Holidays
Having now had time to relax after my holiday, I reckon I can get back to posting and though the memories are rapidly fading, I figure “What I did on my holidays” is as good a topic now as it was in Primary 3.
I think I've mentioned it here before but I can't be bothered checking. I was staying at a lodge at Cameron House, on the sunny shores of Loch Lomond. I am not a big fan of holidays in general. My philosophy is that if you want to spend weeks away from your home and all your stuff, chances are you'd be better off spending the money on new stuff rather than rental cars and room service.
It's not just the lack of my room with all my carefully strewn stuff, it's the tremendous pressure that comes with being on holiday; that is, the pressure to be on holiday. To do the things that people are expected to do on holiday. To go swimming. To go on shopping trips. To see “the sights”, whatever they may be. To eat out in overpriced restaurants.
I don't enjoy doing those things at home, but being “on holiday” dictates that if you don't start your days with a morning swim, if you don't come back with a load of trinkets and souvenirs to shove in a drawer, if you don't have half a dozen blurry photos of every interesting looking rock pool, if you haven't “sampled the local cuisine”, then you've just wasted your time.
I enjoy wasting time. I happen to believe that that's what holidays are for. That pressure is what often spoils holidays for me. I don't like swimming, for many reasons, mostly a general dislike of exercise coupled with a dislike of being in a relatively small body of water with a bunch of total strangers. The fact that without my glasses I can barely see a bloody thing clearly doesn't help. And yet, about twice a year, we go on family holidays and even though none of us swim regularly, despite there being a pool about five minutes drive from our house, we always go swimming, just because it's five minutes walk from our room.
I could go on and on about why I don't like the usual idea of a holiday, with reasons ranging from a hatred of the atmosphere in hotel restaurants to a general reluctance to spend days in the company of no one but my immediate family.
But I happened to quite like this holiday, at times. Specifically, the times when my parents were off doing holidays things and I was left at the lodge with Sam, Erin and Interchangeable-Friend-Of-Erin No. 12. The times when, instead of being made to do some of the “I'm sure it'll be great fun but you'd never catch me doing it” style of activities, I could sit back and watch a DVD, mocking the Street Fighter movie (is it my imagination or is Jean-Claude Van Damme's primary method of transportation fly-kicking?) and seeing how long it takes for Sam to catch on to the fact that you can tell if House's team have found the right diagnosis by the DVD timer.
The best bits were undoubtedly when, instead of sitting in the back of a speed boat freezing my face off, I was sitting in a comfy chair watching Jon Pertwee fry some Autons. When, instead of sitting in a restaurant overhearing stilted conversations from other tables while ignoring the one at mine, I was lying on my bed putting together tiny Lego models and idly wondering who would win in a fight between my recently purchased Roboreptile and Sam's Jango Fett/Slave 1 Transformer. When, instead of standing about listening to fascinating facts about wallabies on the isle of Inchconnachan, I could sit with a laptop and type up notes for a Doctor Who fan film, wondering if it will ever come into being.
I'm going to have to wrap this post up now since I am again being rushed to bed inexplicably early on the basis that if I'm not, I'll be tired for my exams. In three weeks. That said, I think this has been a decent enough summary of my views on holidaying. Tomorrow is, I believe, my fiftieth post on TWToday. I'll have to find some time tomorrow to spend on that, after knocking off the huge amount of holiday homework that I've left untouched until now.
Also, Skippy remembered to post the Holiposts and seems to have remembered that today is Thursday, so he gets to live.
On an unrelated note, it turns out there is a use for that little shelf above a fold down bed:
I think I've mentioned it here before but I can't be bothered checking. I was staying at a lodge at Cameron House, on the sunny shores of Loch Lomond. I am not a big fan of holidays in general. My philosophy is that if you want to spend weeks away from your home and all your stuff, chances are you'd be better off spending the money on new stuff rather than rental cars and room service.
It's not just the lack of my room with all my carefully strewn stuff, it's the tremendous pressure that comes with being on holiday; that is, the pressure to be on holiday. To do the things that people are expected to do on holiday. To go swimming. To go on shopping trips. To see “the sights”, whatever they may be. To eat out in overpriced restaurants.
I don't enjoy doing those things at home, but being “on holiday” dictates that if you don't start your days with a morning swim, if you don't come back with a load of trinkets and souvenirs to shove in a drawer, if you don't have half a dozen blurry photos of every interesting looking rock pool, if you haven't “sampled the local cuisine”, then you've just wasted your time.
I enjoy wasting time. I happen to believe that that's what holidays are for. That pressure is what often spoils holidays for me. I don't like swimming, for many reasons, mostly a general dislike of exercise coupled with a dislike of being in a relatively small body of water with a bunch of total strangers. The fact that without my glasses I can barely see a bloody thing clearly doesn't help. And yet, about twice a year, we go on family holidays and even though none of us swim regularly, despite there being a pool about five minutes drive from our house, we always go swimming, just because it's five minutes walk from our room.
I could go on and on about why I don't like the usual idea of a holiday, with reasons ranging from a hatred of the atmosphere in hotel restaurants to a general reluctance to spend days in the company of no one but my immediate family.
But I happened to quite like this holiday, at times. Specifically, the times when my parents were off doing holidays things and I was left at the lodge with Sam, Erin and Interchangeable-Friend-Of-Erin No. 12. The times when, instead of being made to do some of the “I'm sure it'll be great fun but you'd never catch me doing it” style of activities, I could sit back and watch a DVD, mocking the Street Fighter movie (is it my imagination or is Jean-Claude Van Damme's primary method of transportation fly-kicking?) and seeing how long it takes for Sam to catch on to the fact that you can tell if House's team have found the right diagnosis by the DVD timer.
The best bits were undoubtedly when, instead of sitting in the back of a speed boat freezing my face off, I was sitting in a comfy chair watching Jon Pertwee fry some Autons. When, instead of sitting in a restaurant overhearing stilted conversations from other tables while ignoring the one at mine, I was lying on my bed putting together tiny Lego models and idly wondering who would win in a fight between my recently purchased Roboreptile and Sam's Jango Fett/Slave 1 Transformer. When, instead of standing about listening to fascinating facts about wallabies on the isle of Inchconnachan, I could sit with a laptop and type up notes for a Doctor Who fan film, wondering if it will ever come into being.
I'm going to have to wrap this post up now since I am again being rushed to bed inexplicably early on the basis that if I'm not, I'll be tired for my exams. In three weeks. That said, I think this has been a decent enough summary of my views on holidaying. Tomorrow is, I believe, my fiftieth post on TWToday. I'll have to find some time tomorrow to spend on that, after knocking off the huge amount of holiday homework that I've left untouched until now.
Also, Skippy remembered to post the Holiposts and seems to have remembered that today is Thursday, so he gets to live.
On an unrelated note, it turns out there is a use for that little shelf above a fold down bed:
posted by Alasdair Corbett at
11:03 PM
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