itt: things that strongly remind you of holidays as a child

The smell of tobacconist shops.

Boiled peas in vinegar in polystyrene cups.

Tango in the Night in the tape player

Boiled peas in vinegar in polystyrene cups

this is all-time

french cricket

something about peas and tinned veg - minted new potatoes out of a tin

Palatine Road, Stanley Park, the Duple Club...

Being given money to play 'the machines'.

The eternal question, what Fair Fortnight will it be? Glasgow or Paisley?

Raku, pit & sawdust firing.

What, didn't everyone else go on holiday to ceramics festivals?

if early-mid teens counts - the taste of 3% French stubby bottle supermarket biere

Travel sickness pills, "Take two hours before journey'.

http://www.museumofbeyond.org/images/sealegs-500.jpg

this had a neat little slideing door at the top-left corner to get the tablets out

Wasps
Oily mud masquerading as a beach
Car sickness
Standing on the hard shoulder crying wearing nothing but orange and brown y-fronts (may be related to previous entry. thank fuck I grew out of that. and the car sickness)

parents arguing.

and there's me thinking people go on holiday to have a good time

Mint or grenadine cordial with lemonade and ice for France. Imitation pork ribs for Butlins.

• Tunnock's Teacakes
• the taste of coffee from a Thermos flask
• sitting in a car looking out a rain slashing down on a seaside town
• lime marmalade
• the weird smell of a rented house
• the weird smell of our own house after returning to it after a week away

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzi9wPKRxr8

Blue-green algae
Live, angry turkeys
Empty golf courses

https://images.lukiegames.com/t_300e2/assets/images/PS2/ps2_grand_theft_auto_iii-110214.jpg

the song just another day by john secada

being in the back of a car for an extended period of time

caravan parks. rain. final fight and street fighter 2.

REM - Out of Time
Pearl Jam - Vitalogy

the sound of a walkman with the battery running out would bring back waves of nostalgia. hot ears from terrible 80s/90s headphones. tartan blankets. those spray cans of water that people use to cool down. french road signs/motorways.

Summer special editions of comics: http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/heyday-of-summer-special.html

xp i was going to say - those nasty foam headphone cover pieces, but you never see them anymore.

tins of icing sugar-dusted travel sweets (h/t Grandpont Genie but we got the fruit ones, not barley sugar)
"anatomy of a ..." postcards
cheap limeade
7up, glass bottle, straw
my parents' 3 tapes, warped from sitting in the sun in the car: Swingle Singers, Reinhardt + Grappelli, some unknown boogie-woogie-ish piano instrumentals

really old Archie comics. the smell of the old ceramic electric kettle we had at the beach house. heck the smell of that house (musty, old, salty). the tree house at my cousins farm. all of the above is gone now :(

I'm beginning to think car sickness might have been related to 7 in an Austin Allegro with the heating on and 3 smokers.

definitely those weird sweets in tins with the dust on them. my dad's aviator ray bans. a sunroof. do cars even have sunroofs anymore? probably, but no car i've been in for many moons, and i guess i've never holidayed with a car since the old family trips.

those huge toblerones you get in duty-free. smell of suncream obviously, my mum always used p20 which stained everything. or the bizarrely named "piz buin". for irish holidays i'd say hitting potholes, rain, card games, freezing water, though i'm prob drifting into "things i think about when i remember holidays".

Squeaking funfair fittings

definitely those weird sweets in tins with the dust on them

yeah, 100%

for me more than anything it's the sound of the eagles' their greatest hits (1971–1975) which played endlessly in the car on holidays to spain to the point where the californian countryside and the catalonian countryside are forever linked in my mind

my dad only had like two tapes, the best of simon and garfunkel and the best of the beach boys.

we had Simon & Garfunkel, the Sutherland Brothers & Quiver, Roy Orbison and Dionne Warwick, think that's it

he had james last on vinyl, for dinner parties.

It's strange that my father, despite being Indian/Trinidadian and listening to phenomenal music around the house - only had three cassettes for holiday car journeys - James Galway, Don McLean and Julio Iglesias.

I am going on holiday with my mother for the first time in 20+ years in December and look forward to reviving simmering arguments about map reading skills.

my parents' cars were pre-tape deck until well into my high-school years :o

just the sound of the wind whapping through the open windows (no A/C) and the occasional country or oldies station. i remember it being very mysterious that my dad knew the words to things. how did he know? he never played that music at home.

the smell of wooden matches burning