Return to Adventure Island

September began in earnest. With the last vestiges of the summer holidays ebbing away, we could wait no longer and set a course for Adventure Island.

We hadn’t been for a long time, our last visit had seen The Eldest form part of our crew. In her absence, we were joined by my father who proved a valuable addition and not just for the ice cream he bought as we wandered home at the end.

Our voyage featured a brief stop at the St John’s Ambulance charity shop my mother volunteers at, where we scored a number of treasures including some seriously underpriced books (20p) and a couple of nice tops. My favourite acquisition was the tale behind the sticker (see extra) behind the wig on the seriously scary mannequin. My mother advised that wig theft was rife in the shop to the point of which they had started screwing the wig to to the head of the mannequin! I’m not sure you can get much lower in the follicle larceny stakes than stealing a used wig from a charity shop…

With the children’s noses firmly wedged in their newly acquired literary bounty, we continued on our voyage to Southend and devoured a car picnic on arrival as quickly as the car parking meter devoured my cash. We promptly landed on the isle and then lost the next few hours in a flurry of carts, coasters, dodgems and over-enthusiastic ride operators trying to whip up enthusiasm from a disinterested crowd - just press the green button, luv. If we’d wanted a show, we’d have headed up the pier. 

It was on our repeated trips to the dodgems that my father’s presence proved so valuable. He teamed up with m’boy (to the cost of his knees) and I was paired with the Demon Dodgem Driver herself; Ms Matilda (see extra), who only had eyes for bumping her brother out of the arena. It was great fun! 

My eye was caught by The Axis, which looked incredibly high, scary and tremendous fun, so I thought I would give it a whirl. So glad I did as it was a tremendous rush and I earned a high five from The Youngest for going on and a little kudos from m’boy.

With the car parking meter over time, we beat a hasty retreat (via the ice cream stand) and sailed home, waving goodbye to the island for another year as it vanished beyond the horizon.

We finished our evening with a board game where the object is to lose all your money first. I won and felt an immediate sense of deja vu, but was still smiling.

Great day.