I have considered the merits and relevance of what follows and decided to publish my account of the events that unfolded on the Northbrook Caravan Club Site, Worthing this past weekend - and be dammed!
Having pitched my aged bones and van (actually the van is not that old in comparison) on this lovely site, as far away from the child's play area as possible, we struck up the normal conversation with our new neighbours. Having discovered from whence we hailed they told us of the beautifully peaceful weekend they had enjoyed at an' Adult Only Site' near to our home and how much they enjoyed not having activity associated with child friendly sites.
However, as their daughter and grandchildren would be visiting them this time they had come to a site that did accept children - and parked as far away from the play area as possible?
The day of the visit dawned, and on our return to site that afternoon the daughter and anything between 4-6 children (I never did work out exactly how many, they moved to quick) were firmly ensconced and omitting the screeching sound that only people who have never owned children find impossible to ignore.
We sat outside reading our magazines, drinking tea and wincing occasionally, ignored the occasional fly past - and even the visit to our pitch of the two(ish) year old, who after all was collected by a sibling almost twice his age quite swiftly. After an hour or so we retired to the interior of our van, not because of the noise but to see the F1 quallies, sad old gits I know but!
Half an hour later the entertainment started as a gruff gentleman approached the adults of the party to inform them that his offspring had been injured and demanded to know which of the devils they had spawned were responsible. Voices were raised and the opposing Mother and Father endeavoured to demonstrate to their children how to win an argument based purely on volume.
Not to be outdone, and I'm sure to demonstrate to their beloved G/children that they still possessed all of the parenting skills they had honed whilst bringing up their children, first the Grandfather then Grandmother entered the fray.
Happily, despite the veiled threats that would have left one or other of the parties forever excommunicated from the Caravan Club if not the entire caravanning community, peace was reinstated and loud mumblings were soon once again replaced by the non-pc (non parentally controlled) sounds of children happily going about their business of demonstrating just how fast and loud you could run around the campsite if you wished.
Moral of the story - well there's not one really, but I've got this off my chest and if it means that just one person visiting a campsite may exercise a little more control over their child, dog, husband (according to Mrs Barking some of my 'overloud' comments may not have helped the situation) or radio in order to preserve the peace of others residing near by it will have served its purpose.
To those that have pointed out that we were no different as youngster, I guess they are right - despite the fact that my parents often thought they knew were I was and what I was doing - they often did not. However times were different, we were always careful of what we said with earshot of Adults, more so within arms length, and we had a respectful fear of anyone in authority i.e.: police and park (campsite) wardens. Neither were our parents intent on either suing or dismembering anyone else they thought they could hold responsible for any damage we did to ourselves or anything else.
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