The Time I Went On A (not so) Great British Holiday

It was the last week of university and everyone was beaming with excitement. “One of the toughest years you could ever experience” a quote taken from a former student during our induction (couldn’t have been that hard if you passed it I thought to myself).  But nevertheless we were here and most of my friends had made it, minus a few casualties along the way. The A team (don’t ask) were in high spirits going into the back end of the student year.

After a few drinks at the graduation ball reminiscing about some of the epic moments we had enjoyed together, the excitement was all too much and our routine of counting down the days to the end our placements had back fired. Turns out we were not counting the days to end of our placement but instead to the start of our adult lives. Oh the irony. The end of our student lives was over as quickly as it started. It couldn’t be, could it? How could we leave it like this!?…”Lets go on holiday together” bellowed one person,  “Yeah lets go surfing, it’ll be amazing” rattled a drunken Irish accent.

But where? “Devon!”, exclaimed another. “Devon?” I mutter under my breath, slightly confused and disappointed. “I’ve got a mate down there, he loves it!” and with that, it was settled. We were going surfing in Devon. How I got caught up in this whirlwind I’m still quite perplexed but screw it, I was IN! There were 3 seats in the back of the car and my long legs and I would be occupying two of them.

The next 3 weeks I waited in anticipation, as I had never been surfing, nor had I ever been to Devon. I knew this would be a memorable trip, but why, I had no idea...

Slept the whole journey, "Are we there yet?"

After our second night I sat in the log cabin also known as the shed at this point (literally because it felt like we were sleeping in a shed) questioning why I felt so miserable. This wasn’t a feeling I was familiar with. It wasn’t the 7 hour journey, it wasn’t the over crowded shed, it wasn’t the fact I had to walk half a mile to take a shower,  it wasn't the Stag and Hen do’s of the local pond life which seemed to never end in the local pub, it wasn’t even the fact that 3 nights before I had been In Ibiza racing buggies around the buzzing streets of San Antonio and drinking champagne at boat parties. No, it wasn’t any of those things.  It was the feeling of being constantly cold!!!! Cold, cold, cold! 

The type of cold that doesn’t leave, the type of cold that lingers in your bones, the type of cold that seizes your body and takes your soul for ransom, rendering even my most entrusted thermal undergarments useless and staring at the floor in disappointment, unwilling to look me in the eyes because they know they have let me down and there is nothing they can do about it. The type of cold that makes you question your existence in this cruel world. I was a man on the edge.

A rare sunny day in Wolacombe...

...It didn't last long

But as you know too well through Hollywood, no tales of adversity are complete without an uplifting end. And although Woolacombe is a long way from Hollywood, a very long way in fact. Some may even say it’s an insult to have them in the same sentence. My uplifting moment came as I lay 225 miles away in my central London flat directly in front of a electric heater whilst it blasted its thermal rays upon my weathered skin as I snuggled into a goose feathered blanket cradling a cup of peppermint tea.

I realised the light at the end of my tunnel came through those 3 people who I crowded into a car with. I realised it came from the comfort of my friends. Those rainy nights and brisk mornings whereby we looked up at the sky from the shed and saw a bright sun gleaming down on us, for us to sit and question the solar cycle...“You are up there, why don’t you work? Why wont you make this place warm? What have we done to deserve this?

I literally lived in this jumper

The trip was made enjoyable (bearable) through my friends. Their clothes kept me warm, their drinking games kept us upbeat and their spirit meant that we all bonded through the struggle. There was always a joke to be had and a person who was happy to be the butt of it for the enjoyment of the others. 

So overall it was a great experience and an excellent team bonding session. However when drinks are raised and someone has another bright idea to go on holiday I'll either suggest a warmer climate or will quietly back away into the darkness and do a Homer Simpson.