Memories

I love the smell of rain. In the city it's mixed with diesel, especially when you're waiting for a bus on city road.


When I was a kid we had a caravan that was shared between my entire family, not like normal people would with a time share arrangement, it was more like 'it's the school holiday's lets all pile in!' I'm not joking we were known to get 14 people into 9 berth caravan along with 3 dogs. Among the grandchildren the boys out number the girls meaning the girls were always guarenteed as much privicy as you can get in this kind of overcrowding, we had our own room, when I was very young I shared with Ann she is 6 years my senior which is a huge difference when you're 9 & 15 and when I became the hooligan staying out till all hours I shared with Ann's sister Laura who is 7 years my junior. Having so many peple in a small space meant we had to spend most of our time out doors, this was in the South coast of England in the 80's & early 90's it wasn't always pleasent. But we (the kids) loved it, with so many of us there was always someone to play/fight/plot with.



The drive there was always full of anticipation and I rarely fell asleep unlike my brother who managed it on most trips. As we were the smallest family (Dad, myself and my brother-Mum never came) we had the duty of taking my grandparents, which meant there would always have to be a certain amount of Irish music played on the way. Usually mostly Irish music, my Mum called it diddly-diddly music, if she'd only come with us we wouldn't have had both grandparents in the car and probably would have got a bit more capital FM than we ever did.