Heaven and Trago Mills

I, like everybody else, have absolutely no idea what happens, if anything at all, after you die.
However if I want to make it to my heaven, which I fully expect is a sunny, 20 degrees C. Hawaiian type landscape with a very light wisp of a breeze and bereft of all insects, then I need to be and do good because the alternative, I discovered at the weekend, could be an eternity at Trago Mills.
After only 20 minutes of being there I’d started to question whether the kids had dropped acid into my orange juice that morning as I was seemingly having a glimpse into some alternative universe or to some after death state showing me the very worst that could possibly happen to me if I’m naughty and this personal perception of hell on Earth was all the result of bad planning.

The Peach family had booked three nights in a log cabin, well actually a wooden chalet if I was being a pedant, which was in a lovely, hidden forest with 45 other cabins ten miles from Looe in Cornwall.
The cabin had a mezzanine balcony, constant very hot water, two power showers and an outdoor hot tub which sat on our very own private verandah amongst the Autumnal trees. (Think hippy commune that’s got its act together.)
There are a few of these sites popping up nationwide all run by the Forestry Commission under the name, ‘Forest Holidays’.
I couldn’t fault it as a break even in the incessant rain that we endured, in fact it was made all the more cosy by it. There was zero phone reception and no wi-fi or internet connection of any kind. That in itself was priceless.

It was travelling there, having just crossed the Tamar Bridge into the land of the black and white flag, that we questioned whether the place would have any towels supplied. A phone calI confirmed it didn’t and we hadn’t brought any so we pondered to where we could get towels at short notice and then suddenly like cruel, divine intervention out jumped a road sign with the words ‘Trago Mills 8 miles’. I can’t recall if this vision was accompanied by a crooked finger from the sky spouting flashes of lightning, but it should have been.

Fifteen minutes later and in monsoon rain we arrived at what looked like a child’s life size castle built, I imagined, by bored and not very arty children.
The first thing we discovered was that parking spaces not needing a bus journey to the main entrance were in short supply and once we’d disembarked and grumbled and struggled into our sow-esters we noticed that the main entrance, or indeed any entrance, was something of a secret so we followed the general direction of moving people which appeared to be straight from a Lowry painting. Either that or they were very recently deceased sinners.

Occasionally I looked up from under my hood to see if hope had shown its face and I was eventually met by two very well worn old women both smoking heavily under a roofed gateway which was the beginning of a bridge over an angry black stream to the main doors.
My first thought was that these ladies had suffered quite terrible paper rounds when younger. My mind was jolted by the memory of Philip Pullman’s description of hell in The Amber Spyglass and the realisation that these women were Harpies. It certainly didn’t help mental matters when they said in unison, ‘this way my dearie.'
It was the singularity of ‘dearie’ that bothered me as I was with three other members of the Peach family. I felt my mouth agape and my eyes widen to startle mode as I obediently and magnetically trudged across the bridge.

I’d already decided to quickly find where towel sales might be and to skedattle just as fast. (Just for reference the word ‘quickly’ does not actually exist at Trago Mills, along with ‘polite,' ‘warm’ and ‘fun.') I approached the first person who looked miserable enough to work there and asked where may I find towels please. His enthusiasm for un-helpfulness was intoxicating and it turned out that we were approximately as far away from towels that we could possibly be and on the wrong floor.

If you’ve never stumbled upon Trago Mills (though I detected that some people deliberately seek it out - thrill seekers I’d call them) then it can only be described as a collection of departments-kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, music, bookshops, in fact everything on Earth in one structure that obviously once wanted to be an Ikea type place but gave up with a shrug as soon as it opened to the public.

Having found and chosen the towels, (and it surprised me how even I agonised over the choice of colours and much to the chagrin of our teenager who muttered something ineligible and wandered off, disappearing and without turning his mobile phone on,) we just had to pay and be on our jolly way.
After fifteen minutes of sauntering with gay abandon, I gave in and asked somebody shaping a noose as to where the tills might be. His reply was simply, ‘you can pay anywhere, there are 52 tills in Trago Mills’, to which I breathed in and asked if he could point me towards just one. I then spent 10 minutes each at four different sets of checkouts.
These checkouts have obviously been designed to completely squeeze out the last ounce of civility from the paying public. They were arranged in such a way to cause maximum conflict with no opportunity to queue in a polite British way but only to encourage a Spanish style free for all.
I asked a wearied, leaning older woman beside me if she also thought that this was total insanity. She resignedly nodded agreement the way somebody who shops there regularly would.

It was somewhat of a triumph when I was allowed to pay and I asked the cashier if they issue certificates with each purchase. Once paid and having spied an exit I headed off towel laden.
The exits have security guards in place to catch, what anywhere else would be called shoplifters, but here it’s more to take unpaid goods off those who have lost the will to live. I caught his eye and said telepathically, ‘I dare you, I double dare you to stop me.'
It worked and I was off over the bridge without a backward glance hoping that the rest of the Peaches were in tow.

I was more than disturbed to pass the two old women, still smoking, who flared me a look and gave me a farewell, you’ll be back, graveyard smile.