Life is not a roller coaster

As happens at least once a year,  today I have been deserted by my family.

It is not, I am pleased to report, anything to do with halitosis or excessive body odour but it is everything to with where they have gone.

I am not one who gets a kick out of being terrified.  I do not enjoy being on a speeding ride over which I have no control (but that's enough about my partner's driving).  I do not enjoy theme parks.

It is possible that I have been scarred by things that happened in my youth, or shortly thereafter.

I remember spending a weekend in Weymouth with my then girlfriend who for the purpose of this piece I shall refer to as Sue, which was her name.

My idea of an evening out has always been, will always be, a trip to the pub.  Away in Weymouth with my girlfriend gave me the opportunity of sampling a few new pubs.  Imagine my surprise when Sue wanted to go to the fun fair?

My reaction within was to say no.  But she convinced me that it would be "a bit of a laugh" and I could visit a pub later.  Well, if you put it like that.

There were a few modest rides which, frankly, wouldn't have scared anyone, even me, but there was a ride called 'The Wild Mouse'.  It was a single car that whizzed around a metal track, up and down at what appeared to be a gentle speed.  Until we got in it.

Once the ride started going, Sue and I strapped ourselves into our little cart and it clanked up the slope.  And it went higher and higher until there was a clear view of the river with, seemingly nothing below us.  My heart sank, but not as quickly as our vehicle which plunged towards the ground only to tear back up the hill again after a manic right angled turn.  And so it went on, jerking around 50 feet above the river, me making a strange whining noise!

Finally, we got to the end, me pretending that it had been absolutely nothing.  Until I tried to stand up.  My legs had turned to jelly and I was staggering along like Groucho Marx on springs.

I quietly told Sue that I would rather spend a little time walking round the harbour, preferably slowly, to take in the evening air but I sensed my green complexion would have been obvious to Stevie Wonder.  The truth was an alcoholic drink would have been as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit.

It was a lesson that I should have learned but years later, on a visit to the local fun fair, I was fooled by a friend, who I shall refer to as Nigel, into going on a gentle ride that went in circles.  Well, it did go in circles and it went higher and higher until one moment you were facing the road and the next the sky.

I had had a beer before we got there and I became genuinely alarmed that I might suddenly become uncontrollably and violently sick.

Somehow, I managed to avoid it until I got out of the ride but it did not take long for a couple of pints of Colt 45 (ask your parents, kids) to return to the fresh air.  Right in front of a bunch of girls, one of whom I had admired from a distance for some time and had thought about asking for a date.

I have since done the milder rides at places like Legoland, where the rides are timid, but as long as my bottom faces downwards the odds of my paying good money to feel ill and to raise my blood pressure to insane levels range are between extremely remote and zero.

I hope they had a nice day - I hacked my way round the Thornbury Par 3 again, far more fun - but it's not my idea of fun.