Chapter 30

1985 - 2007

Holidays

1986 - John & Maria TURNER at Mount Teide Summit

Because we took a lot of holidays in the years that we lived at Redcap, I have decided to allocate them this separate chapter and sub divide it into Years.

1985 - Lanzarote.

1985 - John & Maria TURNER

This was our first attempt at organising ourselves with an overseas   holiday and we chose Lanzarote because one of our guests recommended it.  It was also potentially a good choice because we needed to go after the holiday season and we knew that the Canaries would probably have decent weather in October and November.  We stayed in Puerto del Carmen in La Penita Apartments which  left a lot to be desired but was handy for the beach.  We had a really good holiday and met some lovely people with whom we spent a lot of time.  We did go on a tour of part of the island and the photo shown was taken on that tour with Haria in the background.

We hired a car for a few days and explored the west of the island including a nudist beach at Papagayo.  I have to admit that we kept our clothes on, but Maria spent some time talking to a large Norwegian lady who obviously had not bothered to pack a swimsuit.  On the way back, we missed a turning and, although not actually lost, we were on a track that was definitely not made for an Opel Cadet.  At the end of two weeks, our first proper holiday abroad by ourselves was deemed to be a success.

1986 - Tenerife. 

1986 - Paraiso Floral

View from our room

We chose Tenerife for the same reasons as we had chosen Lanzarote in 1985.  We also chose the cheapest deal that we could find; the deal meant that we had no idea where we were going except that it was in the south of the island.  On the aircraft I was  sitting in a centre seat with Maria by the window.  In the aisle seat sat a young woman with her boyfriend on the other side of the aisle.  As we started to taxy, she confessed to me that she was frightened of flying so, whilst we took off, she held my hand, rather tightly.  The flight was uneventful and once we had landed and got our luggage, we found the bus that was to take us to our mystery accommodation.

1986 - Paraiso Floral

Maria TURNER

The young  woman, whose name was Dawn was there with boyfriend Tom.  We were taken, eventually, to Paraiso Floral, which was a small development north of Las Americas and still being built as can be seen by the photo taken from our room  In the end, we enjoyed the it there even though there was nothing to do except swim in the pool or the lido.  There was a shop and a restaurant so we didn’t starve.  We decided to hire a car for a few days so that we could explore the island.  We managed to get to the top of Mount Teide one day and have the photo heading the chapter to prove  it.  These days it is more difficult to reach the top because of visitor restrictions.

1987 - Lanzarote.

1987 - Arrecife

John TURNER

Our second and, so far, last holiday to Lanzarote was not nearly so  successful.  We stayed once again at La Penita, which hadn’t improved, with plenty of cockroaches living with us!  This holiday the weather wasn’t so good and we had some heavy rain, which got into the apartment through the patio doors.  To be fair, there was plenty of sunshine as well and we did  get in some swimming and sunbathing.  Once again we hired a car and explored places that we hadn’t been, including the capital, Arrecife.  We weren’t impressed with some of the northern beaches which seemed to be infested with sand flies or something similar.  We did go on a bus trip to Timanfaya (Fire Mountain), which was OK but nothing spectacular.

1988 - Sussex and Kent.

1988 - White Horse, Winchelsea

We had decided that, as 1989 was our 25^th Wedding Anniversary, we  would do something special and so in 1988 we decided to save some money and, instead of going abroad, we went on a family history research trip to where my parents had lived in their early lives.  Some of the photos that we took appear in various chapters of this book.  I cannot say that this trip  was an unqualified success and it ended up with a visit to Maria’s brother, Paul, in Whitby, which is a little off track for the paragraph heading.  We did enjoy Winchelsea despite the weather, which, as can be seen in the photograph of the White Horse pub where we stayed, was a little damp.  Because we had intended moving around a lot we had acquired a little booklet called, inappropriately as it turned out, ‘The Best Bed and Breakfast in the World’.  Well we did try some of them but some did not exist and others, well the less said the better!  Nevertheless, the trip was a success in as much as we found most of the addresses that I was looking for and photographed them for posterity.

1989 - California, Arizona and Nevada.

1989 - Redcap

Maria TURNER

For our 25^th wedding anniversary Maria and I saved up and spent three weeks in America.  Two of those were spent staying with friends in Mesa, Arizona but before that we had a week to ourselves in California. 

We decided to fly from Gatwick and to that end, Annette took us to Wadebridge in her car where we caught a bus.  The photo shows Maria posing by Annette’s Talbot ready for the off.  The holiday did not get off to a good start when we had a delay at  Gatwick because there was a problem with the aircraft involving a four-hour delay.  I seem to remember that it was a Thrust Reverse problem.  We finally took off and having collected more passengers in Manchester we set off across the pond.  At some stage we were told that, because of the delay, we could not now go straight into Los Angeles because the airport was closed at night, probably due to noise regulations I guess.  We landed in Winnipeg and spent a most uncomfortable five or so hours sitting around on hard wooden seats with very little food or drink.  When we eventually climbed back on board, the engines started and then shut down much to our disgust.  We were told that there was an Oil Pressure problem on one of the engines.  An engineer arrived and one hour later we were off, landing in Los Angeles at about 07.30 instead of 18.30 the previous evening.  Now we had a stroke of luck because American Immigration was an interesting experience even then.  We had booked a hotel in Los Angeles but, because of the delay, we were unable to use it.  Some people in front of us obviously had a similar problem and when asked for an address to which they were going, they could not give one, which was causing lots of grief ending up with them being ushered away into a room, presumably to deal with someone higher up the chain.  When we got to the desk, instead of trying to explain the situation, we merely gave the address of our friends in Arizona, to whom we were going a week later, and everything was fine.  Having got out of the airport, we found our way to the Car Hire office and off we drove into the Los Angeles traffic at about 09.30.  I had driven in America before so was used to the ‘wrong side of the road’ and automatic gear boxes but, after no sleep all night it was definitely an interesting experience.

1989 - Carmel

Maria TURNER

A few days later we were in San Francisco, having driven up the Pacific Coast Highway, via Carmel.  We decided to have a boat trip around the Bay although we did not get off at Alcatraz.  We sailed close by the Golden Gate Bridge and under the Oakland Bay Bridge.  A day and a half later we were in Los Angeles Airport waiting to fly out to Arizona when news of the Loma Prieta earthquake came on the television.  A 50-foot section of the Oakland Bay Bridge, upper level, had collapsed onto the lower deck.  I know that only one person was killed by that collapse but we had been a little too close to that bridge only two days before!!! 

1989 - Long Beach

Maria TURNER

 We drove back to Los Angeles down the I5 and how I wished that the hire car had Cruise Control.  300+ miles with my foot permanently on the accelerator was no fun!  Whilst in Los Angeles, we visited Universal Studios, which we thoroughly enjoyed and also went on board the Queen Mary at Long Beach and saw the ‘Spruce Goose’, which is now (2014) preserved at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum.

When it came time to travel to Arizona, we arrived at the airport to find the news about the earthquake in San Francisco, however this didn’t affect our flight too much and so on we went to see Jean & Floyd GORE who we had last seen in 1974.  For one of the weeks that we were there, Floyd was working and so we didn’t do too much.  We would probably have been better off by ourselves in California.  The other week however we were kept quite busy with trips out on the ‘Apache Trail’, the Grand Canyon, the Hoover Dam and Las Vegas.  Nothing can prepare you for the first sight over the edge of the Grand Canyon; unfortunately I was not feeling too well, which meant that I didn’t even consider a flight into the Canyon.  I thoroughly enjoyed the Hoover Dam, particularly seeing the generators; I am nor sure that I can say the same for Maria!  Whilst running across the road on top of the Dam, I pulled a calf muscle which had a marked effect on my visit to Las Vegas because I had to rest beside the pool at the ‘Sands Hotel’, where we stayed, for some of the time whilst the other three walked around ‘The Strip’.

1989 - Sands Hotel, Las Vegas

The ‘Sands’ was subsequently blown up on 26^th November 1996 as shown in the following video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQQlI5T7Occ.  I did manage to visit ‘Caesar’s Palace’ and some other places but I was certainly restricted.  One night and half a day is not long enough to explore Las Vegas but so it was and then back to Tucson before flying back to Los Angeles and on to London.  We caught an overnight coach back to Truro where Annette met us in her car, which refused to start until we pushed it around the car park!  What an end to a hectic 24 hours. 

1990 - Cyprus.

1990 - Cyprus

Maria & Annette TURNER

I did not go on this holiday because I was on detachment in Florida.  Maria decided that she and Annette would take the opportunity to have a holiday and chose Cyprus. I can't comment much on their time there but I believe that they enjoyed it and got a good tan.  Whilst they were on a day trip, they met our next door neighbours - small world.

1991 - Portugal.

1991 - Alvor Beach

We decided this year that we would have a change from the Canary Isles and found Club Alvorferias that looked OK in the brochures.  Alvor is about 50 miles from the airport at Faro and we were transported there in a bus that broke down so it took some time to get to our accommodation.  The nearest beach  wasn’t particularly close but was a very pleasant place to spend some time.  Whilst on this holiday we met Sue and Ian PICK with whom we still exchange Christmas Cards.  We hired a car for a week of the holiday and did quite a lot of driving around the area visiting Lagos, Sagres, Bravura, Silves, Villamoura, Armacao, Portimao and Cape St. Vincent.  Although we had some downpours of rain, we thoroughly  enjoyed our time and keep promising ourselves that we will return one day.

1993 - Tenerife.

1993 - Fairways Club, Tenerife

John & Maria TURNER
Marion & Merv COOK

This holiday was taken with Merv and Marion COOK, who were friends from Germany.  They had a timeshare in Wales, which they had exchanged for a two bedroomed apartment at the ‘Fairways Club’ in the south of the island and surrounded by a Golf Course.  Unfortunately the Greens and Fairways were in bad condition because, we heard, they had been watered with seawater to save money.  Nevertheless we did have a couple or rounds and one day treated ourselves to 18 holes at Golf del Sur.  I say treated  because, as I remember it, the cost was approximately £40 each.  The very south of the island tends to be very windy so we hired a car and, as well as touring, did a lot of our sunbathing in Las Americas and our eating in Los Cristianos.  The holiday was memorable for me because one evening in the Club, I  drank far too much and spent much of the following day in bed recovering.  I cannot remember ever doing that before or since.

1994 - Fuerteventura.

We thought that we would try a third of the Canary Islands and so ended up at Caleta de Fuste in Fuerteventura, which has a reputation for being extremely windy.  As it happened we spent two weeks there in October and the wind hardly blew at all although there was a storm that flooded the roads in Puerto del Rosario as we drove through.

1994 - Fuerteventura

Maria TURNER pretending to change wheel

We decided to hire a car because we didn’t think much of the beach in Caleta and we thought that touring the island would be good fun.  We initially found a quiet beach at El Cotillo but got fed up with that after a while and toured the island looking for  other places to sunbathe.  We eventually found a very quiet beach down towards Jandia.  This beach was memorable for the fact that, for the only time in my life, I went ‘skinny dipping’.  Mind you the beach, which was a nudist beach, was miles long and there was no one within sight.  By the time we found this beach we were on our third hire car.  the first one had a very badly cracked windscreen, the second had bald tyres, both defects apparently acceptable in Fuerteventura.  Thirdly we got hold of a Renault Twingo that was brilliant.  We managed to reach Corralejo, Antigua, Betancuria and Pajara, the latter three involving driving on some very interesting roads! 

1995 - Florida.

This holiday was taken in order to attend the wedding of Andrew to Mary MULROONEY.  It turned out to be a traumatic experience.  Before the wedding we stayed in a motel in Kissimmee, which wasn’t one of the best.  The wedding at Cypress Gardens went off without a hitch.  We had booked a driving holiday around Florida with pre-booked hotels and the day after the wedding we left and drove to Palm Beach for a night’s stay after which we left for the 140 mile drive down the coast for our next stop at the Sheraton Hotel at Key Largo.  I, in all my wisdom decided not to take the shortest route and drove down the coast road toward Miami Beach.  Shortly before we reached Miami, I was feeling like a rest and we stopped in a beachside car park at Hollywood.  After a short stop resting on the beach, we went back to the car and opened the boot to find that it was empty.  Panic ensued whilst we looked around to find out why we had opened the wrong car.  Unfortunately we hadn’t; we had been cleaned out whilst we took our break.  We had only what we stood up in.  Fortunately I had my wallet with a credit card and Maria had her handbag with my passport in it.  We also had about $20 in cash.  After some hassle, we reported the theft to the police and got a Crime Number with the comment that we would never see any of our possessions again.  I drove to the nearest Mall and tried my credit card in a cash machine.  Wonder of wonders it gave me some money so we bought the essentials and drove down to Key Largo.  We walked into the reception at the Sheraton with our two poly bags of essentials to be met by a very cheerful receptionist who immediately greeted us with the favourite American expression “Had a nice day?”  I am not sure that either of us cried but there were some fairly unfavourable comments.  When he heard the story he disappeared for a while and then came back with a key for our apartment.  When we found it, we had been given an upgrade to the Sheraton Suite.  Shortly after that some complimentary snacks arrived.  We were treated very well including getting a complimentary meal in the restaurant.  

1995 - Sheraton Hotel, Key Largo

Maria TURNER in very pensive mood

Anyway we had this huge apartment  with a huge great wardrobe and absolutely nothing to put in it.  We also had a double bath and a balcony onto the private beach.  I won’t go on too much but the rest of the holiday was not much fun.  The photograph of Maria on the balcony of our hotel room probably gives some idea of how we felt.  I rang American Express and with the help of them and Annette in Cornwall, who found out our Travellers Cheque numbers from the Post Office, we were immediately reimbursed with $550.  The travel company representative came to see us and took a note of everything that we had lost and also rearranged our schedule so that we could get back to Orlando a day early in order to get Maria’s passport replaced and our flight tickets organised.  When we finally got back to Orlando, we met up with Mary and Andrew to find out that Andrew had lost his wedding ring in a Water Park!

There were a couple of problems to be sorted when we returned.  My travel insurance didn’t cover cash, jewellery and cameras whilst away from a hotel and the company also wanted a police report.  I gave them the Crime Number and they said that they would have to wait for a report from the police; fortunately they eventually changed their mind when I gave them the report from the travel company.  They eventually paid out the full amount of the claim after I had to point out to them that I had paid an extra fee so that there was no excess to pay.  Don’t you just love Insurance Companies!  On the other hand, we held household Insurance with the Prudential, which included valuables away from home up to the value of £1000.  When I contacted them, I was paid £950 within 48 hours so I did love the Prudential.  We had borrowed my next door neighbour’s video camera for the wedding; this had gone with everything else but, as it was quite old, my neighbour chose to accept its value in cash and I was able to pay him more or less straight away.  The thought of ever going back to Florida now fills Maria with horror.

1996 - Spain.

1996 - Mijas, Spain

Maria TURNER & Marion COOK

Merv and Marion COOK invited us once again to join them on a timeshare holiday.  This time it was to the Matchroom Club at Mijas.  The two  bedroomed apartment was beautiful and overlooked one of the two Golf Courses at Mijas.  Merv and I played quite a few rounds of golf but it was in July and very warm.  Fortunately the course has sprinklers on the fairways and they worked non stop so, to cool off, we were able to walk through instead of around them.  We  had a really lovely holiday tinged with sadness because Marion was in remission suffering from cancer.  She actually looked very well despite having no hair although the wigs that she used were brilliant.  I think that the photo I have shown is one of my favourites of two great pals.  We went out to a meal one evening and eating at the same restaurant was Lonnie Donegan, who was one of my childhood heroes.

1997 - London. 

October 1997 - Kensington Palace

We went to London on a short break shortly after Princess Diana’s funeral.  We did not go specifically because of that very sad occurrence but the event took over our thoughts.  We visited Kensington Palace and were struck by the silence of the place  amidst all the people and flowers.  Amazing.  I wish that I had the words to describe our feelings

1998 - Lake District and Scotland.

This was our second year in succession without an overseas holiday.  We were invited to stay with Andrew and Mary in their Married Quarter at R.A.F. Leuchars in Scotland.  As there was a fair distance to travel, we decided to have a look around some of the Lake District first.  We found a small hotel and stayed in the Honeymoon Suite but that was nothing to shout about.  We did spend a complete day sailing around Windermere, getting off at one time to take a short trip on the ‘Lakeside and Haverthwaite’ Steam Railway.  I have no memory of anything else interesting happening.

1998 - Aonach Mòr Cable Car Station

We did do some touring whilst in Scotland, visiting Edinburgh, Anstrother and much further afield including taking the chair lift up Aonach Mòr, which is close to Ben Nevis and Fort William.  The drive back from there passes through some spectacular scenery but I am  afraid that I got into trouble because I managed to sleep for a large part of it.

1999 - Tenerife.

This particular holiday turned out to be quite significant for us, and not in a particularly good way.  We had a friend with a timeshare in the Palm Beach Hotel in Las Americas who suggested that we might like to use it.  We took up his offer and it was a very good holiday with excellent accommodation.  The problem was that we decided that it would be good idea to own our own place and so we bought two weeks in the Beverly Hills Club (BHC) in Los Cristianos.  We have had very many good holidays using our apartment and others when we have swapped it.  Unfortunately the costs have escalated to such an extent that we have spent a lot of time trying to rid ourselves of the encumbrance.

1999 - London.

In the September of 1999, we had a few days holiday in London with our friends Dot and John WASTELL.  We did this because both couples fancied seeing a couple of shows and spending some time looking around the sights of London.  As ex-forces personnel I was a member of the Union Jack Club, which we used as our base.  It was very convenient for us, being close to Waterloo Station and having covered parking.  On this occasion John drove and I navigated through the maze that is London.  We had a very good but hectic time, including a river trip to Greenwich to see the Cutty Sark and the newly built Millenium Dome.

2000 - Tenerife. 

2000 - View from Apartment F302, B.H.C

The first of two holidays in Tenerife this year was in our apartment in the Beverly Hills Club.  The apartment had one bedroom but slept six although four was a much better number because there was no need to use the sofa bed.  The only problem  with the apartment was that it was up about 90 steps from reception.  It had a large balcony and an unrestricted view out over Los Cristianos.  The photo shown is perhaps not in the best direction but does give an idea of the great vista.

2000 - Hollywood Mirage

Top Pool

In the November we arranged another holiday, this time only for a week, with our daughter Annette and fiancé Clive THOMAS.  We stayed at the Hollywood Mirage in a glorious two bedroomed apartment overlooking one of the two pools.

2000 - Los Cristianos

Flooded Streets

  This particular holiday turned out to be very unusual because it poured with rain and flooded Los Cristianos.  Fortunately the weather recovered and we did get some sunbathing in later in the week    

2000 - London.

2000 - Millenium Dome

Maria TURNER

This was obviously a busy year for holidays because once again we went to London in September with Dot and John WASTELL.  Because it was now into the new millenium, we visited both the Millenium Dome and Wheel, now the O2 Centre and London Eye.  Whilst the Dome is a magnificent structure and we enjoyed our visit I would have to quote a newspaper reporter who said that “It doesn’t really know what it is”.

2000 - Millenium Wheel

John & Dot WASTELL

 Maria & John TURNER

  It tried to be all  things to all men and whether or not it achieved that is a matter of individual opinion.  However, if anyone wanted to write a thesis on travel through the ages, this would have been a great place to start.

2001 - 2004 - Tenerife. 

2000 - Los Cristianos, Tenerife

John TURNER & John WASTELL

Dot Wastell & Maria TURNER

In 2001 we used our timeshare; this time our friends Dot and John WASTELL came to spend one of our two weeks with us.  The only memorable thing about this holiday was the fact that we chose to go on a whale and dolphin viewing trip on a fairly small boat.  We did see  a couple of dolphins and some whales but Dot hates being on water and never moved from as close the the centre of the boat as she could get.  We still do not understand why she agreed to the trip in the first place.  The photo was taken before we left the safety of the harbour.  Between 2002 - 2004 we had more timeshare holidays, mostly in the Beverly Hills Club but with one visit to the Palm Beach Club.  Nothing very exciting happened; we continually tried to sell our timeshare weeks but ended up with an extra one instead!

2004 - Isle of Wight.

2004 - Needles, Isle of Wight

John & Maria TURNER

I cannot remember the exact circumstances of the decision but as part of our 40^th Wedding Anniversary celebrations, we had a week’s holiday with Dot and John WASTELL in the Isle of Wight, which was perhaps not the best  choice for November.  John drove, which was good for me and, although the weather was cold, we did have some dry days with bright sunshine as shown by the photograph of Maria and me at ‘The Needles’.  Overall we had a pleasant time including a visit to Osborne House.  We were staying  in a rented house at the south of the island and it was here that we had one unexpected incident.  The living room was upstairs and three of us were relaxing shortly after moving in.  Dot had disappeared downstairs and it was a good while before we decided that she had been missing rather a long time.  Investigation showed that she was locked in one of the bathrooms.  It took a lot of banging and fiddling to get the lock to release and we decided that locking that door was not a good idea.

2005 - Italy.

2005 - Peschiera

John & Maria TURNER

By 2005 Andrew and Amy had settled themselves in Italy and Amy’s parents , Gill & John, and us shared an apartment with Andrew & Amy on a campsite beside Lake Garda, close to Peschiera.

2005 - St. Mark’s Square

John & Maria TURNER

Gill & John LAZARUS

  We did a fair amount of  travelling during the week that we were there, including a trip by boat around the Lake and a very pleasant day in Sirmione.  We also spent a    day in Verona and another in Venice, where us parents were persuaded to run across St. Mark’s Square scattering pigeons so that Amy could practice her photography skills

2006 - Queen Mary 2.

2006 - Queen Mary 2 - Breakfast Time

John & Maria TURNER

Lesley & Pete JOHNSON

Friends of ours, Lesley and Pete JOHNSON were quite keen on cruising holidays and had decided to take a trip to America on board the QM2.  They asked us if we would like to join them and we readily agreed.  This was not a typical cruise, just a five day crossing of the Atlantic so that the ship could start a more typical cruise around the Caribbean.

2006 - Queen Mary 2

John & Maria TURNER

When we originally booked, we were due to be away for our Wedding Anniversary but for some reason the voyage was delayed by a week.  Our Wedding Anniversary had meant that there were some small     bonuses for us and these we still received including champagne in our room.  The voyage started at Southampton so we had to drive there and stay overnight at a small hotel where we were to leave the car.  The following day the four of us got a taxi to the docks where we boarded.  That procedure was quite easy although a certain amount of queueing was necessary.  We found our way to our cabin, which had a sea view and then started to find our way around; this was quite a task as the ship is enormous and I am sure that we frequently went in the wrong direction.  I do not wish to go deeply into the voyage itself, which was uneventful, except to say that the weather was, unsurprisingly for November, not great and we did not spend much time on deck until the last couple of days.  Everything about the ship we enjoyed from the food to entertainment. 

The problems really started when we reached Fort Lauderdale where we had to disembark in order to fly back to Heathrow.  American immigration is always a long process but with that many people at the same time, it seemed to take for ever.  We were then taken by coach to a hotel somewhere near Miami where we had lunch.  The trouble was that the hotel did not appear to be prepared for the influx so more chaos ensued.  From the hotel it was another coach journey to Miami airport.  From memory this airport was one of the scruffiest I have ever encountered.  We were to fly back to UK on a Boeing 747 and unfortunately we were allocated the two centre seats in the centre section of seating meaning that neither of us had direct access to an aisle.  After an uncomfortable 9 hour overnight flight we landed at Heathrow and then had a long walk to catch a coach to Southampton.  It was then a taxi to the hotel to pick up the car and a five hour drive back to Newquay.  The entire journey home certainly took the shine off the enjoyment of the voyage.  We have never been on another cruise.

2007 - Italy.

This was the year that Andrew and Amy were married in Orvieto as mentioned in Chapter 29.  We went to the wedding with Annette & Clive and afterwards spent a further week in Italy, staying near Lake Corbara and visiting Andrew & Amy at both their rented and own house.  It was an enjoyable time with an interesting time trying to make our wishes known in the restaurant attached to the accommodation, where only one person spoke English and we, of course, could only come up with about five words of Italian between us!  We also revisited Orvieto to remind ourselves of the lovely day that we had at the wedding.

Lake Corbara

2007

Amy & Andrew TURNER’s new house