It can be hard work, going on holiday...

Press, 20 December 1978, Page 21

It can be hard work, going on holiday...

Holidays mean different things to different people. One man’s peace-and-quiet can be another man’s penance. Some can’t see the point in holidays at all; others are content to potter at home during their annual break; while for still others there is no use having a holiday if you don't go somewhere. The dictionary says that holidays are “exemption from labour . . . rest . . . diversion and amusement,” a festive and occasional happening. To go on holiday, it says, is “to go on a pleasure excursion.” Although bored parents coping with fractious children in a small caravan during a wet spell in a crowded camping-ground may dispute the last, it would seem that most New Zealanders make the most

of the country’s pleasant towns and superlative countryside to unwind r om the year’s work. Ogden Nash had holidays sorted out. He wrote — Ho’Hays should be like this, Free from over emphasis, Time for the soul to

stretch and spit Before the world rolls back

Perhaps the best recipe is to do what you enjoy most, not copying others or letting tourist posters point the way. An informal survey of 20 or so Christchurch people showed just how' various the requirements of holiday-makers can be.

Ben works in a liquor store. Constantly dealing with the public makes him want to get away from people. This year he and

his wife will take their cruiser to the Marlborough Sounds. They’ve rented a bach and they’re taking plenty of “booze and books.” No friends, just them; and they’ll do a lot of swimming and fishing. But for another young Christchurch couple, being together is enough. They have been in their new house only a year and a half, so the Christmas holidays will be a time to enjoy their large garden, swimming-pool, and barbecue. The husband has a high-pressure job in market research. He just wants an opportunity to unwind, and “laze around at home,”

Working in the cosmetic department of a big city store gives Jean a real yearning for the outdoors. Like a lot of people she dreams of going to Fiji, but

instead she’ll go camping with friends. She isn’t married and thinks this is probably the reason why she enjoys busy campinggrounds. Jean is loking forward to meeting a lot of new people, “mixing” with them and playing tennis. The holiday period

makes hardly a ripple in some lives. An elderly Christchurch nun is a retired teacher in her order. During Christmas-New Year, as for the rest of the year, she will happily help with the convent house-, work. She doesn’t want or need a holiday, she says. Her face is calm and unworried. Her work is her holiday.

Clare is a young, married, high school teacher. Holidays for her mean tramping in such areas as Stewart Island or the Dart-Rees Valleys. She loves it all so much that she doesn’t mind if it “rains every time.” Her tramping companions are

usually a mixture of pupils and adult friends. But this year she has to stay at home — she and her husband are expecting their first baby in January. A visiting middle-aged couple from Queensland say that bus tours are the thing. They’ve seen the whole of New Zealand this

way during an idyllic two weeks. They saw both Milford Sound and Mount Cook at their best and had good weather everywhere. But they are heading home for Christmas. It wouldn’t be the same without the children and grandchildren, they say. And for a "lot of people, it is their holiday companions that make the difference — the family, that group of special friends, or the one person that matters.

For young Greg it has to be a family holiday to be really enjoyable. He is a 13-year-old secondary school pupil who thinks a car-trip “around New Zealand” is pretty good. His family have seen most of the South Island this way, and he hasn’t any criticisms.

Most New Zealand holidays are totally hedonistic. The American writer Thoreau would seem to have little support from this country’s holiday-makers. He wrote: “He enjoys true leisure who has time to improve his soul’s estate.” The only exceptions would be those who attend summer schools in the arts, music, or languages, displaying an awesome dedication and single-mindedness. For lesser mortals, there are the lakes, beaches, mountains, and rivers to head for — and towns. Strange as it may seem to the typical, outdoorsy, tramping-and-camping New Zealander, some people enjoy a totally urban holiday.

A "Christchurch writer finds the thought of

further holidays in Sydney very attractive, because of the quiet pace of life here. His fantasy holiday involves a month in Bangkok on his own, chatting-up the bar-girls and destroying his brain-cells with alcohol.

Some people will spend the holiday period alone. One Christchurch greatgrandmother says she is “a bit past holidays.” The friends with whom she plays bridge four times a week will be away. She’ll have Christmas dinner with one of her children and perhaps “go on a few bus trips.”

One hopes that those who are to experience an abundance of happiness over the holiday period will find a way to beam a little of it towards less fortunate people.

By

NANCY CAWLEY