Early in the hours of last Saturday morning we loaded bags into a waiting car and were transported to the airport. After spending several hours crammed in a Boeing 737, we emerged among palm trees, roasting sunshine, and lapping waves in the distance.
We spent the week in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. As promised to the children, the last holiday where we would pay for everything. A sort of “last hoorah”, I suppose. If you are wondering, yes, the cost of transporting the five of us a third of the way around the world for a week was eye-watering.
The hotel was wonderful - a resort on the edge of a golf course, overlooking Los Cristianos and Playa de las Americas. The staff had a huge hand in our experience - particularly for our eldest daughter who is coeliac. The head waiter greeted us by chance on our first day, and took particular interest - arranging several special meals throughout the week for her - something we have never experienced anywhere before.
The food, bars, pools, music, and entertainment within the resort was wonderful, but that didn’t discourage us from exploring Los Cristianos itself - either a twenty minute walk, or a short cab ride away. Why get a cab? The midday sun was pretty destructive even on the coolest day. If you’re used to living near the equator it’s probably not a problem - for us, it was.
The beach in Los Cristianos was wonderful too - clean, well managed, and swathed with umbrellas and loungers that almost unbelievably weren’t a rip-off. We spent an entire day there, swimming in the sea, reading books, swimming some more in the sea, and of course people watching.
There’s something about people-watching on “destination” beaches. Every story you’ve ever read about the south of France, Spain, or the islands happened right in front of us - ageing bodybuilders, portly millionaires with trophy wives, stunning models, young couples, normal families, and perhaps the most humorous - the single guys travelling as a group, who’s “smart clothes” were football shirts - some of them being a little bit older than you might expect for such shenanigans. I seem to remember adverts for “18-30” holidays - not “18-60”. I guess the world is changing.
My favourite memory of the beach was my eldest noticing that a pretty lady across the way was topless. A little later in the day - while returning from the waves with our youngest - I noticed she had been brave - for her - and undone the back of her bikini top while laying face-down to read her book.
Seeing perhaps the most timid of my family realise that nobody was looking - nobody was gawking - and that she might too grab a little freedom for herself made me smile.
I have been running throughout September - raising money for charity. Rather than face an up-hill task on my return I got up at sunrise each day, and ran a few kilometres around the edge of the nearby golf-course. It became my favourite part of each day - passing the local runners, and acknowledging each other with a smile. On the route back towards the hotel I would pass other hotels where holiday-makers were congregating with their bags - awaiting buses. I would quietly run past, smiling, exchanging waves, and go on my way. Over the days I came to know a small group of cats on the edge of a construction site. On the first day I only saw one, but after running earlier I met the rest of the gang - hunting for lizards, and playing in the footpaths before the sun rose too high.
The entertainment at the hotel was a mixed bag, but we enjoyed it all - sometimes for unintended reasons. Let’s just say that some of the singers weren’t going to win a talent competition. The highlights - for me - were a group of professional dancers (our kids all did dance for several years), and a female singer billed as a Shania Twain tribute act of sorts. Given my other half doesn’t like female singers, and hates Shania Twain, she went to bed early with our middle daughter - leaving me with our youngest and eldest, who ordered more cocktails in a misguided attempt to drink me under the table. When the singer walked around the audience and stopped at our table to sing with them (they were by now singing along at full voice with her), it kind of made their holiday. I wish I could find out who she was - to see if she has ever recorded anything - she was a good singer.
The middle part of each day within the resort was spent around the pools - bagging sun loungers, reading books, drinking free sangria, and people watching of course. It struck me that “the pool” in a resort becomes a strange sort of equaliser - one swimsuit looks much like another - until people open their mouth - then they give away where they are from, and what sort of person they might be pretty much immediately. It became a game of sorts - wondering if there were connections between bleached hair, false eyelashes, tattoos, and choices of cover-up clothing.
Of course some people made themselves more obvious than others - either through not caring, or not realising the effect they might have on others. While quietly making our way through the restaurant one morning I passed somebody new - a portly mid-20s guy who was perhaps “jack the lad” at home - who was loudly proclaiming to a travelling companion that the waiter was “a complete c*nt”. My youngest breathlessly told me about the same group being reprimanded by management the same afternoon in front of everybody at the main pool for a catalogue of misdemeanours.
I don’t think I could ever work in hospitality. I would be too tempted to react.
Our holiday came to an end on Saturday evening - departing the airport in the late evening and arriving back in England in the early hours of the morning. After a lengthy car ride home we collapsed into bed a little before daybreak, and woke before lunch, and begrudgingly slipped back into “normal life”.
My body clock is completely and utterly messed up.
Work tomorrow. And more running. Only 14 kilometres away from the target now. In a strange sort of way I’m going to miss running every day - but I’m also aware that my body has been slowly failing throughout the month - carrying injuries, and putting up with all manner of aches and pains that weren’t there before. Nearly there though. Nearly there.