This time every year, I get an enormous urge to be decadent. Not to over-spend or anything: mainly, just to eat fruit and drink wine in the sunshine. It isn’t a lot to ask, but I live in Britain. Chasing the sun is the preserve of the uber-rich or the package holideer. I can handle neither. I am squishy squashed firmly into my middle class box.
I’ve spent plenty of time in Torremolinos and Tenerife for very few squids over the years, but the technicolour cloud of someone else’s vomit hangs over these places, never far away, in an otherwise cloudless sky. I’ve been punched in the back of the seat all the way to Goa because I stood up for the passenger next to me, whom the wildly inebriated man in the seat behind had threatened (she had asked him to stop shouting obscenities). The surrounding passengers asked to have him removed at Bahrain – the crew judged that he was “just a little difficult”.They soon regretted that once we took off again and his buzz wore off. His shouting became even more aggressive and took in the crew this time: they were only too quick to act once his threats were directed at them and not at we cheap package oiks (who obviously deserved all the seat-punching we got, for the price). The captain was called and the man was threatened with a permanent ban from this airline, along with being flagged to the Goan authorities on arrival. This had no effect: he “knew everyone in Goa, mate! I’ll find out where you’re staying! Look out for me! You’d better be afraid!” No matter how beautiful the destination or desperate I am for sun, I’m just too old now to want to get there to the strains of Friggin’ in the Riggin’.
But still, I’d love a honeymoon! I’m cold! I’m newly-wed! It’s the time I usually start dreaming of getting away anyway! What I didn’t know about post-wedding-ness is that you’re pretty useless: you’re all floaty and happy and you want to indulge that feeling. Not indulging it renders you rubbish at everything you’re supposed to be concentrating on when you go “straight back to work”. Nice idea at the time.
So how amazing was it when two of our gorgeous pals offered us our honeymoon as a gift? Pretty damn amazing, I can tell you. South of Spain, flights and accom paid, they were going too (we love them, this would have been top) – leaving 2 weeks from the wedding day. That’s now. Hurrah!!
Slight problem. I don’t currently hold a passport. I mean, I have one, but someone in the Home Office still has it in their official mitts. Because the husband isn’t from the EU, what should be a straightforward application that’s meant to take 3-6 weeks (8 at the outside) is heading for week 14. And we can’t (and don’t want) to rock the boat, because we’re trying to do things by the book. After the wedding, we politely asked if we could, at least, get our documents back and were told that retrieving them would start the whole process again from scratch. We asked if – 11 weeks in – the process were anywhere near completion and got zero response.
So, not only are we not going on honeymoon, we still haven’t had the lovely excuse for an extra nice lunch that will be the 15 minutes at the registry office. We have no idea when that will be. But never fear! The sun is shining in London. I keep reminding myself how many people come here on honeymoon: I should just get over myself. Today, I will walk the dog in the sunshine and meet the husband for early evening drinks. Maybe in Soho, where the technicolour cloud of someone else’s vomit is never far away. That’s almost the same as a holiday, isn’t it?
