It’s summer holiday time, everyone’s favourite season. We have sunshine (hopefully), we have freedom – so what’ll we remember most about summer ’17?? Some of my past hols have been more memorable than others – for various reasons. A small selection:
Best childhood holiday:
That would be the first year we went to Cornwall, when I was seven or eight. To a child used to the beaches of the Clyde coast, Newquay was a revelation. Cliffs! Beaches with caves! And that sea; those waves… And it was hot, too. Decades later, I still remembered the feeling of complete happiness you only ever have as a child.
Wettest holiday:
This could also be worst holiday; it wasn’t just the weather, though it rained virtually all day, every day. We were in Silloth, in the north of England, and I was about fourteen. I’d been allowed to bring a friend, which was the good part. The less good part was the weather and the fact that, back then, there was little for fourteen-year-olds to do in the area on rainy days. We spent a lot of time raising our eyes heavenwards… That was the year my mother bought a huge box of incredibly dry plain biscuits in mistake for cream ones, as well as a bottle of disgusting green syrup for us kids to drink. It wasn’t all bad, though – that holiday provided us with a lifetime of memories to laugh at!
Best teenage holiday:
I spent part of every teen summer on the lovely Isle of Arran, Scotland, with friends. It was amazing. The family owned a tiny cottage (which had once been a cow shed). We cooked with calor gas, and the only running water was cold. The loo was outside, 20m down a sloping path – murder when you had to get up in the night and it was black dark and raining. And it was quite simply the best place ever. The view was – and is – out of this world.
First holiday abroad:
That was the year I was seventeen, and my friend and I went on a youth exchange trip to Erlangen, near Nuremberg in Germany. We were with a crowd of about twenty other youngsters from all over Glasgow, and we drove there from Glasgow in a Parks of Hamilton bus, going through Belgium on the way. We stayed in the youth hostel (in those days it was girls on one side, boys on the other and Rottweilers in between…) and it was my first taste of continental sunshine and hearing a foreign language all around me.
Best adult holiday: I couldn’t possibly choose, so I’ll just point you to last year’s holiday with John Lennon and the upside down horse….
Over the next few weeks we’re having a handful of people visit the blog with posts about books set in different places. Some of the photos are amazing – I’ve collected a whole list of new ‘must-visit’ destinations! I’ll be back around the end of July, hopefully with lots to share about summer ’17 – have a good one!
linda huber 
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