.  I unpacked and was raging to find out that the vodka hadn't actually made it into the car, Tom had left it in Aberdeen for some insane reason. Great. He would regret this I'm sure.  Then we went out to a show. Imogen's cot still hadn't appeared but, again, we were assured it was on it's way - they were just very busy. 

After the show - DJ Ned, how appropriate - we came back to the caravan to get the kids settled for bed.  Well we would have done if Imogen actually had a bed to sleep in.  Oh yes, no cot.  RAGE.  So Blaine eventually settled in his bed and Imogen had to co-sleep with me while Tom attempted to squeeze his large frame into a single bed.  I say "single" it's more like 3/4 size.  Definitely a bed for a child, not an adult.  Imogen decided that sleeping like a star fish was the way forward and sprawled herself out in our double bed (well, not really a double - a big single more like) so I was dangling on the edge, everytime I moved she complained - so not much sleep was had.  I was up with Imogen at the crack of dawn (caravans don't appear to have black-out blinds, tut) and wandered about the caravan still half asleep.  Eventually Tom woke up and started complaining he was "tired".  At this point I could have killed him but refrained.

I had a nice morning planned - top of the list was a trip to Guest Services to enquire as to the whereabouts of Imogen's cot.  After a sleepless night I wasn't in any mood for some bollocks.  Off I popped.  Some poor wee lassie was on the desk of Guest Services, there was a few folk in front of me with their complaints - moaning about how unclean their caravan was or how cold etc  Then I came to the desk.  Ahhh this poor wee girl, what a shite job she has, my heart almost softened at the sight of her being driven demented by the demanding public.  Almost. "Good Morning" she said.  "Yes, morning indeed" I decided that was enough of the niceness so continued  "I had ordered a cot for my 8 month old daughter.  I phoned here 5 times yesterday to find out where it was, my husband even came down once to speak to someone about it. I was assured it was on its way.  Guess what?  It never appeared"  Silence. In fact the whole room went silent.  Some random wifey standing next to me did that whole sucking in of breath between teeth thing and said "oh dear, that's not good"  No.  No it's not.  The wee lassie behind the desk scuttled away to make a phone call.  She arrived back full of apologies and they are a  bit confused as they are sure the cot was delivered.  But, fear not, a manager is on his way now to my caravan with my cot and also my DVD player (which was missing from the caravan - probably stolen) so I can speak to him about it.

So I head back to the caravan and wait on this manager to appear.  And appear he did, with cot and DVD player in hand.  He's a bit bemused as to how the cot wasn't delivered, but we can rest assured that whoever didn't deliver it will be getting a bollocking.  Great!  He then attempted to fit the DVD player - on doing so he managed to break the TV cabinet (leg fell off).  So another man was called who could fix that.  He appeared with a hammer in hand, knocked off the remaining 3 legs and declared that it "looks much better without legs anyway" and off he popped.  Ahhhh....DIY Tom style.  Great.

The rest of the weekend went smoothly, no more attempted killing of chavs, Imogen refused to sleep in her cot so it was a weekend of co-sleeping, Tom got fed up and wanted to lie on the sofa all day watching crap TV, Blaine just wanted to bleed us dry of all our cash in the slot machines.  On one machine you could even win a Sovvy Ring.  Quality.

So this year it was a better holiday.  Nicer park, quieter location, an "older" clientele - no groups of youths getting pished and looking for some ladies to "entertain". 

We left on Monday and drove home, all exhausted.  Blaine pipes up "Mummy, are you working tomorrow?"  "No" I reply "I'm off all week"  Blaine shows great excitement "Oh great Mummy!  We can come back tomorrow then - can you book it when you get home"  Hmmm.... let me think. No.