Victoria Williams: 0027

The Holiday Diaries

My family's holiday destinations are always chosen at random from a hat. It works like this: My parents write each possible destination on a slip of paper, fold each piece of paper into four, or maybe two, scatter them liberally into the hat, and draw the slip that their fingers find the most tempting.

My siblings and I have never seen this hat. We are never permitted access to it, nor do we contribute to the possible destinations included in it. Once, in a rare attempt to convince us of its existence, my Father emerged from the bedroom carrying an indistinguishable shape in his arms, shrouded in a long black cape; insisting it was the hat; allowing us to feel its contortions beneath the material, to convince us of its form. My brother and I enjoyed this game. Last time it had turned out to be our baby sister. But she, now grown to the age of 6, found it more than perplexing.

Anyway, 2003 was no exception to this ritual, and once again our holiday destination was to be "Norfolk!" As my parents exclaimed in mock surprise.

You may – if you’ve been around here before – have seen these diaries in their lengthier, more un-edited form. Well that’s all gone now. Forget about them. I’m trying to censor as much of my adolescence as possible.

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15th August 2003

"Dear potential burglar/s. Greetings. I am in Norfolk. Should you wish to steal anything from my room, I would ask of you only one favour in return. Please take the 1987 Dot Matrix printer, which has been gathering dust on top of my wardrobe for the last nine years. Thank you."

I am currently packing in preparation for the annual family excursion to Norfolk tomorrow. This outing will be much like any other, except it will last a week, and requires more luggage. I am using a dark blue suitcase to transport mine. Plastic frame. Canvas body. Last employed by my sister on a school trip and still bearing her laminated nametag, which I shall later rip off in an elaborate gesture to mark the case's acceptance as one of my possessions.

As everyone knows, there are two categories of packing into which everyone fits. And I dither between the two. Last year, during my anally-retentive phase, I carefully listed and categorised every item of clothing I owned (in this very notebook no less), and then sub-categorised them by weather-suitability, devising a complex checklist so that I had three outfits for each feasible weather condition.

This year I have taken a more bohemian approach. I packed the pile of clean clothes that has been amassing in the corner for two months now, ever since I promised myself I'd start tidying them up. I also threw a selection of pants in among them, including a green ill-fitting pair with a blood stain that nothing could remove. Unhappily, it has now faded to a more suspicious brown colour.