For years as a confirmed bachelor I routinely had my preferred Summer holiday dates declined by personnel departments on grounds that the months of July, August and September were strictly the preserve of those employees with families whose leave needed to coincide with the school holidays. Now that I am married I find that requests to take my holidays out of season are increasingly being challenged because families with kids can no longer afford to take their holidays in the Summer months and would rather face the wrath of the education system by taking their little darlings out of school during term time.
As a consequence Lam, my long suffering wife (her words not mine), and I have just taken a short Spring vacation in July. This was not as we would have wished but the first week in July was the earliest week that our respective employers could accommodate our request for 5 days of leave (this was booked in March, just so that you don't think we left it until the last minute).
I will accept that the general behaviour of children on planes is a lot better than it used to be. More streamlined check-ins, faster turn around times, quieter aircraft and better facilities at airports seems to have reduced the number of tantrums (if only from the the kids). What has been very noticeable over recent years is the liberal approach taken by many 'Adults only' hotels. In a difficult economic climate it is understandable that tour operators are keen to fill vacant rooms with anyone they can but why should someone who has researched and paid for their holiday in the expectation of spending quality time in a child free environment have their peace and quiet disturbed by children running amok in an environment that was not designed to accommodate them.
I can't recall the last time I took a holiday in July but needless to say we were both looking forward to the break and getting away from the stress. That lasted as far as the airport lounge – What I had not made allowance for is that the college term for many has ended. We were in a queue waiting to board the plane ahead of a group of 3 male students, who not only stood behind us but had the seats behind us on the plane. We were in the queue for 30 minutes, boarded the plane and endured a 4 hour flight to Gran Canaria with these individuals who seemed oblivious of the strange looks and glares that were being cast in their direction by fellow passengers and cabin crew. I had an inkling of what lay ahead when they had a heated collective discussion before deciding that 50 x 200 equalled 1000 – definite future treasury department material. Not for a second throughout the entire journey did their jaws stop moving. It wasn't even chat, it was a constant stream of banal garbage conducted at very high volume, and when they weren't debating which of them had the largest lunch box they would be serenading each other with eclectic selections from their ipods. It was like sharing a cab for 5 hours with Dumb and Dumber.
I was so worn out by the time we touched down that I hardly had the energy to drag my suitcase to the waiting taxi to transfer us to our apartment.
This was the first time that either of us had visited Gran Canaria, it seemed a good thing to do before the Spanish economy followed Greece down the tube. I had visited Tenerife and Lanzarote in the past; most notably I was in Tenerife during the Barcelona Olympics and I was at a resort in Lanzarote with a large Belgian contingent during Italia 90 when David Platt scored a goal in the last minute of extra-time against Belgium to put England through to the Quarter-finals of the World Cup. Since there has never been anything that the English soccer squad has achieved that has surprised me the presence of a sole Englishman sitting in the corner, supping his pint with a rye smile passed unnoticed.
In some ways Gran Canaria was a strange choice of destination, we both like swimming in the sea and relaxing on the beach, though personally I prefer seclusion and listening to the waves lapping on the shore. I was impressed how clean the beaches were and enjoyed our evening meals at the various restaurants / cafés that abutted the beach were a relaxing venue from which to watch the sun set. What to me was a new, and unwelcome, experience was the overcrowding on the beaches. My natural tendency is to find as quiet a space as practicable – it may not be the best location or the most convenient but as long as there is room to breathe I will be OK. We had a choice of bays in the resort where we were staying and soon realised that there was one that was much nicer than the other. Every day we would turn up find a clear spot away from the masses and within 10 minutes we would find ourselves surrounded by several groups who for no apparent reason seemed to think there was something special about the area we had decided to occupy.
I have attended many sales courses during my career where the topic of personal space has been raised. How people find it intimidating when people encroach into their personal space. For most people this is around 18 inches, though my preference would be at least 6 feet. So you can imagine my displeasure at having some hairy-arsed Spaniard in a posing pouch waving his sun-kissed cheeks within an arms-length of me. Every time he stood up and reached into his ice box for a beer I wished that I smoked, ideally a fat, smelly Cuban cigar with a red hot tip.
It amuses me the seriousness with which people approach their relaxation. Most people had umbrellas to shelter them from the heat, though I guess some simply used them to stake out 'their territory'. A brave few chose to lie on their towels all day, flicking over occasionally as if they were on a rotisserie. What intrigued me was the number of people who would turn up day after day with umbrellas, tents, chairs, tables, inflatables, cold boxes and picnic baskets (I am sure there must have been people who brought their fridge and TV with them as well). We spent one day watching this group of around 8 people who set up camp not far from us. The centrepiece of their camp was the dining table with a central umbrella. They were difficult to ignore since, like the students on the plane, they all appeared to suffer from verbal diarrhoea. The Spanish language is not a pleasant one to listen to. To my untrained ear a conversation between 2 Spanish women sounds like 2 chickens having a scrap over a few grains of corn. What is more, every time we looked in their direction they were eating. Maybe there is something wrong with me but I find that I lose my appetite in the heat but for this family the day on the beach was spent shovelling food down their necks ad nauseam. I truly believed that this was a magician's box because I could not work out where all this food was coming from – I could see where most of it was going – into this bikini clad Mrs. Creosote wedged precariously on a plastic seat that formed part of this elaborate table. It is a toss up between her sizeable backside and Hairy-arse's thong which image is most likely to haunt me for the rest of my days.
Before we knew it we were back on the plane facing another 4 hours of tedium listening to the same students wittering on about nothing in particular while my luggage was despatched on another plane destined for the far end of the country. Thankfully it was eventually returned to me a few days later.
The world may be shrinking, it may be spinning on an unstable axis and it may throw up all sorts of surprises but the big question remains, if I can't take my Spring vacation until July, the Summer months are effectively off limits and the Autumn months are deemed by my employer so important that no one can take any leave how and when can I book a Summer vacation by the end of the year? By the time I have solved that conundrum I will have earned my 2 weeks' R and R.
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