Norfolk Holiday

Saturday 3rd July 2010



While on the road for the long journey, we've got used to regular toilet stop requests from Ed. For the drive to Norfolk, they provided him with an opportunity to flex himself beyond the constraints of the car seat. During long stretches on Lincolnshire A roads we took him at his word and were compelled to keep an eye out for suitable stops. Thus we saw the insides of working garages and used mechanics' industrial regulation soap; one garage owners hobbled from his adjacent house to his garage premises, only to have to tell us, with some irritation, that there’s a café place some miles down the road which we might try. We didn’t find the café but went on to use a hotel toilet (‘for patrons only’) and come out with Ed’s hands smelling of sweet mandarin and grapefruit hand gel.

Seven hours after leaving home we made it to our destination at a caravan site in Heacham, Norfolk. Jan had been at the helm of the steering wheel for this gruelling journey but she had not lost her discerning eye and immediately declared our caravan to be lacking child safety measures and the right standards of cleanliness. A furious call was put through to the reception who said that they would send around a cleaner. Shortly after this, Jan put another call through to the same people. They appeared to have decided to wrap things up an hour early and had called it a day. Not to be fobbed off, Jan marched in the direction of the reception, with a mobile phone chockfull of unflattering images of the caravan, trying to intercept our workshy frontline staff.

Back at the caravan with Ed and Sam, two cleaners had arrived. They looked like they had been briefed and their faces carried a premonition that they might be braced for a hard time. Neither of these had been the cleaner responsible for our caravan. I was stumped for a moment as I don’t do righteous indignation (‘Look at the state of this caravan! It’s disgraceful!’). The cleaners turned out to be attentive, going out of their way to get a stair gate. They were joined by the Head of Cleaning who was on her knees with the carpet shampoo cleaner. I later learnt that she had recently had a knee operation.

I went on to take Ed to the adventure playground on the site. He wanted to go on the swings but when I lead him away from one swing seat that had encrusted bird poo, he stood his ground and demanded to sit on this very swing seat. I tried to rub off off the bird poo with some wipes to no avail. When I told Jan of this, back at the caravan, she said ‘Well if its haredned why not let him sit on it?’ a statement which showed an end of day tailing off of her hygiene drive.