What is one of your favorite holiday memories?

Holidays give you the chance to step outside of the day to day. Different holidays evoke different kinds of memories. We have been fortunate over the years to have had many holidays and many different kinds of holidays. When I first read this question, it immediately took me back to family holidays as a child.

We were fortunate in being able to take holidays then. Mum would take us to Alyth to stay withour grandparents and there are a whole ream of happy memories from those visits. Dad used to join us for a week and we went as a family to Carnoustie for a beach holiday. The memories from there are of playing in the sea and sand and at the paddling pool.

The days seemed endless until it was time to go home and everyone was tired and ready for bed. One memory that stays is of an ice cream parlour we used to visit. It was cool and dark inside and smelled of vanilla and coffee, but they also had a glassed in sunroom that opened onto the garden at the back. The chairs there were wicker and the tables glass topped and I remember us all sitting there.

I vividly remember the feel of the cushions and the wicker edge on the back of my legs as I dangled them from the chair. Mum and Dad would have the milky coffee that everyone drank then, but it was real Italian espresso coffee, I remember the thick white china cups and saucers…... and we kids would be allowed to have glass dishes ( not cones) of homemade Italian Ice cream. For all of us to be sitting together with nothing else to do was so removed from any part of our usual day to day life that it was magical.

I remember Dad daydreaming about what it would be like if he could give up his job and buy the ice cream parlour and we could all live there as if we were on a permanent holiday… we know life’s not like that, but the joy of daydreaming and of imagining the out of reach stay with me.