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| At School before our trip |
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| Denise |
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| Lynda |
So this small part of my life remains deeply imbedded in my
memory, so much so I have never visited Wales again with the exception of
picking up a tiny Sheltie puppy from the back of a car on the other side of the
Seven Bridge.
I don’t know which parent organised it but I would say with
absolute guarantee that it wasn’t my mother whose organisations skills don’t
run to this. It was decided that going
on an adventure holiday for a week in the summer would be a good experience for
four girls, one being a kind of friend at the time, Denise Gosheron, a good
friend at the time, Lynda Fulton and my younger sister, Linda. An organisation
I think fairly new on the scene at the time called PGL.
I think it was Denise’s father that took us to Wales on a
lovely sunny day where we were to spend a week in a tent beside Lake
Llangorse. I remember being bemused by
the sudden language change as we crossed the border and indeed the sudden
alphabet change, suddenly all my suspicions on grammar rules came to
fruition. My English teachers had been
lying all along; either that or I am actually Welsh. Being dyslexic it was nice to note that a whole section of the
United Kingdom suffered under the same fate.
A cheery wave from the delivery dad and of he sped in his
flash Jaguar as if being chased by flesh eating zombies. Only years later did I realise why parents
left their kids with such gusto if an opportunity arose for other adults to
look after them. We were frog marched
to our tent/wigwam which had a concrete floor and was obviously there on a
permanent basis. My question in my head
was ‘they have already got foundations, why not go the whole hog and put a
small house on top’, much more comfy’.
As I look around our tent I did wonder how much fun this would be. I know I love the outdoors but I was and
still am not the ‘sleep wherever I lay my head’ sort of person. Even at this age I liked my comforts. I’m probably more able to cope with
discomfort now than I was then oddly.
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| The only time I put this stupid hat on |
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| Yep we were all looking good.... |
We were given our itinerary for the week; Monday was sailing
in the morning and pony trekking in the afternoon, Tuesday canoeing then
sailing, Wednesday pony trekking and the caving/pot holing. And so it went on till pick up on Saturday.
It dawned on me how much water was involved in these
activities…now you must understand my talent in any water sport is very
limited. Firstly, I was nearly 10 before
I learnt to swim and by swim I mean doggy paddle, by 16 I could do the
breaststroke and I could dive but very badly.
I have a healthy respect for water in the manner of fear. It only takes a small problem to make me
completely hysterical if in water and anyone trying to help gets used as a
human ladder by me. I don’t think my
children will ever forget our trip to Disney Land and the ‘swim with the
sharks’ section. Basically a small man
made pond with baby sharks and beautiful coral to view while snorkelling in wet
suits. It started well till some water
went in my snorkel at the same time I spotted the baby shark, which I felt,
wasn’t much of a baby. Panic ensued
with me standing on the coral and ripping my snorkel of and crying. Disney helpers swam over to guide me back to
the side but I wasn’t having any of it and it all got a bit ugly, even my then
6yr old son tried to calm me down but with the flailing arms of his mother
looming he decided to carry on with his pleasant swim.
Anyway, I digress….
Around 5pm on the first day it began to drizzle with rain
and this was the ongoing theme for the whole week but at the time we didn’t
know Wales.
Day one, after the initial joy of finding ourselves without
parents we teetered about looking around our new home, tent cold, tent not very
comfy, tent wet, tent messy within a few hours. Linda and I shared one and Denise and Lynda shared another. Visited main complex, was given outfits,
outfits not becoming but better than my grandmothers hat that for some reason I
found packed in my bag, Grandmother obviously concerned about my head staying
warm. I wore it once and a picture was
taken. We were all taken to the lake
and told to get in a little sailing boat along with half a dozen other
kids. It began to rain more
heavily. I learnt absolutely nothing
about sailing; think I might have had one go at steering the tiller in all the
time I was there. If there was any
instruction I hadn’t been listening. I
felt sick almost from the moment I stepped on the boat, the others? Probably my
sister Linda learnt something because she just learns stuff.
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| I am clearly over the moon with the chance to do some sailing in the rain.. |
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| and so are they.. |
Afternoon, yeh! Pony trekking. All us had our own ponies and you can see in the 70’s we were not
safety conscious, hats were around but not deemed important even if you had
never ridden a horse before. It
continued to rain. Now spending money
to send us pony trekking was a bit like taking coals to Newcastle, with the
exception of Lynda we were all in the Pony club and in fact all in the county
team. We all quickly got a bit bored
and began attempting dressage on these poor trekking ponies, then a bit of
hanging back so we could get in a canter to catch up, then we began looking for
little bushes to see if we could get some jumping in. Trekking leader hadn’t
had our intensive training and soon gave up trying to manage us. Scenery amazing, plodding along very
boring. I will say that by the end of
the week the ponies were responding to the way we rode them and were quite
bouncy by the end of the week.
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| Look no hats! |
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| Well Linda looks happy at least, it didn't rain for 30 mins! |
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| Nice views |
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| Linda doing her girth up in an unconventional manner |
Day two, cannoning. Hideous! First we had individual kayaks and once in our teachers attempted
to teach us how to roll. I sat there
arms crossed staring at the teacher who I might add could only have been about
22yrs old and clearly a student earning some summer pin money. I absolutely refused to even attempt to roll
my kayak because I didn’t want to DROWN as I pointed out to him. Much reassurance went on but he was on the
land and I was in my little plastic spoon wobbling precariously glaring at
him. I was told it would be better if I
learnt to roll but as I had no intention of getting wet and would rather die in
an accident than deliberately he gave up.
Lynda was very good at rolling her canoe, unfortunately it wasn’t deliberate.
She just couldn’t stay upright and every time she began to fall she would
shriek then down she would go. Missing
for seconds under the canoe then cam up spluttering. In fact most of the lesson was spent staring at Lynda doing lots
and lots of 360 degree turns. I found
it very funny till she began to move nearer to me; she threatened to grab my
spoon for support, terror set in. My
dia threats didn’t hold her of for long and I suddenly found out how to use the
paddle. I got behind Denise and watched
Lynda take her down.
Afternoon sailing in the rain – hell.
Day three, we get chatting to a neighbour in the tent near
us. Can’t remember her name but she was
18yrs old and although friendly clearly had other intentions regarding her
holiday as a single young lady and I say lady but not in the conventional
way. We being 16 thought all activities
had to be attended and despite loathing ¾ of them we attended. She being 18 had intentions of more than one
of the ‘trainers’ all being men in their early 20’s. We hadn’t noticed her before for one very good reason, that and
the fact that one teacher (whatever they were) had been missing. He had been gone for 2 days, well when I say
gone…the pair of them had not come out of her tent for two days, no food no
drink and I’m not sure they had even bothered to go to the washing
facilities. We thought the tent was
empty. We found this very amusing and I
being very innocent did wonder what they could be doing in all this time. I didn’t actually realise that sex could be
repeated on a continuous loop. When she came out and we got talking I did ask
her if this lad was her boyfriend and she laughed and said, “No, my boyfriend
is at home where I live”. I was
horrified; evil people only did infidelity surely? This was the first time I realised that I didn’t have to stick to
the rules set out by my upbringing and that if I didn’t I would not be struck
down by lightening. She cam pony
trekking with us one afternoon, a quiet girl with a dry sense of humour. I went of her when a new lad moved in for a
couple of days because I thought she was being unsociable and besides…she was
stealing all the good-looking teachers.
In fact she was being far too sociable.
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| The sex fiend |
That afternoon a select group including us were told we were
going pot holing and I was over the moon.
No water sports hurrah! Two of
the fittest blokes ever took us to a cave and we were all geared up with lights
on our safety hats and we had become miners! At first it was fascinating,
climbing over rocks, squeezing through tight gaps and we all followed
blindly. We climbed up crevasses and
rested on a ledge so the lads could get out their tins of tobacco and have
smoke. We chatted for some time then
one lad said we had to go, as he was worried about the water level because he
knew this cave filled up at high tide. We looked down and sure enough the floor
was now knee deep in water. Slight
panic ensued in our guides “Everyone down NOW, we have to get out”. The water quickly became quite deep and I
began to clutch at the wall in an attempt not to get too wet but that didn’t
work. I really began to moan when it
was up to my chest, it was icy water.
The lad with the tin of tobacco was determined to save this and eventually
all we could see of him was an arm holding up his tin. By the end we were neck deep and wading and
going just about as fast as we can. We
all climbed out sodden and freezing with teeth chattering we got into the jeep
and back to camp. The weird thing was
that at no point do I remember feeling scared and for someone who is a tad claustrophobic
is odd. But anything was better than
being on that lake.
Day four, a trip around the lake in a kayak. This did not go well. I found I could only canoe in the direction
of the tide, well not exactly a tide but the way the water was flowing. Fine on the way out then we turned to come
back. I got stuck in a kind of
whirlpool under some trees over hanging.
I got shouted at once the girl taking us realised that cajoling wasn’t
going to work. I was prepared to spend
the rest of my life under that tree in that Kayak, I could see no way out. Everyone else got passed but not me. I began to cry and moan. I was there for 20mins. We got a new teacher in the afternoon.
Afternoon, two man canoes. Quickly I bagged going with my
sister Linda. There was no way I was
going to pair up with my friend Lynda, she rolled. Linda and I watched Denise
being thrust under on a regular basis and I told Linda her life would not be
worth living if this happened to us, we gingerly proceeded along the lake, her
scared of me and me scared of the water.
A wonderful day all round.
Day five, more sailing and pony trekking and the music in
the main complex. Sailing by Rod
Stewart playing all week. Can’t help
thinking of this holiday whenever I hear this song and a shiver goes up my
spine.
The other thing that sticks in my mind is the extreme unfriendliness of the Welsh people who when visiting a shop and before us talking would be conversing in English, as soon as they realised we were English would revert to speaking Welsh and broken English. I would like to think that doesn't happen so much now.
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| Escaped to go to the local shop |
Did not meet any nice boys as considered two young, too
innocent and slapper in the tent next door was a far better prospect.
