Holibob's Diaries

Holidays!

This section is all about holidays that I have had over the years. Some of the pieces are from diaries that I kept at the time of the trip as on most holidays since the late 1990's I always keep notes, some of which, just for the heck of it, I created proper diaries, and some will be recollections of this addled mind! The four diaries that I created were printed, and in particular case copies provided to others that were on the holiday with me/us.

For most of my school years holidays were taken at Walton-on-the-Naze, in a caravan, that to begin with was hired, and then latterly owned by my Gran – my paternal grandmother – until the company that owned the camp site where the caravan was situated got a little greedy and at a year end upped the site fees by over 50% - which the family could not afford. Pop and Gran took the decision to junk the caravan given its age and lack of saleability, and everything that could be salvaged from the caravan was – including the two bunks/sofas that would spend the next few years a storage in mine and Geoff's bedrooms - removed and transported to either our or Gran's home. Hopefully I will be adding some more details around this – within the Caravan pages of the website fairly shortly

In my latter teens I did not really go on holidays as such, although Mum and Pop did go a couple of times to South Africa (where his brother and family lived) and they also went to Malta a few times. My next holiday was as a love sick teen puppy to Majorca with Kate (my first ever flight) and then after that it was St Lucia with Celia – although at the time I was engaged to be married to Anita! The "sordid" details of that adventure can be found within the "Early 80's" page.

Early married life saw us visit my new family based in both Devon and Scotland, plus a couple of visits to various Centre Parcs (our first within a few months of the original one opening in Nottingham), and we did indeed go back when the kids were small. As a young family we enjoyed a stay on the Isle of Wight, a trip of Butlins, and a caravan (no surprises there I guess) stay in Cornwall! Once we had visited Florida for the first time in 1998 our eyes were firmly placed on America, and with the exception of a trip to Spain (which also took in Gibraltar), we visited Florida 3 further times, plus one to the West Coast, and one three week extravaganza visiting various sets of friends, across a few states, starting in New Jersey, taking in New York, Columbus, Cincinnati, and a week long stay in a hotel in Chicago. Our final "family" holiday was to Bali in Indonesia - although the family was slightly extended as there were over 30 of us on that holiday.

For a while after the divorce, I didn't really go on holidays (no-one to share with obviously😢 ) until I reconnected with Pat and then we visited Fuerteventura on several occasions, Tenerife once, and Florida four times. Since 2018 all our breaks (actually they are all holidays) have been to the Caravan. Whilst travelling abroad still appeals, it is no longer something we want to do as such.

As mentioned above – there are 4 "proper" diary like sections covering Florida in 1998, 2005, 2016 and Bali 2008, and there are links to them on the right ⇨. Using various sets of photos I will endeavour to produce some content for some of the others, using some of the notes that I have come across in my filing to add some detail.

Timeline of my "holidays" from memory – remembering that I am an old and somewhat senile man!