The Antichrist is In the Caravan
On the hottest day of the hot summer of 2003 - the day it was 104 degrees Fahrenheit, 40 degrees Centigrade - we arrived, in a heap of heat, at a campsite in the south of Brittany in France.
I know many places are hotter, but I had never been in heat like it, and never have since. I'm fine in the heat as long as I can get into the sea, or into a swimming-pool, and the campsite had a pool and was near the sea. So far so good.
But there was a problem with the caravan: the shower wasn't working properly, so we couldn't get into it while they fixed it. And our swimsuits were packed in the suitcase, which was deep in the boot of the car along with all the other paraphernalia - we had the Communist and my mother with us and had therefore brought most of the contents of their house including a couple of dozen umbrellas and a shovel in case of snow.
The job of telling us this Shower Disaster News fell to a young representative of the holiday company. Where he had gone terribly wrong was in having a lip piercing, and my mother had never seen one, and she decided the whole thing was his fault - which it clearly wasn't, and the poor man was obviously doing his best - and she decided there and then that he was a Very Bad Thing.
We lay under the shade of a pine tree all afternoon whilst the heat blasted us: I have never, before or since, felt so hot that I simply couldn't move. Emily was feeling slightly unwell but I was sure that it was just the heat.
Finally we got into the caravan. The shower leaked. My mother decided the solution to this was to spread newspaper all over all floor surfaces, so that we could tread soggy newsprint into everything. We tried to humour her.
Lip-Piercing Man kept coming to try to sort it out, and we had to keep him away from my mother in case she killed him.
Then, a couple of days later, Emily and Mum encountered him again on their way to the swimming-pool. To go to the pool you needed a wristband and one of these had got lost. Lip-Piercing Man asked them for a deposit of three euros or something for a new one. My mother told him this was ridiculous and said she wasn't going to pay it. Emily wished that the ground would open up and swallow her.
Later on, Emily and I were returning from the camp's shop. As we approached our caravan, we heard raised voices, as poor Lip-Piercing Man made one last, valiant attempt to get the shower mended, give us a year's supply of free wristbands and do anything, anything in his power to pacify my mother.
Emily looked at me solemnly.
"The Antichrist is in the Caravan," she said, in a phrase which has passed into Franks Family History.
Oh, we enjoyed the rest of that hot, hot fortnight in August 2003: we went on the beach, swam in the sea and Emily went horse-riding and we swam in the pool. But my mother never forgave Lip-Piercing Man for his perceived crimes and failings and gave him a stern Schoolteacher Glower whenever we encountered him.
Five summers later and Emily has lots of piercings, including lip-piercings. My mother has got used to them. Time is a great healer.
I know many places are hotter, but I had never been in heat like it, and never have since. I'm fine in the heat as long as I can get into the sea, or into a swimming-pool, and the campsite had a pool and was near the sea. So far so good.
But there was a problem with the caravan: the shower wasn't working properly, so we couldn't get into it while they fixed it. And our swimsuits were packed in the suitcase, which was deep in the boot of the car along with all the other paraphernalia - we had the Communist and my mother with us and had therefore brought most of the contents of their house including a couple of dozen umbrellas and a shovel in case of snow.
The job of telling us this Shower Disaster News fell to a young representative of the holiday company. Where he had gone terribly wrong was in having a lip piercing, and my mother had never seen one, and she decided the whole thing was his fault - which it clearly wasn't, and the poor man was obviously doing his best - and she decided there and then that he was a Very Bad Thing.
We lay under the shade of a pine tree all afternoon whilst the heat blasted us: I have never, before or since, felt so hot that I simply couldn't move. Emily was feeling slightly unwell but I was sure that it was just the heat.
Finally we got into the caravan. The shower leaked. My mother decided the solution to this was to spread newspaper all over all floor surfaces, so that we could tread soggy newsprint into everything. We tried to humour her.
Lip-Piercing Man kept coming to try to sort it out, and we had to keep him away from my mother in case she killed him.
Then, a couple of days later, Emily and Mum encountered him again on their way to the swimming-pool. To go to the pool you needed a wristband and one of these had got lost. Lip-Piercing Man asked them for a deposit of three euros or something for a new one. My mother told him this was ridiculous and said she wasn't going to pay it. Emily wished that the ground would open up and swallow her.
Later on, Emily and I were returning from the camp's shop. As we approached our caravan, we heard raised voices, as poor Lip-Piercing Man made one last, valiant attempt to get the shower mended, give us a year's supply of free wristbands and do anything, anything in his power to pacify my mother.
Emily looked at me solemnly.
"The Antichrist is in the Caravan," she said, in a phrase which has passed into Franks Family History.
Oh, we enjoyed the rest of that hot, hot fortnight in August 2003: we went on the beach, swam in the sea and Emily went horse-riding and we swam in the pool. But my mother never forgave Lip-Piercing Man for his perceived crimes and failings and gave him a stern Schoolteacher Glower whenever we encountered him.
Five summers later and Emily has lots of piercings, including lip-piercings. My mother has got used to them. Time is a great healer.
posted by Daphne at 10:34 am
4 Comments:
That was the summer I got married and thousands died in Paris. We had wedding photos in the park featuring my 8-months-pregnant sister, in July, standing for hours. We had brought her a chair but she didn't use it because of, er, not wanting to be any trouble, or something.
We just missed you, Daphne, as we were there in September. I laughed at the shovel for the snow. When we moved to Bristol from Crewe, many years ago, my dad used to keep a shovel in the kitchen during winter. My friends used to think it was hilarious.
my mother takes a king sized duvet with her on every trip - even if she is just coming to my flat for the weekend...
LOL, great story!
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