Holidays, escapes and everyday life

click photo to enlarge
Have you noticed how holidays are now frequently described as an "escape"? In some journalism and advertising the two words have become synonymous. There are travel companies that actually use the word in their company's name - "Escape Holidays", "Great Escape Holidays", "Island Escape Holidays". It makes them sound like organisations dedicated to springing prisoners from their incarceration, an image that the word "getaway" in connection with holidays only reinforces. The use of such language has troubled me for a while because of what it implies; namely that the everyday life of a person, couple or family is so damnably dreary, hard, depressing or lacking in joy, that a holiday is like a release from a living hell. Moreover, tied up with this is the idea that an effective and desirable break can only be achieved by shelling out a large amount of money, jumping on an aeroplane or boat, and fleeing to some foreign, preferably hot, land. It's an approach that I liken to the notion of going to a gym because you don't get enough exercise. It seems to me self-evident that fitness (see this post for my views on the misuse of this word!) comes from building exercise and sensible eating into your daily life, not bolting it on as an afterthought designed to compensate for what is clearly lacking. Similarly, shouldn't we be trying to organise our lives in such as way that each day offers us some pleasure, achievement, satisfaction - call it what you will - that cumulatively leads to us getting enjoyment from every single day? It's difficult if you are on the breadline, but much more realisable than might be imagined if you're not. Achieve it and the idea of catharsis through an "escape" seems ridiculous.

The misuse of that word came to mind when I was looking at my photograph of the narrow boats and cruisers tied up on the River Trent in Newark, Nottinghamshire. It's a photograph taken at a time that is described as either the end of summer or the beginning of autumn. There was a time when my wife and I idly considered the purchase of such a vessel. However, it didn't take us long to work out that, for us, being restricted to navigable waterways would be too limiting. I'm sure others think this too. I'm equally sure that many people find chugging along Britain's canals and rivers a fine way to pass the time or take a holiday. For us however, it would be too confining and we'd just have to escape!

For more thoughts touching on holidays see these posts - from 2005, and from 2009.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 161mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Dreams, holidays and hats

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I sometimes can't decide which is worse - listening to someone telling me about their holiday or hearing someone recount the dream they had last night. On balance I think I'd rather be exposed to the workings of a person's subconscious because then I might hear something that I haven't heard before; something that is unexpected, unusual, odd, weird or surreal. Though it has to be said that frequently dreams are none of those things and are just plain daft. But holidays, well, people invest so much in them in terms of cash and expectations that their reports tend to emphasise how wonderful it all was. But hearing the minutiae of travelling, sightseeing, eating, and the rest, as someone who wasn't there, makes watching paint dry seem interesting. Only occasionally do you hear a report that takes the opposite tack, that the holiday was terrible, and they wouldn't go there again. But, it's even rarer that anyone says what is usually the case - that it was everything that was expected i.e. entirely predictable.

It seems to me that much of business is involved in selling us entirely predictable experiences. Places like Macdonalds or Starbucks, and manufacturers like Coca Cola or Cadburys have business models whose very aim is to do just that. People seem to want this, and are prepared to accept the safety and certainty of the anodyne, the tedium of the foreseeable, rather than enter into the possibility of getting something worse, or better. The same is true of holidays, with travel companies, businesses and national tourist authorities in holiday destinations striving to ensure that every traveller has their expectations met. You're going to East Africa? Then we'll make sure you see lions and elephants. Spain? Flamenco dancers will be provided. Scotland? Pipers in kilts will feature at major sight-seeing venues. Travellers are complicit in this cult of predictability, wanting to tick off the mental checklist of places, sights and "experiences". Even those who make their own travel and accommodation arrangements, seeking to rise above the derided "package tour", nonetheless, tend to seek out the expected and predictable when going their "own way".

I don't imagine that the three men in today's photograph were discussing either holidays or dreams. I photographed them last year at an event where old farm vehicles were being used and displayed. Perhaps the conversation centred around the steam threshing machine, or one of the old traction engines. Whatever it was, they were bringing not only their collective wisdom to bear on the issue, but also a fine collection of hats!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Surfleet Seas End

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It's not too difficult to find a place in Britain where time seems to have stood still. When I walk the barren uplands of the Pennines, the Lake District, or the North York Moors I often think that I'm looking at a scene that people saw in pretty much the same way 100, 500 or 1,000 years ago (the scream of RAF Typhoons, Tornados and Harriers permitting).

In towns and cities there are areas, corners, streets and views that have been sensitively preserved where people can project themselves backwards to the time of the Tudors, the Georgian era, Victorian times or the early C20. In and around our great medieval cathedrals "time travel" of a greater order is possible. The Lincolnshire town of Stamford is popular with film-makers because it's relatively easy to film actors in front of eighteenth century buildings without making very many changes to the structure's appearance - perhaps the removal of the odd telephone wire or electrical doorbell is all that is required. Of course, the nearer one comes to the present time, the easier it is step back. If you want to see a street that looks like it did in the 1930s or 1950s, you can find them with relative ease, though you might have to overlook the uPVC windows and doors, and the front gardens turned into car parking spaces.

On England's east coast it is still possible to come across little groups of modest, single-storey, wooden houses built in the inter-war and immediate post-WW2 years. Here one gets the feeling of being transported back to those austere days where pleasures were simpler and a holiday by the seaside involved ice-cream, catching fish, sailing a toy yacht, and fish and chips in a cliff-top cafe, rather than jetting off to some sun-drenched beach in the Mediterranean or even further afield. A few of these structures are permanently inhabited, but most are used for weekends and holidays. The area around Flamborough Head in Yorkshire has a good collection. These were much more numerous than now, but a lot have succumbed to the weather, to rot, neglect, and the desire for more exotic breaks. Others, however, have been restored with the aim of making them look like they did when first built. Many have been "updated", with brick replacing wood walls, and uPVC taking over elsewhere.

Today's photograph shows this type of recreational dwelling at an inland location. Surfleet Seas End in Lincolnshire, despite its name, is a few miles from coast, at the point where the River Glen (shown in the images) meets the River Welland before the latter empties into the North Sea via The Wash. A sluice prevents the ingress of tidal water, and keeps the river here at a stable level. This community of wooden structures, mainly used at weekends and holidays, has grown up to take advantage of the pleasant waterside location. My two images show it at different times of year. The first was taken yesterday as the sky cleared in the late afternoon after rain, a type of weather that I particularly like for photography. The second was taken on a hot summer morning for the colour, the reflection and the symmetry.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Image 1
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Image 2
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14mm (28mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On