Here is the writeup of our family holiday, during which we passed through places with names such as 'Waterley Bottom', 'Giggleswick' and 'Wigglesworth'! The cast are me, my mum, my dad and my two younger brothers, Joseph and Fred. In case you're not sure who 'Harriet' is: that's my real name, which I'm using in this writeup because my family don't call me Riona.


Signs we saw in various pubs:

'This may come as a surprise to you, but your fellow diners do not wish to hear about your colostomy.'

'Husbands and wives do not hold hands or grope each other in public. People having a bit on the side do. It is obvious, embarrassing and silly. Please control your hormones.'

'Should a hand reach up out of the toilet, you are advised not to shake it.'



– Fred had developed a great deal of interest in lucid dreaming, so we spent some time discussing our dreams.

Harriet: I once dreamt that Fred had died in an accident, years ago. I was really upset by it. I think I called home straight after I woke up, just to make sure it wasn't true.
Mum: Oh, yes, you did!
Joseph: I once dreamt that Fred died in an accident and I just came everywhere.


– One of my dad's aims on this holiday was to track down places where our ancestors had lived. Mum pointed out that some cousins she hadn't seen in decades owned a bookshop on our route. Dad was extremely reluctant to drop in on them.

Mum: You're so interested in finding out where my relatives who died hundreds of years ago lived; why can't we visit my living cousins?
Dad: I'm a historian, not a sociologist!


– We went to see the Giffords Circus production of War and Peace, which was great fun. It introduced me to the joke in the title, which is my new favourite joke.

In one scene, a character gave a monologue about how Moscow had been abandoned in the face of French invasion, then declared, 'But I will stay and fight!'

As he left to clear the stage for the next part of the performance, a very indignant child in the audience exclaimed, 'He didn't stay and fight!'


– At one point, Fred gave Dad a seemingly spontaneous hug. It turned out that he was trying to steal Dad's phone from his inside pocket in order to play something called 'PewPew'.

The beginning of a limerick composed later, when Fred was playing this game and Joseph wanted a go:

Joseph: There once was a game known as PewPew...
Fred: Which was only for me, not for you-you.


– Here's a great juxtaposition I just discovered in my notes on the holiday:

Drove through the Golden Valley at sunset. Incredible view. At one point the entire western sky looked as if it were on fire. Dad said it was like driving into Hell itself.

Saw a statue of a man spanking a ram with a walking stick.


– At one hotel, Joseph and Fred had to share a double bed.

Fred: Just to warn you, my erections are both rapid and unusually pointy.

Later that day, I entered the boys' room. Fred, dressed only in his boxer shorts, dodged out of sight of the door with a horrified 'HARRIET, THERE'S A LITTLE KID ACROSS THE HALL.'

I discovered upon further enquiry that this kid had opened his door as Joseph had walked into the room. Moments later, the boxer-clad Fred had opened the door, started to step out into the corridor, seen the child, done a double-take, retreated back inside and closed the door again, probably giving him slightly the wrong impression.


– Having breakfast:

Fred: Is that peanut butter?
(Mum, who is eating toast with marmalade, stops to stare at him)
Fred: (defensively) You can say 'no'!


– When we were passing through a village, Dad parked the car in heavy rain and herded us all out to look at a church. Mysteriously, what he had thought was the church turned out to in fact be the parish bowling green.

Having realised this, Dad went off in search of the actual church.

With the car keys.

In the bucketing rain.

With nothing but a wall for us to shelter behind.

On his return, five minutes later:

Harriet: DAD, YOU A WORD I'M NOT ALLOWED TO SAY.*

He cracked up laughing. Apparently he'd been chatting to some locals in a shelter when he'd suddenly remembered we didn't have a key. THANKS, DAD.


* Very early in our journey, Mum banned all usage of the word 'cunt' on this holiday. Joseph and Fred immediately decided that we should all be allowed to choose a word to ban; their choices were, respectively, 'wake' and 'up'.


– When Joseph was reading the map in the car:

Joseph: We're about to turn onto Nick Hilton's Lane, which was named after a famous local serial killer.
(How interesting! I file this away mentally. It's not until we're on the road itself that I realise, hang on...)
Harriet: It's not named after a serial killer.
Joseph: What makes you say that?
Harriet: Because - how would you know?
(pause)
Joseph: ...Google.
(pause. the car pulls up outside the Yew Tree Inn.)
Joseph: Ah, the Yew Tree Inn. So called because Nick Hilton used to bury his victims under a yew tree, and also the owner is another serial killer who hasn't been apprehended yet for tax reasons.

When Fred tried to read the map, meanwhile, he announced that the street listed as 'Warren Dr.' was called 'Warren Doctor'.


– When we were out on the rainy moors, Fred and Joseph began throwing golf balls around, challenging each other to hit specific things. Fred's golf ball landed near me.

Harriet: Shall I pick that up?
Fred: No. Actually, yes, do pick it up.
(I do.)
Fred: Joe, I won!
Harriet: ...wait, was the challenge to hit me?
Fred: No! Just a family member.

Later, Fred lost his golf ball and spent some time trying to find it again. 'I'm not worried about losing it. I'm worried someone else will find it and think we're just crazy bad at golf.'


– Owing to the amount of walking we did in dreadful weather conditions, we had a bag in the car for wet footwear. After one walk, when Mum was looking in the bag:

Mum: Oh, there's no room at the inn!
Fred: Huh?
Mum: I can't fit my boots in here.
Fred: Well, too bad. Jesus will have to be born outside tonight, by which I mean we're leaving your boots here, get over it.


– During a car journey, Fred spontaneously came up with a rap for the Sorting Hat. I wasn't able to record all of it, sadly, but here are some excerpts from the Sorting Rap:

'If you're good and loyal you'll go in places
like houses that are good for your faces
but if you're bad you'll end up in Slytherin
or places like Azkaban or Azkabin.'

'Professor McGonagall, where's your monocle?'

'He's got his dog Fang;
if anything kicks off it'll go with a bang,
'cause Hagrid's here and he's massive.'


– Also in the car:

Mum: Oh, it's too hot. Somebody open a window.
Joseph: Harriet, open your window.
Dad: (very defensively, and in response to no accusation whatsoever) I have not farted.


– During a discussion of cats:

Mum: They've got two bottoms, haven't they? One of which they pee out of.
Fred: Eurgh. They're like a girl.


– We went to Blackpool fairly late in the holiday.

Joseph: Hey, Dad, there's a Nickelodeonland here.
Dad: Can you ride Sabrina?

Here are my thoughts on Blackpool: don't go to Blackpool, guys.

Here are my mum's rather indelicate thoughts on Blackpool:

Mum: I've noticed there are two types of people here: the ones who look like me and the ones who look like pigs.
Joseph: Are you sure that's two?

Joseph, Fred and Dad, of course, ended up looking at the passers-by and playing 'Alison or Pig?' (Alison is my mother's name.)

Mum: Some of the young pigs are quite good-looking.
Dad: Well, some of the young Alisons are all right...

Later, when Mum was reminiscing about a hotel from our holiday last year:

Mum: The Alison House was nice, wasn't it?
Harriet: Better than the Pig House.


– Fred's description of the silk-making process: 'It's just a bunch of silkworms jumping around 'cause their arse is attached to a machine.'


– We had a stand-off with a ram on the moors. It came out of the rain, maaaaa-ing threateningly. We were all very unmanly. When it eventually turned away:

Joseph: YEAH, YOU RUN. ...oh, shit, it's getting its friends!

The next day, Dad claimed that he had not feared the ram. My brothers immediately began trying to establish what he did fear.

Fred: So you wouldn't be afraid if ten sheep came at you?
Dad: No.
Fred: Not even if they started killing you?

Fred: Would you be afraid of a hippo if you were in the water between it and its babies?
Dad: Er...
Fred: How about a hippo if you were riding it? How about a hippo if it was hungry hungry?

Joseph: Would you be afraid of a squid?
Dad: How large a squid?
Joseph: A squid the size of your hand.
Dad: No.
Joseph: A squid the size of your head.
Dad: Maybe. Getting there.
Joseph: A squid the size of you.
Dad: Yes.
Joseph: A squid the size of your house.

Joseph: How about a wild boar?
Dad: No.
Joseph: A wild boar. Wild boars have really sharp tusks and they gore you. They gore the fuck out of you.

Joseph: How about an Alaskan king crab?
Dad: No.
Joseph: How about an Alaskan king crab with a gun?

Fred: How about Voldemort?
Dad: No.
Joseph: Really? Avada Kedavra is his favourite curse.
Fred: How about a billion Voldemorts?
Dad: Yes.
Joseph: How about Saruman?
Dad: No.
Fred: How about a billion Sarumans?
Dad: Yes.
Harriet: How about a sandwich?
Dad: No.
Harriet: How about a billion sandwiches?
Dad: Yes.

Joseph: How about a really big tree?
Dad: Yes.

Fred: How about a drive-thru where they're out of fries?
Dad: No.
Joseph: How about a drive-thru where there are too many fries?
Dad: Yes.

It is possible, I'll concede, that some of my dad's later answers were not entirely serious.



By the way, if you ever find a golf ball in a blackberry bush in the Lake District, it is ours. Well, sort of ours. Fred found it in a cluster of trees next to a golf course. I suppose it's technically stolen.

(If you missed them and you're interested, most of the limericks we composed on this holiday are in an entry over here.)