Going on holiday with your family can be a trying experience, but sometimes you just have to let go and appreciate where you are, writes Abigail George.
It's January 2015 and we're on our way from Port Elizabeth to Plettenberg Bay. The rental car is packed with nice goodies to eat; a Nikon camera; the latest Anne Tyler novel (for me, the eldest); my dad taking in the new world around him; mum the babysitter, amusing her grandson; my brother (the youngest) smoking a cigarette; my posh sister (the middle child) at the wheel; and a small child (my nephew, my brother's son) going on his first seaside holiday.
I'm already dreading the trip back home!
Mum and dad - both teachers - would never have splurged like this in their working lives. This holiday is my sister's gift to them for all the sacrifices they made to provide her with a tertiary education.
At a filling station in the middle of nowhere, we all make a beeline for the bathroom while my sister buys padkos and cooldrinks and bottled water to keep the mood up in the cramped car.
We haven't been on a family holiday in years. We need this holiday like oxygen, to patch up our differences, all the tension beneath the surface.
Holiday time is complicated in our family, but maybe - I tell myself - this happens in all families.
My sister is chic. She's wearing her Italian sunnies. Designer this and designer that, all Joburg-style.
My longsuffering father is eating crisps. My mother is the centre of our world. She tells us to put on sunscreen, passing round bottled water and snacks, all the while paying attention to the two-year old napping on her lap.
Now the grandson of the family is slurping juice. I binge-eat ham cold cuts, Woolies cheese, hummus, snoek pât and Magnum Minis, with my hair pulled back from my face.
I like to think about everything: Have we packed enough wood for the fire, enough beer, enough wine? Enough cordial for the cocktails that my sister will expertly make? I think of fasting, detoxing, aura cleansing…
I'll need all of that and more when we return from this holiday.
There were hotels in my past: hotel rooms with chocolate mints on the pillows, with room service that we could never afford, the white-white towels, free shampoo and shower gel in the bathroom, packets of sugar and Nescaf .
Hotels with their chlorine blue swimming pools, the beach a leisurely walk away, tennis courts and table tennis tables and gift shops filled with expensive price tags.
Those hotels occurred throughout my childhood: the Holiday Inn in Oudtshoorn when we visited the Cango Caves; the Fish River Sun near Port Alfred…
Our parents never took us camping, but I was always in love with the idea of camping. Camping sounded pretty glorious to me, especially the tales I heard from other children on the playground.
But we never went camping and I never slept in a sleeping bag.
Every year since my sister - the responsible and independent one - started working, she has rented a beach house for us for four days.
She cooks and cleans for us without complaint, pecks at us and keeps us in line with a warmth and sincerity that I never thought possible.
My sister has more maternal instinct than I do, as it turned out.
The kilometres go by and soon we'll be there. The hours and days of waiting will turn into the smell of braai, corn on the cob and garlic bread on the coals.
It rains. It always rains when we're on this road from PE to Plett, with its rolling green hills, farms, outbuildings, dams, horses, sheep, and cows dotting the landscape.
We pass the toll gate, then the great trees of the Tsitsikamma, where families have stopped by the side of the road for a bite to eat.
Cars overtake us, but we're making good time.
I have never seen anything as beautiful as that sea view shifting into focus as we come around a corner and Plett opens up before us.
Birds fly from a stand of trees, as if they're leading us towards paradise.
When we finally arrive at the rental house (after getting lost, and asking for directions) there's a long and cumbersome driveway, an upstairs and a downstairs - lots of stairs, which lead to airy, light bedrooms and white, spotless bathrooms.
There's a cute kitchenette where my sister will make us scrambled eggs, bacon and toast every morning.
Outside, there's a fancy braai area with a wooden screen door to keep the rain out or to let a cool breeze in. There are tomatoes in the garden, and frangipani.
The house is spacious, with satellite TV and three remote controls to figure out.
There are paintings, some nude, some abstract, a fat lady playing a trombone; books in every room, and a tattered, yellowing copy of Memoirs of a Geisha that I'm itching to read again. (I try, but give up after a few pages.)
Every morning, the beach house slowly comes to life. Dad and I admire the multimillion-rand houses all around ours. Even the trees look different to the trees at home: They stand to attention like soldiers with rifles.
The ones in our backyard grow wild and unkempt. Sister plays the role of mother hen and chauffeur, ferrying us to and from the local Pick n Pay.
My jaw hangs slack: I've never seen such wealth, privilege, newness… And the cracks in our class system laid bare.
Dad's mother was a domestic worker. He's as out of depth here as I am.
Nobody in Plett looks like us or speaks like us. Our rental car is dead middle class.
It's out of season and quiet. The only other people on holiday are here with their dogs.
Our beach house is like a captured castle and we are Vikings with the spoils of war, living it up like kings.
We spend our days on the beach. One evening, I turn on the TV and watch a film about the life of Bruce Lee. My brother smokes his last cigarette and sips his last beer on the patio before we both go to bed.
All of a sudden it's over. It's our last night in our castle by the sea. I drink my last cocktail, put my feet up and bask in the freedom my sister has blessed us with.
I've tasted and discovered adventure, and I've been reminded that family is everything. I've listened to the ocean, feeling young and free, life rushing into me, knowing I'll miss this chilled-out version of myself. This chilled-out version of all of us.
We've laughed together, eaten good food together, and somehow we've come to understand each other better.
This holiday has changed the idea of living, for each of us.
