Freddy Crooger Aint Got Shit on a Family Holiday.

I swear, Wes Craven, he got it all wrong.

Fuck monsters, fuck claws, fuck the "mysteriously ajar door" and fuck "investigate the odd noise by walking in slow motion towards it with some music similar to the Jaws - Two Notes in the background". Wes Craven ain't got shit on a family holiday to me.

To compare my decision to go on holiday with my family to a "lapse in judgement" would be a bit like comparing a brain haemorrhage to what Curt Kobain looked like shortly after he took a shotgun to his face. Nevertheless I made said decision. Never, never, again.

It all seemed good on paper. A 3 week break to the south of France which included a 3 day to Paris, a city I've always intended to visit as well as a trip of Disneyland Europe, all of which was free for me. Including food and drinks, all paid for with the generosity of my parents. Fuck free. Now you couldn't pay me to go on another holiday family.

The first red flag should have been the fact that we were driving down to the south of France in a car. Just to make this clear that I live in Edinburgh, Scotland so this involves driving the length of the UK almost and almost the length of France as well. Pretty fucking big red flag 'int it? Moron that I am.

The first "highlight" of this nightmare excursion would have to be the SatNav device we were using dropping us off in the middle of nowhere in France roughly 60 miles from where we needed to be and just deciding to deny the existence of any road. Having to navigate your way to a place you don't know in a country you don't know on a route you don't know when you don't REALLY know where you are is a bit erm.... fun.

So after 4-5 hours on top of the trip (which was at this point clocking up an impressive 27 hours inside close quarters to my family). We arrive at our KeyCamp resort. I see another red flag, do you? Yes it's a fucking camping holiday. Mercy of mercies however it was a caravan and not an actual tent that we were staying in.

As I searched the vicinity for the essentials: The Bar (Scanning the spirits for label brands of which there were none, I note a lack of music, atmosphere, and customers as well) The pool (Not too bad really) and other facilities. It had none.

As the tour rep welcomed us and led us to our caravan I checked my phone and suddenly realise I have not enabled roaming before I came on Holidays, as it announces there is no network I die a little on the inside and say goodbye to the last tendril connecting me to a sane society where people aren't related to each other and expecting to co-habit based on this fact alone.

We enter the caravan and I immediately seek to distance myself from them giving that I've spent the last 27 hours with my sister all but sitting on my knee, listening to my dad shout at the disembodied voice of the SatNav as it asks him to "when possible make a U-Turn" on a motorway. Distance is somewhat difficult considering the caravan is barely bigger than our car.

Now at this point I'll just say that I feel I've dealt with this all pretty well however I do need a little help. I pour a double vodka just to hear the usual jibe from my dad that just because I'm not aching to watch some Ant & Dec drivel with them 24/7 I'm anti-family "Oh you need drink a whole bottle of vodka just to put up with your poor old family eh?".

I swallow the comment "There's not a bottle big enough pal" before it reaches my vocal chords.

The holiday contained many, many other "highlights", such as but not limited to;

What can loosely be referred to as a shower with mood swings worse than the fag hag on her monthly making the temperate randomly alternate between it's apparently only two settings. Death Ray and Antarctic. I have much fewer showers than I would be like.

Forgetting to buy books and having to buy a "bestseller" on the way down. Having such venerable sources as the Daily Mail tell me that "Chasing Harry Winston" is "Soooooo sex and the city". It would be if in any episode, the four characters decided to have no opinions, personality and did exactly nothing. Don't remember that episode, do you? The whole thing is an unmitigated literary disaster, I blacklist the author for life.

The continuing annoyance of not being able to make a full turn without bumping into 2 family members and at least 3 appliances proving that caravan holidays are a particularly vile and draining variant of the family holiday.

Travel that not even prescription sedatives can make less painful. The sedative appears to be useless when inside the car. However my niece seems to be on the brink of solving our power problems as within the same car she seems to have happened across a limitless source of energy (I searched the car, no epinephrine in sight). She begins a seemingly relentless assault on your sanity under the guise of code-names such as "I Spy with my little eye" "Snakes and Ladders" "Guess who" and pretty much every other mind numbing soul destroying game to exist. Ever.

Your relaxation at the pool is relatively gimped as you have to keep an eye out for where the child is and judge whether she falls into your "area of responsibility" whereby if she falls or something happens it becomes your fault and not the person who birthed them. Who says parent responsibility is diminishing these days?

Following on the above point you have to construct certain proximity sensors in your mind. Measuring the distance between your niece and certain objects and people and of course, the children you have red flagged as "wee cunts" making sure she does not stray too close to any of them. "Gently guiding" her away from them (picking her up and putting her somewhere else telling her your not interested in her reasons for wanting to go there).

Don't get me wrong I love my niece, in fact I have designs on making her into my own personal mini-me and have been teaching her sarcasm from an early age. However on the holiday it's more of "admire from a distance" third person love.

The sun playing a fun game of Peek-a-boo behind the clouds each time it disappears you gauge the time depending on the cloud and surmise you could gnash back to the caravan and quickly cure cancer or world poverty before it re-appears. I abandon hope of a decent tan.

No matter how close you are to your family and how much you love them and how open your relationship with them is there will always be sides of you that you do not particularly wish to brandish in their presence, suppressing these sides does tend to leave you dying to shout "Cumshot!" "Cuntfucker!" or some other random expletive to re-assert your sense of self.

Being dragged to the beach despite the entire family knowing you hate it. I've never understood the fascination. After all it is quite literally where dirt and water meet. I also feel as if the sand somehow wants to enter me, to breach ever barrier. I leave the beach with stow-aways in every area of my body that I'll be washing out for days (it also means using the shower, see above). I've also yet to meet a pair of footwear that is not a sand sympathiser even sandals manage to carry them for days which boggles the mind.

All in all, if offered a family holiday, even if it is not a camping holiday. Say no, or if you find yourself wanting to say yes.

Seek professional help.