Naomi the Wordsmith

I think maybe the clue was in the name of that destination. Ramsgate. You know the whole deal about how the devil is represented in the symbol of a goat. Well, with that in mind… Ramsgate = the gateway to hell.

We should’ve seen it coming.

It took a train journey to get there. Rolling through the English countryside, watching the green hills and fluffy sheep whizz by, the sun shining on these rural farms, it was as pretty as train journeys go.

Ramsgate, Kent, is at the south-eastern most tip of the UK. It’s almost directly to the east of Portsmouth, where I live.

It’s a classic English seaside town.

Shops selling ice cream to cool you down on a hot summer day.

The hotel was pretty basic, though we did spring for WiFi. A good choice, as it turned out in the end. We’d have gone insane without something to pass the time in our sick room.

While we’re checking in, my younger brother Alfie takes a deep breath and smiled. “The sea smells good.”

“I know, it’s so close!” My mum says.

I’m confused. “Really?”

“Yeah, it’s just beyond the road.”

“Huh. I can’t smell anything.”

I try to smell the salty waves one more time, but still nothing. I shake my head, and follow everyone up to our room.

“Well, maybe you have Covid,” Alfie jokes.

“Ha, yeah right. I’ve barely left the house lately.”

Yeah, he was right. But that was my only symptom until the next day.

We ate one meal at the hotel restaurant that evening and then never again. The food was worse than you’d dread.

I saw a tiny shadow shift in the ketchup bottle. I picked it up and looked at it.

A fly was buzzing around inside the ketchup bottle.

Goodbye, appetite.

I woke up feeling a little run-down, a bit tired, the way you feel when you have a cold coming on. But I felt up to checking out Canterbury Cathedral with Alfie and my dad.

I’d ‘visited’ the famous cathedral in the video game Assassins Creed Valhalla. In the game it was pretty busy with monks and vikings going about their rather aggressive business. In real life, it’s a tad less exciting.

The sound of the organ seemed to reverberate through the innumerable chambers and corridors and arches.

How is it possible for people to build something so incredible so many centuries ago? How miraculous must it have seemed to the worshippers and pilgrims then?

That was the one sight we saw on that holiday. The next day all of us went down with Covid, except, strangely enough, for Alfie.

I mainly had stomach symptoms, fever, loss of smell, and a searing headache. My mum had similar symptoms to me, but worse, and also lost a lot of hearing. My dad spent this one day unable to get out of bed and then made a full recovery.

I ended up developing another infection (my weak immune system means sometimes bacteria take advantage of opportunities given to them by viruses). I had to get antibiotics.

So I saw the local hospital – how’s that for sightseeing?

We spent most of the next few days in bed. Sleeping. Scrolling down our phones to pass the long hours of sickness. Sometimes we’d get up long enough to look out of the window, at the harbour.

It was a pretty nice view, blurred by our bleary eyes.

Anytime I get an infection, virus or bacteria, even if it’s barely a cold, it causes a pain crisis.

Sometimes it’s manageable with pain medication. Other times, it’s so bad I can’t even lift my head off the pillow.

I find one day of that not too bad to endure. But – when it goes on for days and days and days, I’d be lying if I said my brave face means I’m unbothered about the pain.

Covid caused that type of pain crisis for me.

But no matter how bad it gets, I always remember – it will get better. It did that time too.

Remember how I said we refused to eat at the hotel restaurant because of the disgusting state of things?

It meant we had to hunt for food elsewhere. And, the problem is, Ramsgate is one of those touristy places that are crammed to bursting with restaurants.

The problem with touristy restaurants, besides the price? You have to be well enough to get there.

So what did we eat in the end?

Lots and lots of instant noodles.

There are not enough different flavours to stop you from getting bored eating them over and over and over because we could find literally nothing in that town to eat.

To be honest, maybe there is something to find to eat in that town. The locals manage. But none of us drive (even if we did, we wouldn’t have been well enough to). And it’s hard to search the area well when you’re feeling really sick from Covid.

After a few days, we started improving enough to head back home. If you’re thinking, “whoa, why weren’t you self-isolating?” It was after the pandemic, in 2022. And we really wanted to get out of that hideous hotel and recover in the comfort of our own home.

And so, our family holiday rather miserably ended.

On that note, I thought I’d tell you about our next holiday.

I’ve got some ideas for some posts about this. Looking into the destinations, what to do on the cruise, and maybe a bit of travel writing.

Let’s hope this holiday goes better!

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