Why My Holiday Was So Brilliant (if aged 8 1/2)

I had a brilliant holiday.  I went with mummy and daddy and our friends.  It was a bit boring to start with as mummy and daddy drove round France a lot, but when we got to the boat I swapped two Pokemon cards before we even started moving, which was great.  Daddy got cross that I was in the way when someone was showing him round the boat, but that didn’t take too long.  He let me drive really early on, and I think I did better than him, because when we got through the first lock he started panicking and ran down into the boat to switch things off and on again, saying “the engine cut out” and looking really excited.  When I got up on deck everything was going again, although we were really close to the weir by that point, which was exciting.

We had lots of bread and cheese, which I like, and we walked round a boring village, which was all shut.

The next day I got a bit more driving, which was great, but daddy took over from me again when we did a lock, and then when we were on a boring straight bit, which I could have driven on, he got the engine all wrong again.  He started swearing a bit and shouted that someone should try to stop and start things again.  Someone did, but the engine still didn’t come back.  He went up to the front of the boat and waved a boathook about shouting something about being about to hit a tree stump in the water.  We bumped into something and then he threw the anchor down in the water.  Someone phoned the boat yard man and we had more bread and cheese.  I like bread and cheese.  After a couple of hours the man from the boat yard came in a van, but was on the wrong side of the river (which was silly of him), so he had to get a little boat out of the van and row across.  I thought he was going to fall in, which would have been funny, but he didn’t.  He tried switching the engine on, and it worked.  Daddy was quite cross.

We went to a few more villages, mostly in the rain, and mostly shut.  They didn’t have any boring coffee shops, so I didn’t have to wait for mummy and daddy, which was nice.  We had some pasta, and some pizza, both on the boat, and I swapped some more Pokemon cards.  I did some more driving.  We had more bread and cheese.  I like bread and cheese.

We didn’t do much for the next two days.  Things were mostly closed.  We had some steak and chips, which I also like, and I had some coke.  Then the engine started beeping and said something about emergency power, which sounded like a spaceship.  That was fun.  Daddy was cross again, and we stopped for lunch (bread and cheese again – hurrah!) and daddy phoned the boat yard again.  They arrived, but took ages looking at the boat switching things off and on again.  This time it didn’t start, which daddy thought was a good thing for some reason.  They started taking bits of my cabin wall out, which I didn’t like, and they took a seat out of the main room, which meant there was a dark hole there.  It looked interesting, but mummy told me not to go near it, and we couldn’t carry on our game in case things fell down it.  It started getting cold with the heating off, so we eventually had supper, which was sausages.  I liked these sausages, and they were in nice bread.

Eventually we got things working again, but my cabin lights and bathroom lights didn’t work, which was annoying.  The DVD player in my cabin stopped working, too, so I couldn’t watch anything any more.  Boo.  We didn’t go anywhere that evening, so we played some games.  Much better than driving the boat along anyway.  We were promised a free meal to make up for being stuck, which was supposed to be the next day.  We were just on our way to it when something started beeping, which meant we had to turn up the volume on the DVD player in the main room so we could hear the end of Despicable Me, which was funny.  We got moored up, and switched everything off, but the beeping continued.  Daddy got all sweary again and poured a large drink.  Someone called the boat yard again, and we couldn’t get to our free meal, which was annoying.  When the engineer came daddy was a bit rude and left him the key and told him we were going for a meal.  We had a great meal, with steak and chips again, and another coke.  I got tired, but mummy let me play with her ipod, so it was still good.  We had lots of bread and cheese as well.  I like bread and cheese.

When we got back to the boat daddy switched the water on and it made a big noise and the water went all spluttery.  Daddy just sighed and said we’d switch it off to go to bed, but that meant I’d have to ask if I wanted the toilet, which was annoying.  We got back to the boatyard the next day earlier than I think daddy was planning, but he kept sighing and saying it would be best just to give the boat back.  When we got back the water was still all spluttery and loud, and so a man came and looked at it again, and opened the big hole in the main room again, which now had a pool of water at the bottom of it.  That seemed bad.  I know boats aren't supposed to be full of water.  They said something about it spraying water over the engine too.  Daddy had another of his drinks which smelt funny.  Like aniseed balls.  He sighed a lot.  We went out and had pizza, which was great.  Kind of like bread and cheese.

Anyway, that was our holiday, and I think it was brilliant, whatever daddy says.