Holiday Memories.

When I was a small child virtually nobody we knew went abroad on holiday, except us!

Every year in August the car was packed up with four children, two parents and a heap of luggage as we made our way to Harwich to catch the ferry which travelled across the sea to the Hook of Holland. Once off the ferry we drove through Holland to Hannover in Germany to stay with my grandparents for our Annual Holiday.

How the six of us crammed into our grandparents’ flat which was two bedrooms, I will never know.

But how exciting it was for us kids. The city ran on trams, there was the huge Einreide Forest to play in, Herrenhausen Royal park and gardens to explore, and most exciting to us, Hannover Zoo where you could board little boats and be ferried round the zoo on waterways.

It was just so different to life at home and that’s what a holiday should be.

Every afternoon around 4pm we went out for Kaffe und Kuchen or giants ice creams. I will still opt for an Eiskaffe to this day. I loved watching the staff swirl the mountain of cream onto the coffee ice cream.

I never got on with my Opa. He was a miserable man but in hindsight I expect he wasn’t too thrilled to have four small children in his two bedroomed flat for four weeks.

But my Oma was gentle and kind. She seemed greatly amused by our antics.

The worst thing I ever did during one of our holidays was see a bowl of cherries sitting in the kitchen ready for after lunch and eating one every time I walked though the kitchen. When it came to dessert time, there was only a handful of cherries left to share amongst eight of us. To say I was in trouble would be an understatement!!

But for me the absolute highlight of these annual holidays was my Aunt Helga. She was beautiful, elegant and interesting. I adored her. She was a woman before her time. Never married, had a career as a teacher and chose to have a stream of affairs rather than settle down.

She took us to art galleries and museums. Hannover had department stores which seemed like palaces to us and we were always treated to something from the toy department.

Now, as grownups, my brothers and I have an Annual trip to Germany once a year and relive all those childhood memories. We walk up Dieckmann Strasse and look at the flat we spent all those holidays in, we walk to the end of the street and sit in the little playground we visited every day when we were on holiday and we always go to Kaffe Krupka to have our coffee and cake or a coffee ice cream.

Happy Holidays!!