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We finally got the kids into a three hour long activity where they were supervised by someone else. My wife cleverly made it last longer for her by overlapping it with another visit to the spa. I pretty much wasted the three hours on nothing. I did manage a shortish run, but I need to get some proper sleep before I can take on more than a mile or so again.
To be fair my wife gave me the time back and took the kids to the next activity whilst I sat in Starbucks and listened to Wolf Hall on audio book. Weirdly there is a dad who I’ve seen a few times who I thought looked very like that bloke from Coupling (crossed a bit with Andrew Collings). No not the one from the pirate film or the Welsh one. The other one. I had been idly wondering what that actor had been up to. Then I realised that he is the (rather excellent) narrator for the audiobook of Wolf Hall (which I’ve been listening to on and off for a couple of months - it’s very long). It’s Ben Miles and despite me only really knowing him from Coupling he’s been doing very well - and possibly having kids with Andrew Collings. (Plus he was John Profumo in the excellent Trial of Christine Keeler which I loved, so that’s more my forgetfulness than anything else - or maybe I’ve just been looking out for the 30 something version of the actor).
I continued to punish my body by feeding it crap and we managed to get into the burger restaurant for dinner (at 4pm) but it was actually one of the better places at the resort in terms of food quality and there was also an operating soft play where the kids played for a good 45 minutes and Ernie thought he’d got another girlfriend (again about six years older than him, but I respect him for his confidence). Again they readily made friends with the other kids there and Ernie cried when he thought he’d never see his girlfriend again. It made me think of the holiday friendships I’d had back in the 70s and 80s and how intense they were and how memorable some were too. Most of my early kissing happened on holiday (and none of my friends would believe that it had happened) and I guess that’s all part of the liberation of temporary friendship, but I also really remember a boy who claimed that his grandad wrote “Teddy Bears' Picnic”. I thought he was bullshitting at the time, though looking back it seems like an unlikely lie that a young teenager would use to impress another young teenager. And you know, someone’s grandparent had to have written it. I didn’t like him because of it though. He should have kept it to himself. I wish my grandad had written Teddy Bears’ Picnic.
Another holiday I recall the Paul Simon song “Me and Julio Down By the School Yard” playing on the juke box all the time and me being friends with a confident Dutch boy. We were about 14, but he was convinced an adult French waitress at the cafe fancied him because she’d called him “jeune homme” and he was convinced that meant pretty man, not (as I was able to tell him), young man. He had the confidence of a young Ernest Herring and you can’t begrudge him.
I remember hardly any names and there’s no way of getting back in touch (unless your grandad wrote Teddy Bears’ Picnic, but I don’t want to meet you again, you nursery rhyme braggard). But 40 years on and those holiday memories remain and those friendships and the flirtations and occasional snogs have an elevated importance in one’s memory.
We bought the kids a toy from the toy shop (just in case they hadn’t been spoiled enough this holiday) and Ernie chose an egg from Ryan. I don’t know if Ryan laid it himself, but with a £16 price tag I was expecting something pretty special from he surprise toy inside it. It was some stick on arms, a mask and a letter R so you could turn the egg into a featureless super hero. I genuinely searched under the table thinking Ernie must have dropped a huge part of the contents. I have never felt so angry with a 9 year old boy before, but Ryan had picked my fucking pocket and I wished mild harm on him. Nothing serious, he’s still a kid. But if he fell over and bruised his knee I wouldn’t go over and see if he was all right and would actually pump my fist. I would not attempt to engineer this situation, let me be clear. I just wouldn’t be sad if it happened.
Ernie liked his egg though. So I lost some of the respect he’d gained from me. But Jesus Christ. Why can’t my kids have a YouTube channel bringing in billions of pounds. The lazy spongers.
That aside, it’s been a good holiday and I hope all the uphill cycling has done something to counteract the chips and occasional chocolate (I know, I think I can handle it and just have a bit sometimes - have I learned nothing?) I think I’ve enjoyed this month’s breaks more than any holiday I’ve had before, but I don’t think I’ve been more exhausted by a vacation. I think I need about a week’s worth fo 12 hours sleeps to get back to any kind of normality. And I should be able to do that by 2042.
