He’d never been on a holiday before, which is funny, seeing as he lives in a caravan.  They moved about a lot, so nowhere was officially ‘home’, except for the two-roomed mobile house they always slept and ate in.  His mum and dad were good at some particular things, and they tried to make a living out of convincing people to buy their wares: cleaning driveways, altering dresses, and other odd-jobs.  People were sometimes won over, but only once, which is why they had to keep trying new towns.  Tim didn’t mind – he’d never known anything different, and neither had his parents, or their parents before them.  But now that they were on their first holiday, he began to wonder.

His younger brother and sisters were happy to mess around in the muddy play-park beside their caravan – not even as good as the ones they’d played on before, but it didn’t matter.  A swing is a swing, wherever you go.  But somehow, Tim was drawn further away.  Without telling anyone where he was off to, (not that they would have minded), he pulled on his battered green wellies, and tramped over the rough car-park, across the road, and down onto the beach.  It was a fairly dull day, and the sea was gray, but something about the whole place made Tim grin.  He kicked the gravelly sand, keeping his hands stuffed into his pockets, and started to whistle through his teeth.  Spotting a bigger stone, he hurled it into the water, and then, followed it.  Without taking off his boots, he waded in, letting the waves tease him with their advance and retreat.  After some time, one wave caught him out, and all of a sudden he felt the water rush over the top of his boots.  He didn’t look down, or step back.  He just kept on paddling, thinking to himself, this might be the best holiday ever.