The nightmare nine-hour car journey to Butlins

19th August 2022 Paul Chris Jones

Dear Diary. Morning campers! Hi de Hi! We're going to Butlins today!

There are five of us: my dad; my girlfriend Girlfriend; my sons, five-year-old 4-year-old and four-month-old baby 0-year-old; and, of course, the most important person, me. Plus my sister Corryn and her daughter Aurora are coming in another car.

I haven't been to Butlins in over fifteen years. My memories are the big white tent, slushie machines, two pence machines, dads drinking beer, moms smoking cigarettes, kids wielding flashing LED swords, and me knocking my brother's tooth out at the bowling alley. It wasn't my fault: he was standing right behind me when I was swinging the ball back, and the ball hit him right in his teeth. My mom had to drive him to an emergency dentist, which put a bit of a downer on our holiday, but now that I think about it, I only chipped his tooth, I didn't knock it out, so there's that at least.

Anyway, we're all getting ready to leave. It should be a three-hour drive.

"I've put the drinks in the little fridge," says Girlfriend.

What little fridge?

Oh. She means the cooler bag. She's from Spain, so English isn't her first language.

"Okay," I say.

Then we make some sandwiches and put them in the cooler bag too.

"Don't forget the cooler bag," my dad says, as we're leaving. I have 0-year-old in one arm and I'm carrying a suitcase with the other, so hopefully someone else will get that cooler bag. Hopefully.

9:30 am

We set off for Butlins. It's Butlins Minehead so there's a three-hour drive ahead of us. 0-year-old's asleep in the car seat. 4-year-old's awake. The sun is shining through the window and onto my face and arms. I have a feeling today's going to be a good day. I imagine us rolling up at Butlin's gates in three hours' time, with good old Billy Butlin himself coming out to shake our hands.

12:33 pm

We've been driving for three hours and we're stuck in traffic.

There are cars all around us. None of them are moving.

"This is the worst day of the year to travel," my dad says.

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"It's the long weekend, isn't it? The bloody bank holiday." (The bank holiday is actually next weekend but I don't correct him.) "It's all the families going on holiday before school starts again. Look at them all, bunch of tossers," he says, gesturing to the cars.

We should be at Butlins by now but we're only halfway there.

0-year-old's crying from the back seat so we stop at a service station. As we sit down at a picnic bench to eat, we realise we've forgotten the cooler bag at home. The cooler bag full of sandwiches that were supposed to be our lunch.

"They'll be sitting there all weekend now, going spoiled," mutters Dad.

We still have some crisps to eat though. And I've bought some nuts.

As we're sitting there eating — me eating nuts and everyone else eating crisps — a fire alarm goes off and the entire service station is evacuated. Hundreds of people spill out from the building onto the street. It sounds like I'm making this up, but it's real. Everyone leaving the building looks happy and cheerful, as though being evacuated for a fire is a great time.

In the end, there is no fire, and everyone can go back inside.

13:32 pm

We're on the road again. And we're stuck in traffic again. According to the satnav, we've only driven five miles in twenty minutes. That's a speed of 15 miles per hour. At this rate, it'll take us another four hours to get to Butlins. And that's on top of the four hours we've already been driving.

13:43 pm

There's only 36 miles to go before we reach Butlins, so it's not that far. On a good day, you can drive 36 miles in half an hour. But I think as we've already established, today is not a good day. At this rate, it's going to take us four hours before we reach Butlins.

Four-month-old 0-year-old's on the verge of crying so we stop at another service station. But Dad can't find a place to park. Every parking space is taken. There are cars everywhere.

"Fuck this!" Dad shouts. He turns the steering wheel, pointing the car at the service station exit.

But this plan fails: the exit is blocked by a line of non-moving traffic. Gridlock.

"THIS IS ALL CORRYN'S FAULT!!" my dad shouts. "NEVER TRAVEL ON THE AUGUST WEEKEND!"

I don't think Corryn made all this traffic appear.

But I blame her too. It was her idea to go to Butlins.

"It's definitely Corryn's fault," I say.

0-year-old's crying in the back seat now. Poor guy. He's been trapped in his car seat for hours.

"I'm getting out," I say. I open the car door.

Girlfriend and my dad both shout at me to get back in but I ignore them. I slam the car door closed. The hot sun is shining down overhead. The line of cars stretches off into the distance, like a metallic river. I start walking down the line of cars. None of them are moving.

Then the traffic starts moving. I spin on my heel and head back towards the car. But which one is my dad's car? With a jolt of panic, I realise I have no idea what my dad's car looks like. Absolutely no idea. I don't even know what colour it is, never mind the make or model. It's a problem of mine: I can never seem to notice or remember the detail of cars. I think it's related to my disinterest in football since both cars and football are traditionally things that interest men.

I walk back past the line of cars, peering in the window of each one, hoping to see the faces of Girlfriend, Dad, 4-year-old and 0-year-old. But no - all I see were strangers.

Then see a car turning into a car park for lorries. It looks like it might be Dad's car, so I walk over to it. The angry faces of Dad and Girlfriend glaring at me through the windows confirm that this was indeed Dad's car. I open the passenger door.

"YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE GOT OUT!" screams Dad as I climb back into my seat.

"Yeah, well, now you've parked, we can all get out, can't we?" I say.

"WE'RE IN THE LORRY CAR PARK!" Dad explodes. "WE CAN'T PARK HERE! WE'LL GET A BLOODY FINE!"

He drives the car about ten feet then we're stuck in traffic again.

"I'LL GET A BLOODY FINE NOW!" he shouts. "TWO HUNDRED POUNDS!"

"You don't know that," I say.

"THERE'S A SIGN UP THERE! AND A CAMERA!"

A sign says NO STOPPING AT ANY TIME UNDER PENALTY OF £200 FINE.

"I bet that camera's not even connected to anything," I say.

"OF COURSE IT'S CONNECTED! THEY'RE GOING TO GIVE ME A FINE!"

"They don't even know where you live," I say. "So how can they send you a fine?"

"THEY'LL USE THE BLOODY DVLA DATABASE! IT'S A DATABASE WITH ALL THE NAMES AND ADDRESSES! THEY'LL FIND MY ADDRESS AND SEND ME A BLOODY FINE!"

"Look, if they send you a fine, I'll pay it, okay?"

Dad doesn't look convinced.

2:40 pm

Because the traffic's so bad, Dad's decided to stop at a town called Burnham-on-Sea. As the name suggests, it's a town next to the sea. A town called Burnham. Burnham-on-Sea. The beach stretches on forever and CHRIST is it windy, my hat almost blew off my head just then.

A notice reads, "WARNING. Dangerous sinking sand and mud exposed at low tide". There's also a little image of a man trapped in the sand, halfway up to his waist.

This is a British beach, not an unexplored jungle. How bad can sand be?

So 4-year-old and take a walk on the beach. It's all fine, just a perfectly normal sandy beach, apart from some parts that look wetter than others. As an experiment, I try walking on one of the wet areas. My feet sink and disappear into the sand. This is mildly funny except when I pull my feet back out, my shoes are covered in gross wet sand. And they're my only pair of shoes.

The consistency of the sand is like a mixture of porridge and treacle. If I'm not careful, I'll end up sinking right into it, and when I finally climb out I'll covered in sand and the police will shoot me on sight thinking I'm a mud monster.

By the way, I remember reading about this man who had a quicksand fetish. He had a website full of clips of women getting trapped in quicksand. The clips were taken from all different movies. Well, he'd love this place. Just as long as he didn't really get stuck in the sand and died. Then he wouldn't like it.

Anyway, I get out of the sand, and we go and have lunch in a Wetherspoons. 4-year-old wants a hot dog, but Wetherspoons don't sell hot dogs, so we make do by ordering a sausage and a slice of bread.

5:50 pm

According to the satnav we were supposed to arrive at Butlins half an hour ago. However, my dad took a 'shortcut' and now we're stuck behind a line of cars leaving something called the "Dunster Show". According to Google, the Dunster Show is a traditional one-day agricultural show situated below Dunster Castle. According to my view of the traffic out the car window, it's a pain in the arse.

6:00 pm

We now only have two miles to go and the traffic is worse than ever. It's barely moving. I've noticed a pattern: the closer we get to Butlins, the slower the traffic moves. Which means that all these cars ahead and behind us are converging on Butlins.

I consider getting out and walking the rest of the way as it might actually be faster. I could even take 0-year-old with me, I'll carry him in my arms. But Girlfriend and Dad forbid me from doing this.