Feel the Fear (and Go On Holiday)

Tom and I are shortly off on our hols. Our carbon footprint is tiny, more of a toe print actually, so I don’t feel guilty about that. In fact this is only our third package tour trip to the sun. Money, or rather the lack of it, has put the brakes on travelling and I still feel uneasy about taking off even on a cheap deal. But then I feel uneasy, full stop. Whilst Tom has been telling me, for years as it happens, that we need a proper break, I’ve been dragging my heels. We do, after all, live in a very beautiful part of the world and are both, engaged in fulfilling occupations but I accept the fact that I could get a tad too cosy here.

But, instead of looking forward to some time out in the sun, I found myself growing more apprehensive. Turning on the TV last week, having returned from the heaving metropolis of Carmarthen with some Matalan T-shirts, I wasn’t exactly thrilled to see a plane sprawled across Heathrow covered in foam. My concern is partly to do with being a complete and utter control freak (frankly I’d feel happier flying the plane myself, but I don’t suppose that would suit anyone else) but its also to do with the fact that when I go on holiday something goes wrong. Don’t believe me? Well, may I present the evidence…

Tangier
All our friends are honeymooning on Corfu or Crete so Jay, the girls’ dad and I decide to be different and head for Morocco. We have no sooner touched down when Jay starts chucking up after a dodgy burger at Gatwick. He spends most of the next two days in the en-suite. On a tentative solo trip to see what’s beyond the hotel my pale, just-off-the plane skin, attracts every vendor in Tangier hoping to sell me something. I retreat back to our room and cry.

When Jay recovers we go on a day trip to Gibraltar. He gets bitten by a monkey.

Tangier sees rain for the first time in months.

On the penultimate evening we enjoy a ‘traditional’ Moroccan night with wonderful food. In the night the whole world drops out my bottom and I only just recover in time to catch the plane home.

Jay is interrogated at the airport by security guards who think he is carrying drugs. A ‘Midnight Express’ scenario threatens until they get bored and allow us to board.

Zakynthos
Scene of the famous ‘ship wreck on the beach’ beauty stop. Also scene of Lily and I narrowly avoiding death by drowning.

Kefalonia
Hurray! Tom and I head off for our first holiday together! We arrive at Kefalonia airport – my luggage does not. Naïve and experienced travellers that we are, we have not mixed cases and I have only the clothes I stand up in. The good news is the local shop sells clothes. The bad news is Susannah and Trinny wouldn’t be seen dead in them. I put on my new prison blue maternity tent for our evening meal and Tom tells me I look lovely. He later admits he is lying through his teeth but is too hungry to risk me having a paddy.

Joy of joys! My luggage turns up the next day in a strange new bag… that’s because my case has been run over by a tractor or an airplane! My clothes have arrived but are covered in suntan cream and oily wheel marks.

Fuertaventura
Tom has been very ill after a minor op has gone horribly wrong and he contracts MRSA. We book a cheap flight to the sun so his poor battered body can start to recover. I am nearly battered myself when I ask the little boy behind me not to kick my backside all the way to the Canaries and a Vinnie Jones-alike dad rears up and asks in not so many words what my problem is. Feel vindicated when he sits down and hisses at his son to ‘stop kicking the lady’.

See? Can you see why I’m entitled to worry? I have already fallen over this week, (after a night out at the West Wales Cruising Association and, no, not that kind of cruising and, no, I wasn’t drunk) so I’m hoping that going away with cuts and bruises to my right arm and leg and a dodgy back means that I’ve got my bad luck out the way before leaving. So long as I stay away from monkeys, big seas, Pit Bull Man, and my luggage doesn’t throw itself under a plane I’ll have a great time!

Hwyl fawr!

Sorry - no painting today. My computer is refusing to play...