Life's a Beach

The world is a huge place, or so I’m told. I kind of envy the people who were able to have that gap year thing, who explored the far-flung parts of Indonesia or Thailand and no doubt had a whale of a time in some re-creation of “The Beach”. Well at least the early part, before it all got a bit serious and deranged. (Great book by the way)

I haven’t had the opportunity to travel much further than a holiday charter jet will take me. Generally to the Canaries, Portugal, Cyprus (once) and Majorca about ten times. I think I must be eligible for the freedom of  Palma de Mallorca airport by now, or at least some extra discount at duty free.

Majorca is a place I’ve been to as a boy, teenager, adult and parent. I love the place. As a child, I loved the beaches, the ice-cream cones, the chicken at the half board buffet, the watermelon, the freshly squeezed orange juice and the fizzy Lemon. Exotic fare indeed for a council estate eleven year old.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not advocating Magaluf as the best thing since sliced bread, but when you were under 21 it was.

My first experience of San Miguel (at sixteen) ended up in a vomit fest of embarrassment, as I lay in the bathroom unable to move with my parents trying to explain to the police I wasn’t involved with the two Swedish drug dealers they’d just arrested.

The long drunken walk up the Torrenova hill was a bit of a stretch, but thankfully, the last bar on the right always had lovely burgers and it was also the first stop on the way down too, with a good old happy hour to start the evening.

I’ll never forget my times drinking in the grotty Tartan Arms bar just because it was a Scottish Pub and it served Tenents Lager. Nor the free shots touted at every other doorway as you headed along to Bananas nightclub (which I believe might even still be there). The girls used to get plastered on two or three of those green looking Grasshopper cocktails and you always found someone to snog on the way home, even if neither of you knew much about it.

That sounded wrong, but it was in the days before rohypnol, and I’m sure it was all consensual. To be honest, it was all part of that rite of passage thing, where you go on holiday thinking you’ll pull someone exotic and then wake up next to Brenda from East Kilbride. You then both have to avoid each other for the next six days because she realises your not exactly Tom Cruise and despite your ‘mates’ insistence she was a seven out of ten, they were blatantly lying just so they could get off with her much fitter friend.

We went back to Palma Nova as a couple and again as first time parents. That’s me and the wife by the way, not Brenda. I seem to remember walking round and round with a baby buggy for hours in the vain hope our insomniac baby would go to sleep and we would get to enjoy a three-course meal undisturbed. No chance, and actually never again since.

Our last few trips there have been to the slightly more sophisticated Cala D’or, which has some lovely little coves and small beaches to discover. No more hedonistic fun though, early dinners, thirst quencher on the way home and bed well before closing time. That’s assuming we have negotiated with autistic son, who is pedantic when we say we are stopping for a drink – that’s exactly all we are getting. A drink….and that’s only if he likes where we are sitting, the music isn’t too loud and nothing else upsets him.

We take turns so one of us stays out a little longer with our daughter, who has now matured into the tween from hell and wants to be involved in any evening entertainment, especially if there are any poor 13 year old boys around.

Shit, it’s only a few years until she’ll be sneaking off and necking dodgy green cocktails. Might be time to start booking remote cottages in the Lake District, at least until she is old enough to find her own Beach.

Mind you, my partying days may not quite be over. In eight years time I’ll be 50.

That apparently gets you entry to SAGA, which I’m led to believe stands for Sex And Games for the Aged. I guess its important to have something to look forward to.

…..Wonder if they do Magaluf.