Polinka Goes on Holiday
Copyright© 2026 by Clee Hill
Chapter 4
“Morning,” Stephen smiled, a little smugly, Polinka thought, as he came down to the kitchen where she was making her toast with tea.
“Morning,” she said, trying to sound casual to the point of bored. “Want some?”
“I’ve time, thank you,” he said as she got on with slicing the bread; the pot already had more than enough still in it for his cup.
“Oh. Doing anything today?” she asked, turning from the cooker for a moment.
“I’ve a couple of irons in the fire.”
“Hell of a way you do your laundry,” she winked, handing him her slice of toast as she began grilling the second slice, now for her.
“Hmm. Maybe I could get someone to help out with that?” he said as he buttered his toast and loaded it with marmalade, thick sliced, too.
“Oh? I don’t think Gran will want to come down for that,” Polinka said, her grandparents living up in Old Colwyn, not Colwyn Bay. “Unless we’re going up to see them...?”
“We’re not, but a good try,” Stephen chuckled as he poured his tea and got to work on his toast.
“Oh. I thought I’d figured it out there.”
“Not even close.”
“Oh! So, not even close to Colwyn would make it ... Australia?”
“Conceptually.”
“Conceptually?! Dad, what or where even is conceptually opposite to Old Colwyn.”
“Not opposite, just a long way away from.”
“Oooh. This, this had really better be worth it.”
“It will, but you will have to earn it a little.”
“Okay. How?” she asked, flipping the bread just as it browned the first side to perfection.
“I have to run an errand.”
“Okay. And?”
“And I need you to bring everything down into the hallway while I’m out.”
“Oh. I can do that.”
“I should be back no later than half ten.”
“So not an errand in Ludlow?”
“Maybe,” he smiled, Polinka rolling her eyes as she took her toast, now perfectly grilled on both sides, and sat down opposite to him as she reached for the butter. “Also ... you might not want to wear shorts, or a very short skirt.”
“But I do want to. The radio said today was going to be hot, and my phone app confirmed it.”
“Precisely.”
“Precisely? What does that mean? It’s going to be hot but I don’t want to be wearing something for it? What about my top? Please tell me I can still have my tummy out?” she ‘begged’, Polinka having discovered cropped tops as a child and promptly made that her fashion choice, seemingly for life.
Stephen took a drink of his tea. “Hmm. Interesting question. I’m tempted to say ‘no’—”
—Polinka gasped, not fully in comic shock—
“—But I think you should be okay. Maybe keep an overshirt handy. Just in case.”
“Just in case? Just in case of what?”
Stephen smiled.
“Oooh!”
Before she could say anything more, however, there was the sound of a horn from outside.
“Ah! That would be for me,” Stephen said, taking one final bite of his almost eaten toast and washing it away with a hearty swallow of tea.
“For you?”
“Yes. I believe that’s how taxis work. Remember, ten-thirty,” he said, Polinka almost falling over herself to follow Stephen out into the hallway, watching as he opened the door, waved to the taxi parked outside, got in the back, and headed off.
“Bye then,” Polinka said, to herself as much as anyone, waving and watching until the taxi had turned the corner and was out of sight before she went back inside to finish her breakfast and get everything ready.
By a quarter past ten, Polinka had run out of things to do. Heeding her father’s words, she had compromised his advice and dressed in a pair of tan coloured Bermuda shorts matched with a white blouse with daisies on it, presently buttoned up from breastbone to belly button, but ‘halterable’ at a moment’s notice, her lacy unwired and unpadded bra making sure there was never ‘anything’ to be seen, even if she had it. With everything down in the hall and waiting, save only for the chiller bag into which the food had been packed and which was still in the fridge, she had had what she had thought a moment of genius as she had popped next door to ‘Aunty’ Marjorie, to ask her to keep an eye out for post and wheel their bins out. Marjorie had smiled and asked if Stephen had forgotten he had already asked her to do exactly that, last week, while Polinka had been distracted by her exams.
“He didn’t say where we were going?”
“Ah. Probably busy with last minute details.”
“You know what they are?”
“No.”
“Oh. Oh well. Er, see you when we get back from ... wherever,” Polinka has said, hugging her ‘extra’ aunt who had baby sat her when she got home from school until she was old enough for Stephen to be happy for her to be in the house on her own. That hadn’t stopped Marjorie insisting Polinka pop in a couple of days a week, just to ‘make sure’ she was okay. And ply her with tea. And cake. Her Victoria sponges were award winning.
Marjorie had smiled, wished her safe travels, and left Polinka with no idea what was going on as she headed back home, going through the kitchen one last time to make sure everything was washed up, packed up, or thrown out.
It was.
She had just made it back to the hallway and was debating whether it was ‘safe’ to risk burning her phone battery to do something when she heard a car horn blow outside. Toot-de-toot-toot. Odd, that was Stephen’s ‘signal’ it was him, but it didn’t sound like his car and hadn’t he taken a taxi anyway.
Puzzled, she opened the door...
... and her jaw dropped, her eyes wide, almost disbelieving as she saw, parked outside their house, and old fashioned VW campervan, cherry and white, with her father standing proudly in front of it, arms crossed.
“Dad!” she screamed as she ran down the path, almost launching herself into his arms, her head snapping one way and the other as she looked and looked and tried to see but, no, it was real.
“It’s the right colour, isn’t it?” he teased, trying to breathe as she did her best to crush him to crumbs.
“It’s ... it’s yours!?”
“For the next two weeks.”
“And we’re ... in it?”
Stephen nodded. “We’re taking you on a tour.”
“We are?”
“You might need to check the itinerary, but I think I’ve got it figured out. We’re going to take in a few nights on the way down to Pembroke where we’ll be taking the Ferry over to Ireland on Saturday morning, after which we’ll spend the best part of a week in Southern Ireland, mostly County Wexford, before heading back again the following Sunday. I’ll get you to check our itinerary later, but I think I’ve managed to find us some very picturesque locations which are also said to be, what was it, ah yes, ‘UFO hotspots’ I think they call them.”
“What?!”
Stephen grinned. “I thought you might—”
—Was as far as he got in his explanation before Polinka was madly and wildly kissing him.
“Really?” she gasped.
“Really. Every night we park up in a new location, stay up late, see what there is to be seen, and maybe even take a photograph of it if you’re lucky.”
“Dad?! I...”
Stephen smiled. “And your expression is worth every moment of planning.”
“How, how long...?”
“Well I had to book the campervan a little in advance, so ... since last September.”
“What? You’ve kept this secret for all that time?”
Stephen nodded.
“I love you Daddy,” she said, Stephen holding onto her as she began to cry, too happy to know what to do or say. Ever since she had been little she had loved campervans, thought they looked both funny and cool, and even joked about living in one when she was old enough. She had never ever dreamed she would ever get the chance, though. She had looked on the internet and seen they were awfully expensive to buy, and so she had contented herself with a promise to herself of ‘one day’. In the meantime, her father had taken her to a couple of country shows over the years where they had had ‘classic’ cars and Polinka had been photographed, grinning wildly, as she stood in front of her dream vehicle. Every one of them. One of those photos, framed, was on the shelf of her bookcase, next to a little die cast model, also cherry and white, also with the split front windscreen, but this one didn’t have a surf board on top.
“So I guess I’m forgiven?”
“Yes. Yes! Yes!” she said, kissing him again in case he might not have believed her.
“So do you think we could start loading up?”
“Yes!” she grinned as she turned to dash up to the house, but Stephen held onto her a moment longer.
“And if you like it—”
“—I do!—”
“—And if you like it, we can do this again, maybe even make a ‘thing’ of it every summer?”
“Yes!”
Stephen laughed. “And, if you could let go of me, I could give you a guided tour?”
“Can I kiss you again, after?”
“You can. During, too, if you want.”
“I do!” she said and she did, Stephen showing her where everything went, how they could pack their things into the clever cupboards, and how, with the front seat being cloth but also plastic, it might not have been too comfortable to wear something too cropped.
“I don’t care! I’m going on holiday in a campervan,” she said, still in utter disbelief that it was real.
“Yes you are, Biscuit.”
“I love you!” she sighed, not giving it a moment’s thought as she snuggled up to her father again, up on her tip-toes and kissing him on the lips, still sniffling slightly, not crying any more but only because she still wasn’t quite sure what to do; she had no idea how to make her father know how much this meant to her, even though she was leaving nobody in any doubt how much it meant to her. Everything.
“I think I can tell,” he said, winking as she opened her eyes, her face glowing with love and happiness. “Now we can stay out here doing this all day, or we could load up and head off...?”
“Sir, yes, Sir,” she said, snapping back and snapping a salute whose seriousness was utterly betrayed by what seemed to have become a permanent grin. “Suitcases first?”
“Suitcases first,” Stephen confirmed, Polinka’s smile not slipping for a moment as they got on with the task of transferring and stowing everything they had prepared from the hallways to the campervan, it all fitting with space to spare, Stephen admitting he had asked the rental company for guidance on what they could and could not bring. So that they were refrigerated for the longest amount of time possible, it was only once the dry and tinned food items were packed into the cupboards and even under the tiny sink that the perishable foods got their chance, Stephen having been warned how the tiny fridge wasn’t that reliable at keeping things safely cool, especially without electricity to top it up.
“That’s the hallway empty,” Polinka announced, her camera and drone machine and tablet safely stowed, as was the little bag of chargers for when, Stephen had explained, they could park up somewhere to recharge the campervan’s batteries as well as just run the ‘mains’ for a while. Or sneak into a café.
“So if we were to head towards Rhayader for tonight...?” he hinted.
“Ooh. Good start. There are reports from there going back to the middle of the twentieth century. Not quite a ‘hot spot’ but, haha, a ‘warm spot’.”
“And also very picturesque.”
“Oh yeah. Sure. That too,” she smirked.
“And I just happen to know of a few places up there where we could park for the night.”
“You’ve really done all of this? Not just hot spots but, haha, parking spots?”
“For the past couple of months, during my lunch breaks at work so you wouldn’t know what I was doing,” Stephen said. “I’ll email you the list, now, but yes, I searched for hot spots, matched that to camping spots or at least generously sized lay-bys, and plotted it all on Google Earth to draw up a route down to Pembroke.”
“Best Dad ever,” she beamed, hugging him. Again. Her new favourite thing, as if she wasn’t already more than happy to let her father know how much she loved and adored him at the drop of a hat.
“So. Toilets. You first, Biscuit. Check the house. I’ve already programmed the lights. Once we program the alarm, and we’re on our way,” he said, earning him another salute as they did just that.
In the end it being just about lunchtime before they were ready.
Asking the obvious question, Stephen was not in the least surprised when Polinka assured him, “No, Dad, I’m good. Lunch can wait. We can go. Now. Please, haha.”
As if her grin, let alone her almost vibrating with excitement, wasn’t a clue to her answer.
“Well then. If you would like to get in?” he said, Polinka not yet having sat in the front of the van though Stephen had been photographing her as she got ready, Polinka more than happy to pose any time he asked, the last photo, for now, being of her at the open passenger side door, arms wide as if to say this is mine, and making the Cheshire Cat look utterly miserable.
“Like this?” she asked, getting in and fastening the old fashioned seat belt, the kind you had to adjust for yourself, making sure it was safe but not too tight.
Stephen climbed into the driver’s seat, reached over, checked, and nodded as he adjusted his own belt a little. “Still happy to go down to Rhayader?”
“Yes,” she beamed, watching as he programmed their destination into his tablet and set it into the holder he had fitted to the few dials that counted for the campervan’s ‘dashboard’. “Ready?”
“Ready,” she grinned, as if she could make any other expression that morning as Stephen turned the key and started the ignition. “Ooh!”
“You okay?”
“It sounds like a dream.”
“Sometimes dreams come true, Biscuit.”
“They do!” she beamed as, with a toot to Marjorie who he knew would have been watching, he pulled them off, down the road and headed for the Welsh mountains.
“So, haha, not fast?” Polinka joked as they headed up into the Welsh mountains having taken a lazy drive through to Penybont where they had a late pub lunch, pie and mash with all the trimmings, washed down with surprisingly acceptable teas. Stephen had also taken the opportunity to make sure the petrol tank was brimmed, and they had bought more water, neither of them too enthusiastic to drink water from the barrel-like carrier they had filled before leaving home. It was fine for using to wash with, and maybe even to cook with, but it smelled too ‘plasticky’ for either of them to consider drinking, especially in the form of Yorkshire Tea.
“No, Biscuit, it’s not, but I told the people I rented it from where I was planning on going, and they promised it could do it; it just might take a little time,” Stephen said, the engine sounding less anxious now that they had stopped climbing so much and begun to level out. They were, according to the blinking blob on the screen of his tablet, headed for the middle of nowhere, a ‘camping spot’ with what promised to be an excellent view, to say nothing of they themselves being the only possible source of light pollution.
“She’ll make it.” Polinka said, gently patting the dashboard.
“She?”
“Of course. Her name’s Knickerbocker Glory, in case they didn’t tell you that.”
“No, they didn’t tell me that,” Stephen chuckled.
“No? It’s obvious. All that cherry and cream? What else would she be called?”
“I, guess Knickerbocker Glory makes sense,” he smiled.
“And you can’t shorten it.”
“I can’t?”
“No! Dad, you can’t call her Knicker,” Polinka sniggered.
“What about Glory?”
“Nope. It’s Nicky, but only if she likes you.”
“I see. And she likes you?”
“Of course. I’m delightful,” she grinned.
“And me?”
Polinka shrugged. “Don’t know. You’ll have to ask her permission to get to call her Nicky. She’s picky. Picky Nicky,” she said, making herself laugh again.