Steves next parts...

Here it be...the blog episode of the week...it's Steeeeve...

After getting ratarsed at my nans wedding reception on a glass of red wine!!, thoughts turned to the summer hols Dad told me he was taking Graham and my cousins Micheal & Tony on holiday to Italy taking in France, Germany and Switzerland and would i like to go with them, i said of course { i had never been abroad before} but i'll have to ask my mum, which i did, and surprise surprise she said yes which was an absolute shock after the last holiday fiasco, the holiday was to be in the middle of the summer holidays, so i took up a paper round to assist in my spending money situation, i managed to save the princely sum of £29.33 give or take half a pence this was about £60.00 less than the other lads' savings.

So the day came and we set off from Ulverston with us four lads, Nan and Doug and Dad and Mary, we were all crammed into a ford transit caravanette {cosy} it had all mod cons fridge powered by gas, sink with tap and a small cooker. we were travelling along playing cards with Doug for money, it was a game us lads used to play called "shoot" there was no skill involved whatsoever what you did was lay two cards face up on the table and you had to place bets on wether the next card turned would fall between the value of the other two cards so the smaller the gap in value the less chance you had of winning, if you passed your chance to {shoot} you had to pay 50p into the pot so the pots sometimes got quite high £7 or £8 pounds Doug loved this game 'cos he loved to gamble { horses, Bingo, football pools and cards } even though he did not win any of our games of "shoot" as I won two and Tony won three and mike and graham won 1 each, i managed to boost my spending money to £45.00 after the cards.

We arrived in London quite late around 10pm i was quite excited as i had not been to London before, even though it was dark!!, We were in London dropping off Nan and Doug who were having thier honeymoon in the capitol, when i said goodbye to my Nan she gave me a envelope and said "do not open until you get to Italy!" I said "Ok", we then set off to Ramsgate ferry terminal and we arrived at "stupid o'clock in the morning" very tierd and niggley, the ferry did not leave for five hours so we decided to get some sleep.....hmmmm..four kids and two adults in a transit, probably the worst nights sleep ever!

My Dads wife Mary was a very bossy lady and was prone to losing it big style over anything {actually still can if pushed}, we boarded the hovercraft at 06:30am the weather was a little breezy and i said i hope i don't get sea sick Mary said "don't be so bloody stupid you can't get sea sick in a hovercraft because it flies above the water!" i said "oh! alright" relieved i would not be sick, thirty minutes into the "flight" Mary was chucking up like a good un, i said "i thought you could'nt be sea sick on a hovercraft Mary" {chuckle, chuckle!} we arrived in france soon after and the lads and me soon got into the culture speaking fluent franglais like "Ave' vu cuppa mercy" it was a real laugh.

We camped overnight in france close to the swiss border i can't remember where exactly but it was very peaceful with lots of trees, one thing i do remember though is the toilet situation on the camp site they were unisex for one thing and the cubical had a hole in the ground and two bars on the wall for you to hold onto this was to be a whole new experience for me especially the aiming part of going to the loo!!.

the four of us lads shared a tent while dad and mary slept in the transit, when they fell asleep Tony and me would sneak out of the tent and nick thier ciggies and beers and have a party of our own, Tony and me were the rebels and graham and mike were the boring type no sense of adventure, we were the Motorhead to thier Abba
up for anything and we usually did!.

we were woken early the next day and Tony and me were grassed up by our respective brothers so we got a bollocking again but it was worth it!, we set off for switzerland after breakfast Tony and i took great pleasure in singing Deep Purple's Smoke on the water with guitar riff sound effects when we saw a sign for montreaux, then being told to shut up! {these adults were no fun!}, we stopped for a couple of hours and went on a trip on a boat on an underground lake and through some caves with the biggest stalactites and stalagmites i have ever seen very colourful, i had a wonderful time.

Some of the mountain roads through the swiss alps were really scary drops on either side of the road 'cos the road was on stilts on the side of the mountain but the views were really breathtaking, the best part was going through the seemingly endless tunnels, i was always fascinated by tunnels as a youngster.

we got to the swiss italian border late afternoon and stopped at a town called {forgive the spelling} Dommeldosla where we had dinner at a local resteraunt,
i played pinball for hours that night as their machine featured the Kiss and it played all their songs,afterwards Tony and I went for a walk and smoked some local fags we had bought i think they were called Morte' securo {sure death} we just loved the thrill of nearly being caught.
wow i think this will have to continue next week hope you like it.........Steve.