KJG Copywriting

As I’m staring out over the sea enjoying the peace, I listen to my family laughing in the background and it brings a huge smile over my face. I don’t remeber the last time we spent time together like this as a ‘proper’ family, well I do but it’s been a while. I turn to face them and see my dad with his arm around my mum, they are laughing at my younger brother and sister who are having a pretend arguement soley for the enjoyment of our parents.

We’re all adults and sensible enough not to go on the rides but we’re easily pleased and the fair has pretty lights and doughnut stalls.

As we wander around between the rides with our piping hot doughnuts, watching others families enjoy themselves, mum and dad never let go of each others hands and us kids never let go of an opportunity to have a pop at each other (with love, obviously). Since we have all been adults the pressure is off and it feels like being with a group of friends rather than parents and siblings.

We carry on our family day out getting crab sticks and welks soaking in vinegar (a very popular dish in the 90’s at the British seaside for some reason).

Mum won around 50,000 teddy bears on the claw machines, people were buying them off her, we had to use an old childrens buggy to carry them all! I did want to go on the beach but memories of my little brother on the beach for the first time stopped me. He thought the sand was coal and refused to get off mums knee, he screamed bloody murder until we left….he was only a baby at the time so things may have changed but I didn’t want to risk it.

We carried on past the fair to the pier, the entrance of which was full of those tacky seaside shops you can’t help but throw your money at. Mood rings, cheap clothes, pictures and any number of things made out of seashells that would not have been found on this beach but hey! Who cares we’re on holiday. It’s as we move past the front of one of these shops that I see mine and my sisters reflections, we are wearing matching outfits and I hadn’t even realised, bright orrange shorts and vest with luminous green trim (another reminder that this is in the 90’s, we looked amazing!)

Every now and again I look back to watch my parents, just making sure they haven’t gotten lost. The smile never leaves dads face, he has always been a family man and having us all together made him happy. Well it was either that or the bag full of fudge he was walking wround that seemed to get bigger every time I glanced over.

Any fudge would do but he is a rum’n’raisin man at heart.

We decide to head back to the campsite as its starting to get late, but, as we wait for the bus I notice something so obvious I can’t believe I hadn’t noticed it before…The sky has been black as night for the whole day. I look around a little confused but spot my mum smiling at me, so I go over and snuggle in next to her, instantly forgetting about the minor detail of the sky being wrong.

As we climb on the bus I sit with my mum but she turns to me and brushing the hair out of my face says ‘I’m sorry sweetie but I’ve got to go now, you need to go back to your dad’. I look up the bus and see him with my brother and sister on the back seat still laughing and joking. I head over to them and glance back at my mum, she is smiling as she watches us. Then I start looking over less and less but each time I do she fades a little more into the shadows at the front of the bus until she is gone.

My mum passed away in 2017 and this is a dream I had a couple of years later.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.