Jonny McCambridge: Holiday capers - terror on the water slide and the walking candy floss

I’ve never been great with water and pools. I didn’t learn to swim as a child. As an embarrassed adult on holiday with my wife, I taught myself how to haul my weight from one side of the pool to the other, but it would be charitable to describe it as competent swimming.

This year’s family holiday has involved an abundance of water activities. There is a little wooden jetty on the shore of Lake Garda where the habit is for visitors and locals to leap off the edge into the water. I was persuaded to try this.

I was nervous. All of my previous insertions into water had been done gradually, a toe at a time, easing myself slowly downwards as you might do into a warm bath. I stood on the edge of the pier and saw my son in the water waiting expectedly. For the first time in my life, I jumped.

There was a splash and a scrambling of the senses. My nose and ears filled with liquid and I felt a sudden pain at the top of my skull. I staggered, gasping, to my feet. My son leapt towards me.

“Let’s go again daddy!”

The lake was, however, merely a warm up for the giant water slide. As I said, I could have very merrily gone through the rest of my days without experiencing it. However, the size of the slide meant my son was slightly intimidated by the descent. He said he would do it, but only if I slid down first. Drat.

I climbed the long, long set of steps with no little trepidation. I queued among the children at the top of the brightly-coloured chute. I was unsure of the best approach, so some of the kids told me to lie flat on my back with my arms by my side.

They grinned as they were doing this. There was a small girl in front of me. I waited until she was well done the slide before I lowered my backside onto the wet chute and let go.

What happened next is difficult to explain coherently as I lost control of both body and senses. I was merely aware that I was travelling at a speed that I had never achieved before without the assistance of a mechanical engine.

I could compare it to a bobsleigh going down an ice track, but it was nowhere near as controlled as that. Perhaps a more fitting and accurate image would be of waste being sucked down the vacuum toilet on a plane.

As I continued with the chaotic descent, I became aware I was rapidly catching up the young girl in front who was gently nearing the bottom, blissfully unaware of my approach. I feared I would crash into her with the impact of a meteorite striking the earth.

"Watch out! Watch out!” I yelled in alarm, entirely unable to slow my rapid descent and fearing a disaster.

Mercifully, the girl’s mother was at the bottom and yanked the child out of the pool a second before I exploded out of the chute and landed, backside first with my legs in the air, in the water, causing a mini tsunami.

And all in the name of fun.

:My two nephews, slightly younger than my son, accompanied us on the holiday. As the parent of an only child, I found this to be an interesting and novel experience. I was able to study the differences in the children, how their personalities react individually to situations.

It quickly became clear that the youngest of the three boys was, by far, the most daring. While the older two might take a bit of time at the swimming pools to acclimatise to the surroundings in the morning, the youngest boy was constantly the first into the water, always running off the edge with no thought to what was on the other side.

This sense of adventure was evident everywhere. At the restaurants, the youngest nephew ordered for himself, made inquiries about wi-fi and even wanted to be allowed to ask for the bill.

I am used to parenting a son who I am gently trying to encourage to move forward, to try new things, to be a bit more forceful. It was unusual to be with a child where the challenge was in sometimes having to hold him back, to ensure that he doesn’t stretch his wings too far.

The three boys have gone for ice-creams following another morning of fun at the pool. What happens next is not a surprise.

The two older boys sit and contentedly lick their gelato cones. The youngest has already decided that he has had enough of this sweet and he now wants candy floss. He also wants to buy it himself. I do not complain about this arrangement because it means I get to eat the leftover ice cream.

He is given some money and waddles off to the shop while the rest of us eat our ice creams in the sun.

I keep an eye on the door of the shop. A few minutes later I see a startling sight. It is not my nephew leaving the shop but a child-size lump of pink wool with legs.

The boy is entirely hidden behind the largest lump of candy floss I have ever seen in my life. I know that I will be spending a significant part of my afternoon eating leftover spun sugar.

My nephew comes towards us, holding up the stick and beaming.

“It’s good value", he says contentedly.