Childhood holidays

My childhood holidays in the 70s and 80s were eagerly anticipated and over too soon. 

They were carefree adventures so far removed from day-to-day life that they live large in my memory even today. 

Mom and Dad set the scene and carried the responsibilities; we just went along for the ride. We had to wait two to three years between trips, so they were a precious, scare commodity that we valued highly.

The best moment was finding your compartment on the train at Bulawayo station at the start of a Cape Town or Durban holiday.  The smell of the leather, green against brown wood panels and shining metal fixtures, as you packed your luggage under the bed and into the overhead stowage.  

3-day train trips from Bulawayo to Cape Town or Durban with breakfasts in sleepy remote karoo towns, games of rummy on the fold-down table over the Stainless-Steel basin and meals on white linen replete with gleaming silver cutlery in the dining car.

We loved falling asleep to the rhythmic sound and movement of the train. Or listening to faint voices and the crunch of footsteps on gravel while stopped at a siding in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. 

The rattle of a key in the lock would herald offers of coffee and toast and marmalade in the early hours as you peeped out through a gap in the blind to watch a sleepy platteland (country) town start its day. 

The first glimpse of the sea, the anticipation as you headed down to the beach for the first time with the salty ocean air in your nose and the sand between your toes. 

This ignited my love for holidays and still fuels my desire for the next one.

Indelible family memories that passed in the blink of an eye but will be with us forever.