We're off on holiday tomorrow! It may seem extravagant to have two going-away holidays in the same year (to the exact same place, no less), but as I've mentioned previously, our prior attempt earlier in the year was spoiled somewhat by worrying over a certain idiotic orange cat who had decided to explore the Great Outdoors the week before we went away.
I am pleased to report that Oliver is, as I type this, safely inside our house, and has given no indication he is going to escape. (I know, I know, he gave no indication that he was going to escape last time, but he doesn't even seem interested in sneaking out of the front door when we put the bins out any more, even.) This means that, barring any sort of major disaster which occurs over the course of the next 24 hours, we will be able to go away on holiday without any sort of guilt or unease, and just enjoy ourselves. (Hopefully no major disasters will happen between tomorrow and the 14th of September, either.)
I'm really looking forward to some time away. I'm looking forward to spending some time in the pool, for a combination of just relaxing in the water and actually getting a bit of exercise by, y'know, swimming. I'm looking forward to our spa day. I'm looking forward to our inevitable trip to The Pancake House, and buying at least one Massive Cake from the ParcMarket.
Center Parcs, in its various forms, has become rather special to me over the years, even though I know there are almost certainly plenty of reasons one could criticise it. And it all, as with so many other things in my life, extends back to my childhood and adolescence.
I forget exactly what year we first went to Center Parcs, but I do remember the trip itself. My brother was still living at home, and he brought his friend Alex with him. One of the most enduring memories of the trip was Alex, who fancied himself a bit of a womaniser, causing two girls to fall off their bikes by delivering a thoroughly Leslie Phillips-style "Hell-O!" at them as they rode past. My other enduring memory of the trip is the fact that, at the time, Center Parcs used those weird Dutch toilets where you poo on a little platform rather than into a bowl of water. Most disconcerting.
On that first trip, I was still pretty young, as I can determine from my brother still living at home with us, and thus I was still pretty nervous about things like water slides. I do remember going on "the slow slide" at the pool, which is the longer of the two, and enjoying it, but also being too scared to go on either "the fast slide" or "the big white slide", the latter of which is just a big wet slope made out of the slipperiest material known to man. These slides are all still present at the Center Parcs pool complex to this day, along with the Wild Water Rapids, which I did not go on on this first trip.
Some years later, we went on another trip to Center Parcs, and I took my friend Edd with me. This was partly as payback (positive) for his family graciously taking me along with them on a trip to Gran Canaria, and we had a good time. My enduring memories that time around are of being old enough to enjoy the slides a bit more, and having a great time on the Wild Water Rapids. A particularly vivid memory is of getting halfway down the Rapids, only for Edd to pop up from under the water going "Hoo-haa-haa!" (which is what we thought the blue SS guards in Wolfenstein 3-D said, rather than "Schutzstaffel", which you probably shouldn't shout in public) and pretend to machine-gun me. Good times.
I also remember an awkward conversation over breakfast in which Edd attempted to convince my Dad that bloody violence in video games was fine because "you just stop noticing it after a while". That, it turns out, was not the most convincing argument, but did not result in me being disallowed from playing games like the aforementioned Wolfenstein 3-D and Doom, even though I had historically not been allowed to watch 15- or 18-rated movies.
There was another trip to Center Parcs at some point where I went with my friend Craig, and my one enduring memory of that particular trip was seeing Savage Garden and Ray of Light-era Madonna on the television, and us both realising that we actually quite liked both of them despite historically having been "indie rock" boys.
Andie and I have now been to Center Parcs ourselves a number of times, and it still feels like a proper example of "being a grown-up" to go on a holiday like this by ourselves. I mean, I know we technically are both "grown-ups", but as I was talking about with my therapist recently, I still find it immensely difficult to think of myself as such. This is not an altogether unusual position to hold, it seems; no-one in this world really knows what they are doing, it's just some people are better at hiding that fact than others.
Anyway, tomorrow we are off for yet another excursion into the forest. I will continue to blog while I am there, as usual, but I may be quiet on the socials while I am away. It is nice to have a bit of peace and quiet — and this time around, it will be nice for said peace and quiet to not be interrupted by intrusive thoughts worrying about whether or not we are ever going to see our beloved pet again.
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