Holidays in Eden

Update 12^th September 2016

You know that saying, “It’s nice to go away, but great to come back”? Well that’s bollox, if I could I’d spend an awful lot more time lying on a beach drinking cocktails and talking to the children via Skype. After in effect our third holiday since the beginning of June its now back to the reality of work, rugby and of course the small matter of a rescheduled Colonoscopy to look forward to.

Fueteventura was a very relaxing break, I can certainly recommend the Barcelo group of hotels. Our room had a bed so big I swear it had separate post codes and a hot tub which according to Carol, took the time it took to drink a large G ‘n T for it to fill up. The hotel was adults only and asked gentlemen to wear long trousers when dining in the evenings. Now I’ve no real objection to that, but I do feel that some form of dress code should also have been stipulated for ladies. As much as I can appreciate a shapely bottom hanging out of a cut off pair of denim shorts, I’d really rather not look at one whilst I’m eating my tuna steak. The advantage of going half board I guess was that I could eat as much or as little as I wanted to. I’ve begun to struggle quite a lot with eating again. Carbs are a real challenge, so being able to pick exactly what I wanted to eat was probably a blessing. We did eat out a couple of nights, but I stuck to fish which as the moment still seems to be ok. It was also fairly amusing to see folk queuing up at the pool at 9am to stake out their towels on the sunbeds, people even ran to get the bed of their choice. We didn’t actually bother as we caught the free shuttle bus to the dunes each day, far more relaxing. 

As you’d probably expect if you’ve read this blog in the past, whilst at the hotel we “People Watched” and made up our own stories about the folk we saw day to day for a week. As well as Ms Arse Hanging Out of Her Shorts, we also had Wiggy and Bride of Frankenstein, a couple we presumed were from Russia. We saw them most mornings for breakfast, most days on the bus to the beach and most evenings in the restaurant. Not once did I see her smile, or even look at Wiggy. If she had smiled there could well have been a quick visit back to her Plastic Surgeon on her return to Moscow. Now Wiggy was a cross between the cool Mafia boss from Italian Job and Fabio Capello. However it was one of the most obvious syrups I’ve seen since I worked at Avco Trust. In Avco days we had a chap who had two wigs, a long one and a short one. He used to go out at lunch time and say he was going to the barbers, returned wearing the short version, it was priceless.

Corrallejo has changed quite a bit in the 30 odd years since we were last there, hardly a surprise I guess. The usual influx of restaurants and bars catering specifically for the British and German tourist have sprung up, but the area around the harbour seems to have stayed vaguely authentic. Whilst we were on half board as I mentioned, we did tend to disappear into town after we’d had dinner to escape the inevitable “Entertainment” put on by the hotel. I think we were quite lucky as we stumbled across a place called “Rock Island” down a quiet side street. The bar has various “Turns” in playing live acoustic rock music. Of the three combo’s we saw over our stay I can safely say they’d kick ass of any of the acts appearing on X Factor or the like. (Ok Paul Cooper, I know that when you’re pissed it’s easy to think all bands are good, but………………………….) Check out these guys on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watchv=5qq0NA9Xs9Q the bar was probably a bit more like a large front room, you had no choice but to sit with other people and chat to them during breaks in the music. I like that, as being in a hotel it’s easy to get suck into your own little world of judgement. On our last night, despite the best intentions of having a quiet one before travelling home, we ended up in Rock Island until about 1.30am knocking back vodka and tonics with a couple who we’d met as strangers three hours prior and left as life long friends! Can’t for the life of me remember their names though J Anyone recognise the one who isn’t the stalker? 

So our seven days were spent on the beach, in the Spa (Where very flattening swimming caps had to be worn), eating, drinking and listening to music. A perfect seven days. It all went a bit pear shaped on the way home, by being delayed for over three hours on the return flight. Little or no information was given out by Thomas Cook at the airport and as we were one of the last flights out that evening the airport cafes and shops were closing down. It wasn’t until we eventually boarded that the pilot advised the reason for the delay was due to a truck hitting the plane and the subsequent safety checks to make sure it was still ok to fly. Now that’s a perfectly good reason to delay the flight, a bit of communication wouldn’t have amiss however. Arriving back home at 5am in the morning after a 40 minute diversion on the M25 did put a little bit of a downer on what had been a great break. I’ve obviously sent a claim into Thomas Cook, by their reputation they’ll no doubt ignore the claim.

Whilst away I missed the start of the rugby season. Rams lost their first league match at home to a strong Taunton side, but bounced back last Saturday by defeating London Irish Wild Geese. Max played in two matches whilst we were away and managed to be on the winning team for both. Thanks to Catman I was kept up to date with the Centaurs match score whilst sitting quaffing a bottle of wine in the hotel bar waiting for the taxi back to the airport. After spending a week with just my iPhone camera and little compact it was good to get back up to OBR yesterday to get some shots of the Rams Colts in a season opener friendly against Wallingford.

Back to work tomorrow, I’ve resisted turning the work phone or laptop on today, I’ll be pleasantly surprised tomorrow when the “Ping” goes rapidly, once it’s charged up of course! I’m meeting my Editor tomorrow night, so with a fair wind, and not too many amendments I’m still hopeful of getting #shouldertoshoulder published by the end of this month. I’m also hoping that there won’t be any need to a follow up book following the Colonoscopy. My main task for the next couple of weeks will be to try and get rid of the tan on my face and neck before my next scheduled appointment with Scary, she’ll go ballistic as my neck got slightly burnt! I entirely blame……………….. ok, myself!

As ever, thanks for reading.

To be continued…………. At least for a couple more weeks!

#ShouldertoShoulder