never again is what you swore the time before

family holidays have hazy memories of being at the beach, visiting attractions and being bored and irritated by each member of my family in turn. this one was no different, apart from the fact that at the age of 30 and with my boyfriend and cat in tow, you'd think i'd have a little more control on the situation. in fact this (almost) smashed away at every happy family holiday memory with a sledgehammer. i don't want to sound ungrateful, my parents paid for us to go, got us our own separate caravan and very very nice it was too (the poshest caravan i've ever stayed in or even contemplated existing) and it was nice getting away from everything for a bit, not even mobile phone reception worked down there. however, it was difficult trying to have a holiday with my boyfriend and a family holiday all at once. my nan, who has always cheerfully come along to every holiday and enjoyed herself seemed to have entered this new state of old age grumpiness that made her not want to enjoy anything, just smoke fags and get pushed around in a wheelchair and wind my dad up. it is not very difficult to wind my dad up these days, all sorts of small things seem to make him angry. my mum's favourite thing is to go on walks with the dog but that was hindered by the fact that the old lad hasn't been very well of late so can't go too far. my auntie was there for the ride too.

the car journeys were the worst part, the number one thing to guarantee my dad at a high stress level is driving and traffic. the looong 4 hours there and 4 hours back was a challenge to say the least. we have discovered that the cat does not like travelling. at all. although he did LOVE the holiday, far more than any of the humans, he was like a different cat playing in the garden and chasing butterflies. the best days for travelling were when the weather looked ok and when my dad knew where he was going. the days when we would stop somewhere pretty (such as mousehole) my nan would remark that she wanted to "stay in the car" prompting my dad to drive on somewhere she might like (such as an out of town marks and spencer) were the worst. dealing with my family can be a bit of a strain, their little eccentricities are at least understood by me, but having will there made me painfully aware of how difficult they can be at times. i think the bottom line was that we wanted different holidays. will and i wanted to hang around with the cat and go on walks and eat ice cream and get up late and my parents wanted us at their house by 8am to go on a drive and find something to do.

some of their choices were great though, most of them the same as they ever were in that part of cornwall. the GWEEK SEAL SANCTUARY had expanded and unfortunately lost the old welsh dude who showed us around when i was 9, it was nice to know that he sold up his business to begin it and forced it into life. its now quite massive, with about 4 areas, where i'm sure it just had a couple when we were there but he sold it off shortly before he died a couple of years ago. we were told some juicy gossip from a fruity type driving the "train" (a landrover with some trailers) that he would have hated it cos he hated his daughter's husband and now he's got all the money. they're still doing excellent work though and we got introduced to ray the brain damaged seal and sally, the massively antisocial seal who hates everyone there. the performing seals were like the two old actreses in CORALINE, hamming it up for the audience. it was an ace day out.

GOONHILLY EARTH STATION was pretty good too. it was fantastic getting a glimpse into the past when telstar beamed down to goonhilly and that was our first taste of the future. its amazing to think that now facebook and twitter allow people to connect all over the world, it really boggles my mind. so quickly we've learnt to adapt all this technology and i have no idea how it really works, to me its still all magic.

one day we went down to ST IVES via HAYLE estuary, which was very beautiful in that bleak cornish way. we got a park and ride train to st ives which made me and steen very happy. my nan commented how she hadn't been on a train since the 1980s. for shame. i do get frustrated when there is a train station about 5 minutes walk from where she lives, she's just afraid to go anywhere on her own. she's always been aghast at how i travelled to american (and back!) on my own but she's even similarly shocked when i said i went to the cinema on my own. people just didn't do that when she was young. st ives was pretty as i'd remembered it (vague plans made with steen to go back there on our own and stay in one of the b&bs on the sea front on the cobbled streets) but it was packed with tourists. happily dad said for us to go off on our own for a bit and we ran around the sea front and tried to get into the TATE ST IVES but it was expensive. i've been before and although it is interesting its not as worth the money as an exhibition in TATE MODERN and the same sort of price.

a couple of ruined days of trying to go places we went before but had changed: the amazing model train museum, a much loved memory for me and my family (my dad loves model trains, my brother loved the fact that they all had moving bits and bobs, i love small scale bits and bobs, i have a bit of a thing for things out of scale). we went to a crappy "craft centre" instead which was notable for the fact that they made their own chocolate (ok) had a horrid gallery assistant who told us off the moment we got in there and a very nice knitting lady who i had a chat to about STITCH AND BITCH and YARN AND YARN. good! helston town centre was not the most amazing place to go to on a very wet monday morning, although i did find some brilliant cat birthday cards (cats dressed up in a number of different situations). we also had some of the best pasties of our lives in a great bakery in a little alleyway.

now is the time to address pasties. i love pasties, as does my family. when we left cornwall i would admonish anyone for eating pasties that were not baked IN CORNWALL (just one of my many demonstrations of nationalist leanings in primary school). it is good, hardy food and also great fast food. i like any type of pasty but if a choice is there a traditional meat and apple is best. steen does not see the appeal of pasties and turned down many a pasty on this holiday. idiot.

the best thing about the holiday was the location. praa sands is a nice little beach and i have great memories of being there as a child (terrifying memories of being caught in the undertow when i was a kid and being sick all night due to the sea water notwithstanding). it was lovely to walk on the beach at the end of the day and even nicer to sit and have a pint of rattler (cornish cider) in the SANDS bar and play air hockey with steen (and win, despite him claiming that he was the air hockey king in the 6th form). we had some great evenings down there. playing with frankie and exploring the garden was also quite magic, he loved it.

the final day was a good one. we went on a drive out to porthcurno and stopped at the NATIONAL TELEGRAPH MUSEUM. after being at goonhilly this was even more of a tech fest. it was the sort of technology i can actually understand with wires and buzzers and suchlike. we had a brilliant talk from one of the former engineers that put it all into context. i learnt things like that the mid atlantic ridge, the mountains under the sea was found by the hms challenger. these men thought that they would just take 2000 miles of cable and lay it on the sea bed, not knowing anything about the sea bed previously and discovered that it had mountain ranges and was incredibly deep and suchlike. he also told me that those cables are mostly still under ground today. we also heard how the original french - british cable to connect up europe that began at dover was dug up by a french fisherman in calais because he thought he'd found an amazing form of seaweed that had gold in the middle! amazing! i love stuff like this.

anyway, it was a lovely way to end the holiday, it was a shame it wasn't as hazily golden as i had hoped but we did have fun and it was nice to get away from cardiff for a bit. but i was happy to come back to our own house and a bit of a lie in the next day was very welcome.