(I should point out that photos will be inserted to this delightful tale so check back later)
Day minus 1 - Wednesday.
I’ve not been feeling well today at work.
We go on holiday tomorrow. It’s an early flight and we have to get up about 2.30 so off to bed early tonight.
Got home from work and I’m really not well. I have a terrible stomach bug and a temperature that seems to be going off the scale. The Wife has said that she is worried I won’t be able to fly and that if I’m not well enough, we should cancel. I shivered a bit while swallowing down more tablets and quietly say "fuck that. We are going full stop. I'll get my carcass on that plane regardless." she smiles worriedly and I drift into a medical coma.
Day 1 - Thursday
Day minus 1 - Wednesday.
I’ve not been feeling well today at work.
We go on holiday tomorrow. It’s an early flight and we have to get up about 2.30 so off to bed early tonight.
Got home from work and I’m really not well. I have a terrible stomach bug and a temperature that seems to be going off the scale. The Wife has said that she is worried I won’t be able to fly and that if I’m not well enough, we should cancel. I shivered a bit while swallowing down more tablets and quietly say "fuck that. We are going full stop. I'll get my carcass on that plane regardless." she smiles worriedly and I drift into a medical coma.
Day 1 - Thursday
The alarm goes off at 2.30.
We both ignore it knowing there is another one in 15 minutes.
When the second one goes we get up. I kind of feel ok but then The Wife informs me I have a radioactive temperature. I tell her not to worry as I have a plan. I go to the bathroom and hose myself down with what starts off as freezing cold water. After about 5 minutes of high pitched shrilling and juddering, the water is now kind of warm but I am a little bit cooler. Brilliant.
I take more drugs and we head off to the airport, me sleeping all the way.
Its 4.30am when we reach the airport. Early. My earlier drugs are wearing off and I’m not my usual enthusiastic self. We get checked in relatively hassle free (you hear a lot of horror stories about no frills airlines, but so far we're doing ok...well that’s cursed me now hasn't it?). Time seems to slip when you're not well and within what seems a relatively short time we're on the plane and en-route. The Wife keeps looking at me oddly and I drift in and out of feverish comas. And we arrive. It seems I’ve found the best way to fly. Off your tits on a 105 degree fever.
Any ho...
Staying at a place called Palladium hotel, Ibiza. The Wife arranged it all and after much soul searching decided this was the best place with the best reviews. I should perhaps point out that a major part of her review hunting includes the phrase "not many British". I googled the place yesterday at work (in my lunch hour if anyone from work is reading this) and if you do the cool Google maps thing, you can see the aerial view of the hotel and its distinctive spiral pattern pool. I read the reviews and thought of what a cool time I was going to have although also at the time I was starting to feel light headed and kinda sick...but that didn't mean anything right? Back to the maps...so I’m looking at the map / satellite view and decide to have a move about and see what’s nearby. I move the mouse three clicks to the left and hey presto...it’s an island landmark, visited by thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands each year and it’s quite literally in walking distance. Have you guessed what this Ibizian landmark of mass importance is yet? No...It’s not the rave district with its amnesia nightclubs and all night rave-a-thons...it’s much cooler than that. No...its not the old town with its cobbles and traditional folk emptying their toilets into to the streets next to the restaurants (that’s actually a story I overheard today at lunch, where apparently an old woman just chucked a bucket of shit into the street next to a restaurant and then washed it away and all the restaurant staff were like...meh...as if it happened all the time. Obviously I can't vouch for the validity of that story but meh...happens all the time). Anyway...nope. Not old town, but we are only 1.5km away from that. So what could it be? Here’s a clue. It’s an airport. Yes that’s right; our next door neighbour is an airport. Now I love planes and all things plane related but they do have one or two things that even some folks don’t like. So I’m fascinated to know why no-one reviewing their holiday on a holiday web site remembers to mention the fact that not only is their hotel (which in all honesty is Very nice) on a flight path, its on the end of the fucking runway! You'd have thought some one person might have included in a review..."lovely amenities, staff very helpful and like occasional Spanish word, food wonderful, fucking Flybe and Ryanair every 5 minutes thinking its fucking top gun and doing tower fly-bys". Apparently that stuffs not important to your all inclusive guzzling swine. (Yes...we are included in aforementioned swine category so no complaints please.) Needless to say that the shuttle bus from the airport took longer to board by its passengers than it actually took to reach its fucking destination.
For those with short memories, I’m still really not well and in-between feeling utterly nauseous and ... I'm sorry for this... Like I’m going to shit my soul out ... Still we're here and checked in for a very nice and early 12.00pm ish (I can’t give an exact time as I’m pretty much already firing on a combination of motor functions and drugs only)
It’s a lovely place. Sorry, you probably can't hear that for the sound of the 737 silently departing to Munich. IT'S A LOVELY PLACE. Seriously. It’s very nice and already my limited Spanish diction has already bagged me a number of Spanish sultry smiles...(you hot Spanish bitches) (sorry..It’s the drugs) (hmm...maybe) (turns out..Yes it’s the drugs). On a serious note... I don’t know if learning to ask for 4 beers in Spanish whilst saying good day and thank you qualifies as A) flirting or B) being multi-lingual but in my book...fuck it. At least I took the time to say something as basic as please and thank you and that therefore that me makes me better than the other 2% of British trolls in this airport extension for people who can't afford a proper holiday thanks to you Icelandic money eating volcano spouting fuckers.
The rest of the day kind of blurs as I slip in and out of what I like to call consciousness and The Wife likes to call meal times.
In conclusion... Today is probably the illest I have felt in a very very long time.
(Final nb) the illest does not refer to coolness as initially derived by the beastie boys during their whole "Licensed to ill" period. It means I felt like shit. Glad we got that sorted out.
Day 2 - Friday
We wake early and take various drugs.
The Wife surprises me by instead of suggesting we stay in bed and rest suggesting we go and get breakfast. I insist that I’m still ill and I’ll be staying in bed for most of the day. This roughly translates in universal language to..."ok sweetie, let’s go for breakfast".
After breakfast of half a slice of uncooked toast...fuck you, you stupid fucking toaster. I put that bread through you 8 times and it was still only slightly warm...
We discover that limited stories of German superiority around the swimming pool regarding sunbeds and towels appears to be true and we are relegated to two sunbeds about 2 miles away from the pool...the airport runway is still closer...
The Wife devises a plan whereby she'll get up early in the morning and beat the Nazi’s at their game.
I point out to her that Nazi’s is really not a good term to use. it’s kind of racist and I’m really sure it doesn't apply to more than 45% of the sunbed hogging dinosaur skinned freaky food eating bastards that are staying at this quality four star hotel.
She agrees not to use the term any more. I kiss her and know she is lying and will probably use the term again infront of our new friends Ingrid und Hans from Berlin.
...that’s a joke. Anyone who knows my holiday diaries by now knows we never make friends on holiday. Anyway, we decide that a new word to use as a secret codeword could be the Nigels. Got that…chances are its going to show up again.
We spend much of the day relaxing and taking drugs and alcohol, occasionally opting to go for a dip in the pool. We've been relegated to the kiddie pool because when The Wife woke at 6am and came poolside, all the sunloungers had already been taken by the people The Wife used to refer to as the Nazis who despite the fact that there is a very clear 4inch card on the edge of the grass next to the entrance to the pool area which states that sunbeds are not to be reserved, they've reserved.
We have a sunbed which is about 5m from the exit to the hotel. it’s a metal gate and you need a card to get through it and every minute, someone goes through it. When it closes the gate gives a loud metallic bang. After about an hour I’ve filtered this out but the face of The Wife paints an entirely different picture. You see every time someone clangs the gate she goes 'grrr' and puffs and blows. Every time. Every single time. A 737 takes off and not so much as a shrug. The gate goes clang and 'grrr' puff blow.
This is now more singularly more frustrating to me than either the gate or the fucking airplanes roaring over head. So I have to enquire.
"what’s wrong with the fact that the gate clangs? Just filter it out" says me with my clearly foolish suggestion.
"its not just a clang though is it?" says The Wife. "it goes clang clang"she continues.
Ok now I’m confused. The Wife can clearly hear 2 clangs. The second of which is obviously so offensive to her, she treats it as a personal affront. "why cant they just shut the gate quietly?" she asks.
Unable to provide any kind of suitable answer or make sense of the craziness of the situation, we go to lunch. Fucking gate double clanging slammers.
Our attempt to enter the restaurant for lunch is scuppered when The Wife is denied access due to "transparancia". Apparently wearing a see thru beach top is too much for the majority of Germanic diners and The Wife strides off with that true "I don't believe it" look on her face. To an average passerby (as opposed to a professional one I guess) it looked like I was the one who'd proper fucked her off. But for once...it wasn't. I still feel really quite unwell and at lunch have a small amount of fish and rice. The Wife feels for me and in sympathy with the way I’m feeling spends 20 minutes constructing a salad that looks like the only thing missing from the farm is a tractor then spends the whole of lunch sympathetically looking at me with mournful eyes and saying warming things like..."sorry you don’t feel well" or "you'll be better soon" whilst crunching her way through mounds of crunchy and delicious looking foods.
Back round the pool after lunch and between drifting in and out of consciousness I notice that in the scrub behind the loungers there are lots and lots of little lizards. Skitting about and generally looking cool with their bright colours.
We both love lizards and these all seem really tame and will, if left, come right to you. I watch as two of them (I’ve named them Eddie Lizard and Lizard Beth Taylor) playfully use The Wife’s sandal as a play area. The Wife puts some of her Baileys on the floor and they both run up and start drinking it. Then things seem to take a nasty turn as Eddie bites Liz in the back and what looks like a heated drunken fight breaks out. We both look shocked as it transpires that the sandal, the alcohol and the obvious voyeuristic nature that’s swept up both the lizards leads them to perform dirty nasty lizard sex right there infront of us. Disgusted, we continue to watch. it’s like the internet but without the promise of further instant sexual shenanigans a mere button click away should we get board.
Evening comes (yes we stopped watching drunken lizard sex) and I’m feeling slightly better. Hoorah.
After some food we settle to watch the bar performer for the evening."Amazing showman Je...Sus" it’s ok. Your eyes don’t deceive you. I figured that if nothing else, I would at least get to see some kind of miracle.
As it turns out, apparently you can say anything on Spanish posters with fear of copyright or retribution or even comedy misunderstanding. Jesus was neither amazing nor a showman, more a 5foot Spanish music teacher with an evening job playing David Hasselhoff songs to drunken Germans. I doubt his real name was even Jesus.
Drugs then bed.
Day 3 - Saturday
Woke up and felt really well. Hoorah.
Today is my birthday. My 40th birthday. I've had big issues about this but now its here and doing it like this thanks to The Wife I’m kind of ok about it. Get some texts from friends and family. Pods makes me laugh a lot and I show The Wife. She promises to hurt him later.
I spend most of the morning getting better and by lunchtime I’m finally ready for something proper to eat. So...to celebrate my birthday and my improved health I decide on a cosmopolitan Mediterranean lunch of octopus (if you've never had fresh octopus I would recommend it. Its both delicious and a delightful texture...hmm) and fish and chips. That’s right folks...You can take the boy out of Parson Cross...
Have a great afternoon messing about in the sea.
As The Wife strides out of the sea I warmly shout across the beach that she looks like that film star whose name I can't remember. Puzzled she looks at me and shouts back.."Ursula Andres or Halle Berry?". I assume a foetal position as I shout back "Godzilla" the rest writes itself.
We head back to the pool for the last of the afternoon sun and we are one of only a handful of holidaymakers doing the same. The pool area is quiet and delightful.
After a short while a hotel photographer comes around and spots a kinda pretty-and-fuck-does-she-know-it girl and offers to take some photos for her of her lounging around the pool in FHM style poses but at TKMax style prices. Obviously seeing this as a chance to increase her portfolio of saucy beachwear photos, she jumps at the opportunity and within minutes is sprawled or arched or akimbo'd over several areas of the pool.
Unfortunately for her though, I took a dislike to the fact that she obviously thought she was pretty/vacuous enough to qualify for glamour shots(she’s obviously damaged in some way and back in my day she probably wouldn't even have given me the time of day...the stuck up bitch) so I just so happened to be in the background of every photo they took. Sometime in a Kays catalogue pose, sometimes with The Wife, whatever it took really. I hope she enjoys the snaps.You’re welcome.
Lots of champers during the evening.
As 40ths go, it was everything I needed.
Day 4 - Sunday
Pretty much realise from the moment we get up that today is going to be a recovery day. The Wife is tired and quite frankly I’m hung over.
Spend much of the day lazing round the pool. The weather just gets hotter and hotter. We see in the papers that you're enjoying really hot temperatures back home and apart from stock footage of Brighton (is Brighton really the only place that ever gets sun in England or is it just the one that’s nearest to where all the lazy fucking journalists live?) anyway, apart from Brighton there’s a picture of hundreds of people on a beach and while it looks hot, its still cloudy and a bit overcast...you know, like it always is in England. To illustrate the point...here’s a picture of what it should look like. Anyway..I wont get into the furore of who’s weather is better (obviously its mine) but it is hot and very good weather to recuperate.
About 4pm the lizards come out and one particularly tame lizard called Wizard - please feel free to send in your lizard names - crawls over my foot and then up the towel to my sunbed. He has a good look around - yes I have to make my shorts off limits to lizards - and then shoots back down to the ground before sitting in The Wife’s chocolate milk and brandy for bizarre bath.
Not much else happens during the day and we opt for a late-ish meal as the world cup final will be on and getting served may be easier. It turns out this is the actual truth because apart from us, there are about 5 other couples in a room made to seat about 300. Service is superb and completely one to one. the cava arrives in record time and away we go.
After the meal we retire to a noisy bar and continue quaffing the ice cold cava. Some one shouts that its extra time and still nil nil. We're both too pissed to care so we decide to retire early and watch the closing stages from bed...yes...we had a TV in our room...nice.
The complex is strangely quiet as we walk back to our room. We pamper ourselves by taking the lift the 1 floor up. Upon exiting the lift and entering the corridor down which our room resides, we try to act nonchalant as an older German man knocks on a door and a young German man answers and then follows him to the older mans room. Oh yes I forgot to mention the younger man on wore underpants. Its ok. nothing strange about that.
In our room The commentary is in a very excitable Spanish and when the goal finally came, the TV nearly jumped off the table. The commentator makes some hilarious na-nana-na-na sound to the rest of the world and they are nearly in tears.
I always said I would be unsure about a Spanish victory when we were away, but good on them. After all they did score more goals than their opponent and that make their team winners in that sport. People who are unsure should realise that the fact that their team have won at a specific sport does not mean that they and all of their countrymen are immediately elevated to best in the world, either at the specific sport or as many of them would have us believe...at everything.
Bed time.
Day 5 - Monday
Woke late after waking really early to go and run down poolside and -ahem- pre-allocate the sunbeds. it was just on the cusp of sunrise. The sky was a beautiful deep blue, stars were perfect pinpricks in an unblemished sky, silence was all around.
Oddly there were already two men sat on sun beds around the pool. One reading a book, the other seemingly sorting out some money. Weird.
Also weird was the amount of condensation every where. Everything was massively wet, especially the sunbeds. So I’d taken in the beauty of a silent morning, the weirdness that some blokes would be up reading books and counting cash and the wonderment that was condensation. Enough world interest, back to bed. On the way back I cheekily take the lift the 1floor up and before the doors open I sneak out a tiny trump. The problem with complete silence is that any noise seems completely amplified and the resulting noise is like a dinosaur blowing a vuvuzela (for those reading this in the future, a vuvuzela is a plastic trumpet designed by Africans to successfully drown out any kind of atmosphere noise from a football match).
Upon my second waking delighted to find I slept funny and now have a painful cricked neck. No amount of gently stretching seems to help so return to the familiar pleasures of drugs. Nice.
Today, nature reminds us that she is in charge and ruins everyone’s day by placing a cloud over the complex for about 30 minutes. Sky rolling news would have covered the horrific story but they were still reporting on the terrifying final moments of media-wannabe-nearly-poilce killer Raoul Moat (who pussied out btw and didn’t live upto any of his earlier media threats). Sky must've been kicking themselves at the end when they could even film him pointlessly blowing his own brains out. All that money wasted on TV crews and tornado jets. I mean come on... A fucking tornado!?!? The highlight of this story from my point of view was when petrified police held a conference to tell the inhabitants of the village they were in that they would make sure all the children would be ok because they would surround the school. Hmmm sounds more like the police hoping that tiny human shields might come in more use than pointy hats and whistles. Finally on this non-news story, was anyone really amazed when former professional drinker and part time footballer Gazza 'Gazza' Gascoigne chirped up and said that he was 'Moaty's mate'? legend has it that they became friends during Moat's bouncer days and no doubt used to swap stories of alleged wife beating and alcoholism and how great it was to smash people up when pissed. At one point in the Gazza quotes he stated that they should send him in because there was no way his mate Moaty would ever shoot him. But think of the opportunities for the police snipers though eh?
We decide to take a walk into town as 'the cloud' has cooled things slightly.
Walking into Ibiza town is an experience in itself. Posters for DJs and nightclubs and sexy nightclub and sexy DJs are everywhere. We walk past a coke machine that has been turned onto its side...no small feat considering its size. The funny thing is, its still working...like it's wounded. I want to put 2 Euros in it just to see it cough up a little blood and then gingerly pass me a diet coke, but The Wife doesn't think this is a good idea.
We arrive a 'store' that has lots of junk type stuff that is suitable for gifts or the garden. We walk past the 6meter long shelf full of various sized wooden penises and wonder who actually buys those things.
During the shopping experience, we notice that the temperature seems to have shot up and we are now both oozing a mixture of copious sweat and dripping diluted sun cream. The resultant rivers of which look 'wrong' on both of us.
The temperature has shot up to 35degrees and starts to take its toll on us.
We head back to the sanctuary of the hotel pool where we can at least rehydrate ourselves with varieties of delicious alcohols. Today’s sure fire hit is chocolate milk and brandy. Ticks all the boxes.
The day comes to a close after further lazing in the pool, eating and drinking cava til it comes out of our ears.
Annoyingly, my neck suddenly goes 'click' and then it is all better. Bastard.
Day 6 - Tuesday
Another late breakfast. Damn you cava and brandy (not in the same glass obviously).
We spot a middle aged woman outside the bar area who at first glance, seems to be sleeping, but upon closer inspection seems to be having some sort of violent reaction to the heat and is twitching and shivering like she’s been bitten by a rage infected monkey. For that reason, we steer well clear and acknowledge that she'll probably be getting tanked up later. There aren't many Scottish people here.
We decide to do a bit of sightseeing today, but as its us, this means not too far from the complex and not too taxing. Have you seen some of the excursions some of these holiday places do? A 6km walk up an raggedy ass mountain or former volcano in the blazing sun all to see a waterfall and get a free glass of naff sangria? Or driving up the edge of a precarious road that even the toughest to the peak of a mountain or volcano all to see some rocks or a geyser and get a free glass of naff sangria. By the way, if you do go on these excursions, I hope you enjoy them and I’m only ripping the piss because we like to wallow by the pool or seaside. That and the fact that a lot of these excursions depart early in the morning and...well I’m on holiday so fuck getting up early!
So we've notice a defense tower down the end of the beach and every so often we see people at the top taking pictures. Even we think that this is a self made excursion that we could achieve. So off we set. First obstacle is a little bridge covering a river feed into the sea. At first glance the sight of hundred of little fish working their way up stream to the river is quite nice. Then you see the dead seagull, then you get the smell. Finally you realise this isn’t part of the 'scene of natural beauty' and quickly move on.
I spot two African looky looky men up on the hill and inform The Wife that we better move or the snipers will get us. What are they waiting for? Just sat, waiting, silently. Waiting to spot a 'del boy' and move in to sell him sunglasses, an overpriced broken watch or hooky DVDs...'lovely jubbly'. Be careful out there folks.
After a short walk we arrive at the tower which, just like any cultural tourist icon, is surrounded with broken glass, dog shit and graffiti. At least the inside was clean. Essentially this defense tower was used to protect the salt workers in case of attack, possibly from Nigel’s, possibly from vampires who were at war with werewolves at the time, I’m not sure.
Anyway, its a three storey affair with a very tight spiral staircase and very, very low door arches. Ideal for short tourists, and diminutive locals on the hide from attacking vampires and dragons, but not very good for anyone over 5'5''.
So we arrive at the top, the defense platform and I’m nearly concussed after two blows to the head.
The views are lovely and from one side, you can see all of the see front, from another side you can see the tiny fishing village below and on final side you can see the airport, which I imagine the originators of the tower needed visibility of so they tell if the 17.15 Ryan air had arrived yet, fully laden with its cargo of defensive garlic bullets. I’m not good at history.
As we're enjoying the views some Spanish teenagers noisily come up the stairs and when at the top, spit then light up cigarettes. They cleverly then wave over the edge to their parents below on the cliff face while keeping their fag hands below the battlements.
Its at this point that I really want to shout out 'hola Mr. and Mrs. whatever...your noisy little shits are up here having a fag....and I think they're also cussing the baby Jesus' sit back and watch the fireworks. But unfortunately I don’t know that much Spanish and shouting over the battlements to the parents that I would like two beers please, would probably just confuse them. So I glare my most disapproving glare and eventually they go.
After some time admiring the view we decide to descend the stairs.
This turns out to be much harder than we expect when The Wife turns all girlie on me and gets dizzy halfway down the staircase and we end up having to make the decent as a three stage process each one interspersed with 'whooo' and 'whaaa' and other exasperations relating to dizziness. Bless her.
A trip to the beach next and the usual collection of hard bodies, poseur boys and Peter Stringfellows greet us. (obviously I don't fit any of those categories, I’m probably in the free willy category).
I confess that I’m not entirely happy with the location we've chosen as it does kind of smell like a sewage outlet.
We return to the security, warmth and all you can drink comfort of the hotel.
After yesterdays 35' heat we're delighted when the temp only tops out at 34' today. We wonder if we should put on cardigans to highlight the massive temperature drop.
At the height of the heatness we decide to have a beer in the Ibiza chill out zone. This is the area outside the bar playing soft dreamy music while couples who hate each other sit in total silence. Not speaking to each other because its either just too darned hot, or because they've just said everything they need to say and they just want to carry on drinking.
We sit and talk about some of the freaks we've seen this week.
There’s Spanish SuBo. An unfortunate girl who looks like voice-of-an-angel, mind-of-a-crazy-person BGT loser.
There’s the British guy with the thick dark hair whose Lardnen voice is so comedically high pitched as to destroy another preconceptions you may have of him.
And there’s a plethora of massive truck drivers from all over that seem to have the same style tattoos and even the same style wives.
And you can take your pick of foibles that the Nigel’s have.
We've booked a special meal in the beach restaurant tonight and everything goes well except for when the waitress asks what we want on the menu, we tell her, she then repeats in high speed Spanish and we nod, say yes and smile. There’s not much we can do therefore when the meals we didn’t order arrive. Luckily though, they are very delicious and we eat them all up nyum nyum nyum. Moral to that story being, try to learn some local lingo if you really want to understand.
We finish off round the bar with a night cap while Julio and Inglesias serenade the room with contemporary classics like Madonna’s like a prayer and diamond life by Sade. Nice. One of the entertainment staff, Raoul, asks me if I want to dance, I confuse him by saying, 'what? With you?' he's taken aback, throws his wetlook hair back, laughs and moves on. Its clear that Raoul is a sexual predator, working his way through the guests, the wives, the daughters, the grandmothers, he knows no depravity. Its odd then that he doesn’t approach The Wife. My mind goes back to earlier in the week when I was ill and mostly unconscious. The Wife was away 'doing stuff' for quite a bit of time. Hmm I wonder. Oh Raoul. You bad, sexual predator, preying on the vulnerable women in search of a holiday romance in the off chance you can spray them with your paella fueled well sun tanned man butter you.
Bed.
Day 7 - Wednesday
5am, The Wife eagerly sorts out the sunbeds. This is a ridiculous regime, but at least we are winning.
Today’s our last full day.
Tomorrow we'll be flying home by 10am. I think I speak for everyone when I say...'boo. The Wilsons should be allowed to stay as long as they like...rent free.' its ok I know that’s how you feel too. Rest assured, that if that was the case, we'd insist you came out and stayed with us too, but you’d probably have to stay in a different complex and you'd only be able to see us for a couple of days tops. Don’t want to over do it now do we. Besides, you probably want to go up a mountain or volcano and see and old sangria factory, which is fine, but we just don’t think we can be up that early.
Newbies have arrived today and collared the sunbeds next to ours. 2 older women, 2 younger women. Jesus talk about faffing about with sunbeds. The sunbeds have wheels to help you move them, but if you're a stupid young bird of a woman (describing her features as birdlike and not actually reverting to 1970's lingo...yet!) you just drag them from a to b to c to d to e. I swear one of them has just spent 5 minutes turning a sunbed around, i.e. 180' in what can only be described as the sunbed equivalent of a 3 point turn done in 10 points. Grrr fucking stupid noisy birds.(ok that’s a 70s reference).
Shortly after writing that last entry, the stupid fucking noisy birds whom we've now established have got money (yes, that does make us hate them more) make such a fucking brouhaha about moving 4 sunbeds that we decide the second best option is to move. They're a bit like the sex and the city birds in that, yes they're all well to do and they're obviously not used to common courtesy and you immediately ascertain an order that you would kidnap and slowly kill them.
Obviously the best thing would have been to drown one of the feckless well to do twats in the pool, while forcing the others to look on as a lesson in just being polite and not fucking about with people that have been up since 5am. Luckily there are a couple of beds further up the complex.
We move.
Great. Now we have a smoker. One of the things I’ve noticed this holiday is how few smokers there are. Its like some of them are getting the message. And that’s a good thing. (some of you smoke and that’s fine, unfortunately, I’m one of those wretched scum who never paid for a cigarette in his life yet used to smoke 40 a day for nearly 22years thanks to mum,dad,friends,mums and dads, grans, grandads, aunties, uncles, off the rails friends, and various randoms in public places. I am kind of miffed that the smokers seemed to have claimed all the best outside places though. before the smoking ban we couldn't move you from your special rooms of stale tabaco-y badness. Now there’s an exclusion, you've claimed the outdoors as your own, so on the two days of the year where it would be nice enough to go outside and have a drink, you can't unless you also want to stink like 40 B&H. Please note that I’ll never say anything about smokers to them because its something you want to do and I swear, I have heard every pitiful reason for having a fag. I'm also not interested in if you’re upset or offended by this section. Its your choice, you stick to it. But you stink - fact).
So we have smokers on two sides, oh and oddly enough, the young woman(about 25) on the left, not only stinks like a fag, she also has the best cough. Well done you. You look cool.
Ok enough with the life choices, heaven knows I’ve made enough bad ones so I can't talk.
I went to the bar and as I was approaching the bar, Domingo the eldest of the barmen (yes, I’m that good I know the barman’s names) was finishing up serving a woman. She took her drinks and left. Domingo, having not noticed me, managed to get a good leer in and scope out the bikini clad woman, particularly her bikini bottoms...I assume that’s what he was looking at. When he looked up, he knew he'd been busted by me and didn’t know where to look. I just smiled and said in my best faux Spanish accent 'Bust-ed'
he laughed and served me my drinks. We shared a moment.
Oh Domingo...you crazy sexual predator, using your job to scope out chicks in their bikinis and thinking about spilling your warm frothy shandy on their bikini bottoms instead of ice cold beer on your feet. Oh Domingo.
There’s a conference center here at the hotel, much like there are at many hotels, but I honestly cant think of a worse place to have a to go to a conference than a holiday hotel.
Scorchio weather, lots of people out enjoying the sun, being surrounded by all inclusives. Nightmare. Concentration would be seriously zero and my childish will to simply run out and dive into a pool would just be too much to withhold.
Jokingly, I said to The Wife, you should run in to the conference and start screaming 'someone’s stolen my clothes' to which she replied, 'yeah, I should take my pants off'.
I tried to explain that ordinarily that probably wouldn’t be required, but she seemed to think it would add to the situation. A situation I tried to explain, was a prank and not an introduction to a rape enquiry. We had to agree to disagree, but if you have opinions on how the prank should have gone, why not drop us a line.
As the afternoon swings on and we try and absorb every final vitamin d filled orb of sunshine, a miracle happens that hasn’t happened all holiday. The one nationality that unites all nations arrives and camps up by the pool. That’s right the French arrive and in a typical French way, go about trying to restructure the whole of the poolside area to accommodate their stupid selves.
Honestly...(it may be interpreted as a bit racist this bit) they must think that because they have a monopoly on je and qu words instantly making their games of scrabbles much higher scoring, that they fucking run the place. Well you know what? At least the Nigel’s have a sense of humour, regardless of the fact that that humour is heavily based on 1970s Benny Hill, it is a sense of humour nonetheless. Where as the French are just fucking rude and arrogant. Well fuck you Frenchy and we'll have our umbrella back thank you very much now fuck off.
Oddly the French only seem to last around the pool for about 45 minutes. Pussies.
(wasn’t racist was it?)
we stay out until the pool guy gets annoyed and the sun goes away. We truly don’t want this holiday to end.
As per the rest of the holiday, we're the last people in for evening meal. The Wife opts to sit next to the door and no sooner have started out meal than we are inundated with mosquitoes. All week we've managed to avoid the blood sucking bastards and now they are everywhere.
We quickly relocate and move further inland. Apart from the mozzies, the 'last meal' is completely up to the same top notch quality we've had all week. Well done everyone.
Off to the bar for one more barfly bar performer.
In what appears to be a blue track suit off of the 80's (I’m later informed they are blue stage pants) what everyone wants to hear (apart from the Nigel’s that want more David Hasselhoff) Is lady in red by Chris De Burgh. Nice.
What a lovely way to polish off a lovely holiday that eradicates all traces of the fact that this week I was 40.
Yes.
That’s what this diary was all about.
We both ignore it knowing there is another one in 15 minutes.
When the second one goes we get up. I kind of feel ok but then The Wife informs me I have a radioactive temperature. I tell her not to worry as I have a plan. I go to the bathroom and hose myself down with what starts off as freezing cold water. After about 5 minutes of high pitched shrilling and juddering, the water is now kind of warm but I am a little bit cooler. Brilliant.
I take more drugs and we head off to the airport, me sleeping all the way.
Its 4.30am when we reach the airport. Early. My earlier drugs are wearing off and I’m not my usual enthusiastic self. We get checked in relatively hassle free (you hear a lot of horror stories about no frills airlines, but so far we're doing ok...well that’s cursed me now hasn't it?). Time seems to slip when you're not well and within what seems a relatively short time we're on the plane and en-route. The Wife keeps looking at me oddly and I drift in and out of feverish comas. And we arrive. It seems I’ve found the best way to fly. Off your tits on a 105 degree fever.
Any ho...
Staying at a place called Palladium hotel, Ibiza. The Wife arranged it all and after much soul searching decided this was the best place with the best reviews. I should perhaps point out that a major part of her review hunting includes the phrase "not many British". I googled the place yesterday at work (in my lunch hour if anyone from work is reading this) and if you do the cool Google maps thing, you can see the aerial view of the hotel and its distinctive spiral pattern pool. I read the reviews and thought of what a cool time I was going to have although also at the time I was starting to feel light headed and kinda sick...but that didn't mean anything right? Back to the maps...so I’m looking at the map / satellite view and decide to have a move about and see what’s nearby. I move the mouse three clicks to the left and hey presto...it’s an island landmark, visited by thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands each year and it’s quite literally in walking distance. Have you guessed what this Ibizian landmark of mass importance is yet? No...It’s not the rave district with its amnesia nightclubs and all night rave-a-thons...it’s much cooler than that. No...its not the old town with its cobbles and traditional folk emptying their toilets into to the streets next to the restaurants (that’s actually a story I overheard today at lunch, where apparently an old woman just chucked a bucket of shit into the street next to a restaurant and then washed it away and all the restaurant staff were like...meh...as if it happened all the time. Obviously I can't vouch for the validity of that story but meh...happens all the time). Anyway...nope. Not old town, but we are only 1.5km away from that. So what could it be? Here’s a clue. It’s an airport. Yes that’s right; our next door neighbour is an airport. Now I love planes and all things plane related but they do have one or two things that even some folks don’t like. So I’m fascinated to know why no-one reviewing their holiday on a holiday web site remembers to mention the fact that not only is their hotel (which in all honesty is Very nice) on a flight path, its on the end of the fucking runway! You'd have thought some one person might have included in a review..."lovely amenities, staff very helpful and like occasional Spanish word, food wonderful, fucking Flybe and Ryanair every 5 minutes thinking its fucking top gun and doing tower fly-bys". Apparently that stuffs not important to your all inclusive guzzling swine. (Yes...we are included in aforementioned swine category so no complaints please.) Needless to say that the shuttle bus from the airport took longer to board by its passengers than it actually took to reach its fucking destination.
For those with short memories, I’m still really not well and in-between feeling utterly nauseous and ... I'm sorry for this... Like I’m going to shit my soul out ... Still we're here and checked in for a very nice and early 12.00pm ish (I can’t give an exact time as I’m pretty much already firing on a combination of motor functions and drugs only)
It’s a lovely place. Sorry, you probably can't hear that for the sound of the 737 silently departing to Munich. IT'S A LOVELY PLACE. Seriously. It’s very nice and already my limited Spanish diction has already bagged me a number of Spanish sultry smiles...(you hot Spanish bitches) (sorry..It’s the drugs) (hmm...maybe) (turns out..Yes it’s the drugs). On a serious note... I don’t know if learning to ask for 4 beers in Spanish whilst saying good day and thank you qualifies as A) flirting or B) being multi-lingual but in my book...fuck it. At least I took the time to say something as basic as please and thank you and that therefore that me makes me better than the other 2% of British trolls in this airport extension for people who can't afford a proper holiday thanks to you Icelandic money eating volcano spouting fuckers.
The rest of the day kind of blurs as I slip in and out of what I like to call consciousness and The Wife likes to call meal times.
In conclusion... Today is probably the illest I have felt in a very very long time.
(Final nb) the illest does not refer to coolness as initially derived by the beastie boys during their whole "Licensed to ill" period. It means I felt like shit. Glad we got that sorted out.
Day 2 - Friday
We wake early and take various drugs.
The Wife surprises me by instead of suggesting we stay in bed and rest suggesting we go and get breakfast. I insist that I’m still ill and I’ll be staying in bed for most of the day. This roughly translates in universal language to..."ok sweetie, let’s go for breakfast".
After breakfast of half a slice of uncooked toast...fuck you, you stupid fucking toaster. I put that bread through you 8 times and it was still only slightly warm...
We discover that limited stories of German superiority around the swimming pool regarding sunbeds and towels appears to be true and we are relegated to two sunbeds about 2 miles away from the pool...the airport runway is still closer...The Wife devises a plan whereby she'll get up early in the morning and beat the Nazi’s at their game.
I point out to her that Nazi’s is really not a good term to use. it’s kind of racist and I’m really sure it doesn't apply to more than 45% of the sunbed hogging dinosaur skinned freaky food eating bastards that are staying at this quality four star hotel.
She agrees not to use the term any more. I kiss her and know she is lying and will probably use the term again infront of our new friends Ingrid und Hans from Berlin.
...that’s a joke. Anyone who knows my holiday diaries by now knows we never make friends on holiday. Anyway, we decide that a new word to use as a secret codeword could be the Nigels. Got that…chances are its going to show up again.
We spend much of the day relaxing and taking drugs and alcohol, occasionally opting to go for a dip in the pool. We've been relegated to the kiddie pool because when The Wife woke at 6am and came poolside, all the sunloungers had already been taken by the people The Wife used to refer to as the Nazis who despite the fact that there is a very clear 4inch card on the edge of the grass next to the entrance to the pool area which states that sunbeds are not to be reserved, they've reserved.
We have a sunbed which is about 5m from the exit to the hotel. it’s a metal gate and you need a card to get through it and every minute, someone goes through it. When it closes the gate gives a loud metallic bang. After about an hour I’ve filtered this out but the face of The Wife paints an entirely different picture. You see every time someone clangs the gate she goes 'grrr' and puffs and blows. Every time. Every single time. A 737 takes off and not so much as a shrug. The gate goes clang and 'grrr' puff blow.
This is now more singularly more frustrating to me than either the gate or the fucking airplanes roaring over head. So I have to enquire.
"what’s wrong with the fact that the gate clangs? Just filter it out" says me with my clearly foolish suggestion.
"its not just a clang though is it?" says The Wife. "it goes clang clang"she continues.
Ok now I’m confused. The Wife can clearly hear 2 clangs. The second of which is obviously so offensive to her, she treats it as a personal affront. "why cant they just shut the gate quietly?" she asks.
Unable to provide any kind of suitable answer or make sense of the craziness of the situation, we go to lunch. Fucking gate double clanging slammers.
Our attempt to enter the restaurant for lunch is scuppered when The Wife is denied access due to "transparancia". Apparently wearing a see thru beach top is too much for the majority of Germanic diners and The Wife strides off with that true "I don't believe it" look on her face. To an average passerby (as opposed to a professional one I guess) it looked like I was the one who'd proper fucked her off. But for once...it wasn't. I still feel really quite unwell and at lunch have a small amount of fish and rice. The Wife feels for me and in sympathy with the way I’m feeling spends 20 minutes constructing a salad that looks like the only thing missing from the farm is a tractor then spends the whole of lunch sympathetically looking at me with mournful eyes and saying warming things like..."sorry you don’t feel well" or "you'll be better soon" whilst crunching her way through mounds of crunchy and delicious looking foods.
Back round the pool after lunch and between drifting in and out of consciousness I notice that in the scrub behind the loungers there are lots and lots of little lizards. Skitting about and generally looking cool with their bright colours.
We both love lizards and these all seem really tame and will, if left, come right to you. I watch as two of them (I’ve named them Eddie Lizard and Lizard Beth Taylor) playfully use The Wife’s sandal as a play area. The Wife puts some of her Baileys on the floor and they both run up and start drinking it. Then things seem to take a nasty turn as Eddie bites Liz in the back and what looks like a heated drunken fight breaks out. We both look shocked as it transpires that the sandal, the alcohol and the obvious voyeuristic nature that’s swept up both the lizards leads them to perform dirty nasty lizard sex right there infront of us. Disgusted, we continue to watch. it’s like the internet but without the promise of further instant sexual shenanigans a mere button click away should we get board.
Evening comes (yes we stopped watching drunken lizard sex) and I’m feeling slightly better. Hoorah.
After some food we settle to watch the bar performer for the evening."Amazing showman Je...Sus" it’s ok. Your eyes don’t deceive you. I figured that if nothing else, I would at least get to see some kind of miracle.
As it turns out, apparently you can say anything on Spanish posters with fear of copyright or retribution or even comedy misunderstanding. Jesus was neither amazing nor a showman, more a 5foot Spanish music teacher with an evening job playing David Hasselhoff songs to drunken Germans. I doubt his real name was even Jesus.
Drugs then bed.
Day 3 - Saturday
Woke up and felt really well. Hoorah.
Today is my birthday. My 40th birthday. I've had big issues about this but now its here and doing it like this thanks to The Wife I’m kind of ok about it. Get some texts from friends and family. Pods makes me laugh a lot and I show The Wife. She promises to hurt him later.
I spend most of the morning getting better and by lunchtime I’m finally ready for something proper to eat. So...to celebrate my birthday and my improved health I decide on a cosmopolitan Mediterranean lunch of octopus (if you've never had fresh octopus I would recommend it. Its both delicious and a delightful texture...hmm) and fish and chips. That’s right folks...You can take the boy out of Parson Cross...
Have a great afternoon messing about in the sea.
As The Wife strides out of the sea I warmly shout across the beach that she looks like that film star whose name I can't remember. Puzzled she looks at me and shouts back.."Ursula Andres or Halle Berry?". I assume a foetal position as I shout back "Godzilla" the rest writes itself.We head back to the pool for the last of the afternoon sun and we are one of only a handful of holidaymakers doing the same. The pool area is quiet and delightful.
After a short while a hotel photographer comes around and spots a kinda pretty-and-fuck-does-she-know-it girl and offers to take some photos for her of her lounging around the pool in FHM style poses but at TKMax style prices. Obviously seeing this as a chance to increase her portfolio of saucy beachwear photos, she jumps at the opportunity and within minutes is sprawled or arched or akimbo'd over several areas of the pool.
Unfortunately for her though, I took a dislike to the fact that she obviously thought she was pretty/vacuous enough to qualify for glamour shots(she’s obviously damaged in some way and back in my day she probably wouldn't even have given me the time of day...the stuck up bitch) so I just so happened to be in the background of every photo they took. Sometime in a Kays catalogue pose, sometimes with The Wife, whatever it took really. I hope she enjoys the snaps.You’re welcome.
Lots of champers during the evening.
As 40ths go, it was everything I needed.
Day 4 - Sunday
Pretty much realise from the moment we get up that today is going to be a recovery day. The Wife is tired and quite frankly I’m hung over.
Spend much of the day lazing round the pool. The weather just gets hotter and hotter. We see in the papers that you're enjoying really hot temperatures back home and apart from stock footage of Brighton (is Brighton really the only place that ever gets sun in England or is it just the one that’s nearest to where all the lazy fucking journalists live?) anyway, apart from Brighton there’s a picture of hundreds of people on a beach and while it looks hot, its still cloudy and a bit overcast...you know, like it always is in England. To illustrate the point...here’s a picture of what it should look like. Anyway..I wont get into the furore of who’s weather is better (obviously its mine) but it is hot and very good weather to recuperate.
About 4pm the lizards come out and one particularly tame lizard called Wizard - please feel free to send in your lizard names - crawls over my foot and then up the towel to my sunbed. He has a good look around - yes I have to make my shorts off limits to lizards - and then shoots back down to the ground before sitting in The Wife’s chocolate milk and brandy for bizarre bath.
Not much else happens during the day and we opt for a late-ish meal as the world cup final will be on and getting served may be easier. It turns out this is the actual truth because apart from us, there are about 5 other couples in a room made to seat about 300. Service is superb and completely one to one. the cava arrives in record time and away we go.
After the meal we retire to a noisy bar and continue quaffing the ice cold cava. Some one shouts that its extra time and still nil nil. We're both too pissed to care so we decide to retire early and watch the closing stages from bed...yes...we had a TV in our room...nice.
The complex is strangely quiet as we walk back to our room. We pamper ourselves by taking the lift the 1 floor up. Upon exiting the lift and entering the corridor down which our room resides, we try to act nonchalant as an older German man knocks on a door and a young German man answers and then follows him to the older mans room. Oh yes I forgot to mention the younger man on wore underpants. Its ok. nothing strange about that.
In our room The commentary is in a very excitable Spanish and when the goal finally came, the TV nearly jumped off the table. The commentator makes some hilarious na-nana-na-na sound to the rest of the world and they are nearly in tears.
I always said I would be unsure about a Spanish victory when we were away, but good on them. After all they did score more goals than their opponent and that make their team winners in that sport. People who are unsure should realise that the fact that their team have won at a specific sport does not mean that they and all of their countrymen are immediately elevated to best in the world, either at the specific sport or as many of them would have us believe...at everything.
Bed time.
Day 5 - Monday
Woke late after waking really early to go and run down poolside and -ahem- pre-allocate the sunbeds. it was just on the cusp of sunrise. The sky was a beautiful deep blue, stars were perfect pinpricks in an unblemished sky, silence was all around.
Oddly there were already two men sat on sun beds around the pool. One reading a book, the other seemingly sorting out some money. Weird.
Also weird was the amount of condensation every where. Everything was massively wet, especially the sunbeds. So I’d taken in the beauty of a silent morning, the weirdness that some blokes would be up reading books and counting cash and the wonderment that was condensation. Enough world interest, back to bed. On the way back I cheekily take the lift the 1floor up and before the doors open I sneak out a tiny trump. The problem with complete silence is that any noise seems completely amplified and the resulting noise is like a dinosaur blowing a vuvuzela (for those reading this in the future, a vuvuzela is a plastic trumpet designed by Africans to successfully drown out any kind of atmosphere noise from a football match).
Upon my second waking delighted to find I slept funny and now have a painful cricked neck. No amount of gently stretching seems to help so return to the familiar pleasures of drugs. Nice.
Today, nature reminds us that she is in charge and ruins everyone’s day by placing a cloud over the complex for about 30 minutes. Sky rolling news would have covered the horrific story but they were still reporting on the terrifying final moments of media-wannabe-nearly-poilce killer Raoul Moat (who pussied out btw and didn’t live upto any of his earlier media threats). Sky must've been kicking themselves at the end when they could even film him pointlessly blowing his own brains out. All that money wasted on TV crews and tornado jets. I mean come on... A fucking tornado!?!? The highlight of this story from my point of view was when petrified police held a conference to tell the inhabitants of the village they were in that they would make sure all the children would be ok because they would surround the school. Hmmm sounds more like the police hoping that tiny human shields might come in more use than pointy hats and whistles. Finally on this non-news story, was anyone really amazed when former professional drinker and part time footballer Gazza 'Gazza' Gascoigne chirped up and said that he was 'Moaty's mate'? legend has it that they became friends during Moat's bouncer days and no doubt used to swap stories of alleged wife beating and alcoholism and how great it was to smash people up when pissed. At one point in the Gazza quotes he stated that they should send him in because there was no way his mate Moaty would ever shoot him. But think of the opportunities for the police snipers though eh?
We decide to take a walk into town as 'the cloud' has cooled things slightly.
Walking into Ibiza town is an experience in itself. Posters for DJs and nightclubs and sexy nightclub and sexy DJs are everywhere. We walk past a coke machine that has been turned onto its side...no small feat considering its size. The funny thing is, its still working...like it's wounded. I want to put 2 Euros in it just to see it cough up a little blood and then gingerly pass me a diet coke, but The Wife doesn't think this is a good idea.
We arrive a 'store' that has lots of junk type stuff that is suitable for gifts or the garden. We walk past the 6meter long shelf full of various sized wooden penises and wonder who actually buys those things.
During the shopping experience, we notice that the temperature seems to have shot up and we are now both oozing a mixture of copious sweat and dripping diluted sun cream. The resultant rivers of which look 'wrong' on both of us.
The temperature has shot up to 35degrees and starts to take its toll on us.
We head back to the sanctuary of the hotel pool where we can at least rehydrate ourselves with varieties of delicious alcohols. Today’s sure fire hit is chocolate milk and brandy. Ticks all the boxes.
The day comes to a close after further lazing in the pool, eating and drinking cava til it comes out of our ears.
Annoyingly, my neck suddenly goes 'click' and then it is all better. Bastard.
Day 6 - Tuesday
Another late breakfast. Damn you cava and brandy (not in the same glass obviously).
We spot a middle aged woman outside the bar area who at first glance, seems to be sleeping, but upon closer inspection seems to be having some sort of violent reaction to the heat and is twitching and shivering like she’s been bitten by a rage infected monkey. For that reason, we steer well clear and acknowledge that she'll probably be getting tanked up later. There aren't many Scottish people here.
We decide to do a bit of sightseeing today, but as its us, this means not too far from the complex and not too taxing. Have you seen some of the excursions some of these holiday places do? A 6km walk up an raggedy ass mountain or former volcano in the blazing sun all to see a waterfall and get a free glass of naff sangria? Or driving up the edge of a precarious road that even the toughest to the peak of a mountain or volcano all to see some rocks or a geyser and get a free glass of naff sangria. By the way, if you do go on these excursions, I hope you enjoy them and I’m only ripping the piss because we like to wallow by the pool or seaside. That and the fact that a lot of these excursions depart early in the morning and...well I’m on holiday so fuck getting up early!
So we've notice a defense tower down the end of the beach and every so often we see people at the top taking pictures. Even we think that this is a self made excursion that we could achieve. So off we set. First obstacle is a little bridge covering a river feed into the sea. At first glance the sight of hundred of little fish working their way up stream to the river is quite nice. Then you see the dead seagull, then you get the smell. Finally you realise this isn’t part of the 'scene of natural beauty' and quickly move on.
I spot two African looky looky men up on the hill and inform The Wife that we better move or the snipers will get us. What are they waiting for? Just sat, waiting, silently. Waiting to spot a 'del boy' and move in to sell him sunglasses, an overpriced broken watch or hooky DVDs...'lovely jubbly'. Be careful out there folks.
After a short walk we arrive at the tower which, just like any cultural tourist icon, is surrounded with broken glass, dog shit and graffiti. At least the inside was clean. Essentially this defense tower was used to protect the salt workers in case of attack, possibly from Nigel’s, possibly from vampires who were at war with werewolves at the time, I’m not sure.
Anyway, its a three storey affair with a very tight spiral staircase and very, very low door arches. Ideal for short tourists, and diminutive locals on the hide from attacking vampires and dragons, but not very good for anyone over 5'5''.
So we arrive at the top, the defense platform and I’m nearly concussed after two blows to the head.
The views are lovely and from one side, you can see all of the see front, from another side you can see the tiny fishing village below and on final side you can see the airport, which I imagine the originators of the tower needed visibility of so they tell if the 17.15 Ryan air had arrived yet, fully laden with its cargo of defensive garlic bullets. I’m not good at history.
As we're enjoying the views some Spanish teenagers noisily come up the stairs and when at the top, spit then light up cigarettes. They cleverly then wave over the edge to their parents below on the cliff face while keeping their fag hands below the battlements.
Its at this point that I really want to shout out 'hola Mr. and Mrs. whatever...your noisy little shits are up here having a fag....and I think they're also cussing the baby Jesus' sit back and watch the fireworks. But unfortunately I don’t know that much Spanish and shouting over the battlements to the parents that I would like two beers please, would probably just confuse them. So I glare my most disapproving glare and eventually they go.After some time admiring the view we decide to descend the stairs.
This turns out to be much harder than we expect when The Wife turns all girlie on me and gets dizzy halfway down the staircase and we end up having to make the decent as a three stage process each one interspersed with 'whooo' and 'whaaa' and other exasperations relating to dizziness. Bless her.
A trip to the beach next and the usual collection of hard bodies, poseur boys and Peter Stringfellows greet us. (obviously I don't fit any of those categories, I’m probably in the free willy category).
I confess that I’m not entirely happy with the location we've chosen as it does kind of smell like a sewage outlet.
We return to the security, warmth and all you can drink comfort of the hotel.
After yesterdays 35' heat we're delighted when the temp only tops out at 34' today. We wonder if we should put on cardigans to highlight the massive temperature drop.
At the height of the heatness we decide to have a beer in the Ibiza chill out zone. This is the area outside the bar playing soft dreamy music while couples who hate each other sit in total silence. Not speaking to each other because its either just too darned hot, or because they've just said everything they need to say and they just want to carry on drinking.
We sit and talk about some of the freaks we've seen this week.
There’s Spanish SuBo. An unfortunate girl who looks like voice-of-an-angel, mind-of-a-crazy-person BGT loser.
There’s the British guy with the thick dark hair whose Lardnen voice is so comedically high pitched as to destroy another preconceptions you may have of him.
And there’s a plethora of massive truck drivers from all over that seem to have the same style tattoos and even the same style wives.
And you can take your pick of foibles that the Nigel’s have.
We've booked a special meal in the beach restaurant tonight and everything goes well except for when the waitress asks what we want on the menu, we tell her, she then repeats in high speed Spanish and we nod, say yes and smile. There’s not much we can do therefore when the meals we didn’t order arrive. Luckily though, they are very delicious and we eat them all up nyum nyum nyum. Moral to that story being, try to learn some local lingo if you really want to understand.
We finish off round the bar with a night cap while Julio and Inglesias serenade the room with contemporary classics like Madonna’s like a prayer and diamond life by Sade. Nice. One of the entertainment staff, Raoul, asks me if I want to dance, I confuse him by saying, 'what? With you?' he's taken aback, throws his wetlook hair back, laughs and moves on. Its clear that Raoul is a sexual predator, working his way through the guests, the wives, the daughters, the grandmothers, he knows no depravity. Its odd then that he doesn’t approach The Wife. My mind goes back to earlier in the week when I was ill and mostly unconscious. The Wife was away 'doing stuff' for quite a bit of time. Hmm I wonder. Oh Raoul. You bad, sexual predator, preying on the vulnerable women in search of a holiday romance in the off chance you can spray them with your paella fueled well sun tanned man butter you.
Bed.
Day 7 - Wednesday
5am, The Wife eagerly sorts out the sunbeds. This is a ridiculous regime, but at least we are winning.
Today’s our last full day.
Tomorrow we'll be flying home by 10am. I think I speak for everyone when I say...'boo. The Wilsons should be allowed to stay as long as they like...rent free.' its ok I know that’s how you feel too. Rest assured, that if that was the case, we'd insist you came out and stayed with us too, but you’d probably have to stay in a different complex and you'd only be able to see us for a couple of days tops. Don’t want to over do it now do we. Besides, you probably want to go up a mountain or volcano and see and old sangria factory, which is fine, but we just don’t think we can be up that early.
Newbies have arrived today and collared the sunbeds next to ours. 2 older women, 2 younger women. Jesus talk about faffing about with sunbeds. The sunbeds have wheels to help you move them, but if you're a stupid young bird of a woman (describing her features as birdlike and not actually reverting to 1970's lingo...yet!) you just drag them from a to b to c to d to e. I swear one of them has just spent 5 minutes turning a sunbed around, i.e. 180' in what can only be described as the sunbed equivalent of a 3 point turn done in 10 points. Grrr fucking stupid noisy birds.(ok that’s a 70s reference).
Shortly after writing that last entry, the stupid fucking noisy birds whom we've now established have got money (yes, that does make us hate them more) make such a fucking brouhaha about moving 4 sunbeds that we decide the second best option is to move. They're a bit like the sex and the city birds in that, yes they're all well to do and they're obviously not used to common courtesy and you immediately ascertain an order that you would kidnap and slowly kill them.
Obviously the best thing would have been to drown one of the feckless well to do twats in the pool, while forcing the others to look on as a lesson in just being polite and not fucking about with people that have been up since 5am. Luckily there are a couple of beds further up the complex.
We move.
Great. Now we have a smoker. One of the things I’ve noticed this holiday is how few smokers there are. Its like some of them are getting the message. And that’s a good thing. (some of you smoke and that’s fine, unfortunately, I’m one of those wretched scum who never paid for a cigarette in his life yet used to smoke 40 a day for nearly 22years thanks to mum,dad,friends,mums and dads, grans, grandads, aunties, uncles, off the rails friends, and various randoms in public places. I am kind of miffed that the smokers seemed to have claimed all the best outside places though. before the smoking ban we couldn't move you from your special rooms of stale tabaco-y badness. Now there’s an exclusion, you've claimed the outdoors as your own, so on the two days of the year where it would be nice enough to go outside and have a drink, you can't unless you also want to stink like 40 B&H. Please note that I’ll never say anything about smokers to them because its something you want to do and I swear, I have heard every pitiful reason for having a fag. I'm also not interested in if you’re upset or offended by this section. Its your choice, you stick to it. But you stink - fact).
So we have smokers on two sides, oh and oddly enough, the young woman(about 25) on the left, not only stinks like a fag, she also has the best cough. Well done you. You look cool.
Ok enough with the life choices, heaven knows I’ve made enough bad ones so I can't talk.
I went to the bar and as I was approaching the bar, Domingo the eldest of the barmen (yes, I’m that good I know the barman’s names) was finishing up serving a woman. She took her drinks and left. Domingo, having not noticed me, managed to get a good leer in and scope out the bikini clad woman, particularly her bikini bottoms...I assume that’s what he was looking at. When he looked up, he knew he'd been busted by me and didn’t know where to look. I just smiled and said in my best faux Spanish accent 'Bust-ed'
he laughed and served me my drinks. We shared a moment.
Oh Domingo...you crazy sexual predator, using your job to scope out chicks in their bikinis and thinking about spilling your warm frothy shandy on their bikini bottoms instead of ice cold beer on your feet. Oh Domingo.
There’s a conference center here at the hotel, much like there are at many hotels, but I honestly cant think of a worse place to have a to go to a conference than a holiday hotel.
Scorchio weather, lots of people out enjoying the sun, being surrounded by all inclusives. Nightmare. Concentration would be seriously zero and my childish will to simply run out and dive into a pool would just be too much to withhold.
Jokingly, I said to The Wife, you should run in to the conference and start screaming 'someone’s stolen my clothes' to which she replied, 'yeah, I should take my pants off'.
I tried to explain that ordinarily that probably wouldn’t be required, but she seemed to think it would add to the situation. A situation I tried to explain, was a prank and not an introduction to a rape enquiry. We had to agree to disagree, but if you have opinions on how the prank should have gone, why not drop us a line.
As the afternoon swings on and we try and absorb every final vitamin d filled orb of sunshine, a miracle happens that hasn’t happened all holiday. The one nationality that unites all nations arrives and camps up by the pool. That’s right the French arrive and in a typical French way, go about trying to restructure the whole of the poolside area to accommodate their stupid selves.
Honestly...(it may be interpreted as a bit racist this bit) they must think that because they have a monopoly on je and qu words instantly making their games of scrabbles much higher scoring, that they fucking run the place. Well you know what? At least the Nigel’s have a sense of humour, regardless of the fact that that humour is heavily based on 1970s Benny Hill, it is a sense of humour nonetheless. Where as the French are just fucking rude and arrogant. Well fuck you Frenchy and we'll have our umbrella back thank you very much now fuck off.
Oddly the French only seem to last around the pool for about 45 minutes. Pussies.
(wasn’t racist was it?)
we stay out until the pool guy gets annoyed and the sun goes away. We truly don’t want this holiday to end.
As per the rest of the holiday, we're the last people in for evening meal. The Wife opts to sit next to the door and no sooner have started out meal than we are inundated with mosquitoes. All week we've managed to avoid the blood sucking bastards and now they are everywhere.
We quickly relocate and move further inland. Apart from the mozzies, the 'last meal' is completely up to the same top notch quality we've had all week. Well done everyone.
Off to the bar for one more barfly bar performer.
In what appears to be a blue track suit off of the 80's (I’m later informed they are blue stage pants) what everyone wants to hear (apart from the Nigel’s that want more David Hasselhoff) Is lady in red by Chris De Burgh. Nice.
What a lovely way to polish off a lovely holiday that eradicates all traces of the fact that this week I was 40.
Yes.
That’s what this diary was all about.
1 comments:
Next week on 'Wish You Were Here' - Keith Chegwin visits Weston Super Mare...
Post a Comment