Carol’s Column

Holidays hardly happen

THE sand dune fell on my head.

Well, that's what it seemed like.

As I shook the sand from my eyes, hair, nose and toenails — my husband nudged me. Winked through his sunglasses, adjusted his sunhat and said: "Isn't it great being on holiday?"

"Great," I spat out the sand. "There's nothing like it."

True.

"Every Transvaal family needs a holiday at the sea," my spouse had announced a month or so ago. I think it might have been on a particularly trying Sunday when I'd shattered the diningroom window while shouting at the children.

"We all need a holiday — to relax, frolic in the sun, unwind, ease our weary bones in the sea, spend long, lazy days on a glorious beach."

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I gave the onions a stir, shut my eyes and saw it all.

The white beach, the sunshine, the elegant hotel room, the white-coated waiters and me relaxing with a long, leisurely drink. Aaah!

He came home beaming like a basket ball the very next day.

"The Lazars are going to the sea. I've found us a perfect little cottage on the beach."

OK, so who needs a posh hotel, seven-course meals, cossetting, luxury and constant attention? Me-me-me, I screamed silently to myself.

It took three days to pack the Kombi and the trailer.

"This is for a two week holiday?" asked the next-door neighbour. "I thought you were leaving the country," he added hopefully.

"Don't you think you're overdoing it?" my husband asked as he packed the 27th box of food.

Eventually, we were ready to leave. The trailer was laden, the fishing rods lashed to the side, the windsurfers strapped securely to the roof-rack, the dabchick on top of the windsurfers.

But there was a problem. "You've got to unpack some of those food boxes," snapped my husband. "It's obvious we're overloaded. The tyres are flat on the rims. I can't drive like that."

The day after school broke up we set off in early-morning darkness — a typical, happy family going on holiday.

"If you don't take your elbow out of my eye, I'll punch you."

"Move over, stop shoving and gimmee a sandwich."

"I've got to go to the toilet."

Yes. We were on our way.

It was only when we reached Uncle Charlie's on the outskirts of Johannesburg, that we realised we'd left son-number-one behind.

My husband, always quick to respond to an emergency put his foot on the accelerator and drove faster. "So, let him sleep," he muttered through clenched teeth.

"What, for two weeks?" I was horrified.

"Why not, he'll have a good rest."

In Klerksdorp, Jamie got locked in the toilet and it took six attendants, four monkey wrenches and finally a chopper to extricate him.

"Wouldn't it be easier to leave him and pick him up on the return trip?" asked my husband quietly. "It would save so much trouble."

We continued our travels to the sound of happy family merriment from the back of the car.

"Shuddup."

"Nicky's spilt the Coke."

"I dropped the egg mayonnaise filling down the seat."

"I hate you — I'll kill you."

At Bloemfontein, when we stopped for petrol, I received a shock when I found a young woman writhing on the ground. "Good heavens! Help!" I shouted, "somebody's having an attack."

She unlocked one screwed-up eyeball and growled: "This is no attack, lady. Have you seen the queue for the toilet?"

And funnily enough it was only at Donkerkop that we discovered we had an extra child in the car.

I noticed it when I handed out the banana and marmite sandwiches.

"Don't crumb all over the seat and if you feel sick do it in the paper bag," I said to five children.

Five?

We only have four.

I looked around again. They all seemed familiar.

"Hands up those that belong to me," I said. All five put up their hands.

"Do we have five children?" I asked my husband hesitantly.

He hates to be disturbed with trivia while driving long distances.

"Who knows?" he muttered gloomily. "You see, I told you we should have left Jamie in Klerksdorp."

A little later there was a pause in our journey.

"Don't you really feel as if we're on holiday now?" I shouted to my husband. He couldn't answer as his mouth was temporarily full of a spanner which he'd placed there while awkwardly trying to adjust the accelerator cable.

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"I mean — a journey wouldn't be fun without the little things that make car travel such a gas."

Such as the snapped accelerator cable, the flat in Colesburg, the blockage in Craddock, the overheated engine near Port Elizabeth.

We finally reached St Francis Bay after five days on the road.

"You know, it's an easy drive, it took us 13 hours to get here," said our good friend Rainer Scholz the next day on the beach.

"Ag, ja, no, well — I don't approve of fast driving," retorted my husband adjusting his sun visor and sucking in his stomach as a long bikinied blonde trotted past flaunting her knees outrageously.

The Eastern Cape was particularly hospitable to the Transvaalers. It rained, the wind blew relentlessly, the waves almost crashed the beaches away and the sky remained black and thundery.

"There's nothing like a holiday at the sea, is there?" said my husband yet again, his hands shaking with cold as he lifted a cup of steaming soup to his lips.

But it was only when I bought some boerewors from the local butcher that I felt at home.

"For you, Madam, a kilo of boerewors is R5,50," said the butcher as he handed me the wors. "Agh, it's usually only R2,50 — but we always put the price up for the Transvaal holiday makers. It makes them feel at home, you know."

I know.

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