Shit, we've been here for a week already. Given how little we are doing time is flying by.
I like to make at least one enemy on every holiday - someone whose behaviour in the confined space of a hotel or resort starts to grate and then annoy. Last year, you may recall, I directed my largely unwarranted hatred at
an 8 year old girl called Georgia. This year it took a while to find someone I wanted to punch in the face, but now it turns out that there are about 12 people who I want to shout "Oh for fuck's sake, fuck off, you're ruining my holiday!" at.
Most people who have come to this tiny and romantic island are in couples and given the way things are arranged and spaced out it's generally quite easy to keep things quite intimate. Though there is the occasional nod or smile no one is really trying to make friends here, which I whole-heartedly approve of. There's nothing that can ruin a holiday like having to talk to some idiot for an hour every time you see them or to have a romantic moment in a restaurant or bar interrupted by some sun-burned drunk that you met by the pool. But a few days ago a large party of around about a dozen people (there are so many of them that I can't quite count them up) which seems to be three generations of the same family. It includes a couple of very cute toddlers, some teenagers, parents and grand parents. There aren't that many children on this resort which is a relief in itself and though the toddlers are housed quite close to our room and have had a couple of tantrums, it is not them that are annoying.
Of course there is no stipulation that this resort should just be for couples and I am sure if it was almost any other family then I wouldn't be bothered. But this lot are over-privileged and rude and noisy and shout at each other at any given opportunity and seem to be taking over every aspect of my day.
When we tried to go to the pool they were all down there, shouting and splashing and there was nowhere to sit, even if we had wanted to attempt to relax near them. In the restaurant they shout from table to table and if they don't get immediate attention from the utterly charming and lovely waiting staff they will click their fingers or wave impatiently or even repeatedly shout "Hello, hello", until they are attended to. These things are annoying enough of their own, but as they mount up it makes me want to shush them loudly or go over to them and tell them to have some manners. They are clearly an affluent family and you'd think they might know better or at least have some awareness that other people here might want a little bit of peace and quiet, but they have that sense of entitlement which means they think only of themselves.
And they just seem to turn up wherever I am, like they have been sent by an angry God to ruin my holiday, just because I said He didn't exist.
This morning I woke up early and so left my girlfriend sleeping and came out on my balcony to write yesterday's blog. It was 7.30, usually a peaceful time and certainly one where you would want to be sensitive to neighbours who might want a lie in. I could scarcely believe my eyes when I came out to the table to find that in the lagoon right outside our room nearly the entire family of idiots had decided to congregate for an early morning splash session. They weren't just swimming or snorkelling, but playing, taking photos and shouting over to the rest of the family who were sitting on the balcony of their own room some fifty metres away. Why weren't they playing by their own room? Why didn't they think about other people? I worried that they might wake my girlfriend and they were certainly putting me off my writing (and my plan to go for an early morning swim), so I shushed them ineffectually, though I very nearly caused a scene.
At dinner later they ended up sitting near to us and I sighed and thought that I might crack this time, but for once they were quite well-behaved so they gave me no cause to smash my dinner plate over their stupid, grumpy, rich heads one by one.
But it might only be a matter of time before I crack.
In better news we saw a family of dolphins swim past the beach this afternoon. They seemed to be having fun without ruining stuff for everyone else. Dolphins as you may know if you know as much about evolution as me are mammals whose ancestors lived on the land, but who then returned to the water at some later point. I have often wondered why any land animal would do that, leaving the nice dry land for the wet and unpredictable ocean, but I suspect that maybe they found themselves on a small island with another family of mammals who were selfish idiots and this was their only way off. I will submit that Richard Dawkins and see if he puts it in his next book.
