Majorcan Sun

By AM Wednesday, August 4, 2010

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Now that the annual family holiday is over my wife and I can relax again! Kids take it out of you by the yard and a holiday is needed to get over a holiday. The flights might have been comfortable even if delayed, no real turbulence either going or leaving, but we had our own 5 year old Stuka dive bomber ready to strafe his nine year old sister at every opportunity, and on the flimsiest of pretexts. By the close of fourteen days holiday fatigue had well and truly set in and we were ready for Ireland in spite of its rain. When we left our old friend the drizzle waved us goodbye and when we returned it bade us hello. Like the proverbial bad penny you can always be sure of it turning up.

As has become the family custom we spent our fortnight sun siesta in the Majorcan resort of Palma Nova. However, I think we have come to the end of our love affair with it. We know it too well and while having enjoyed every minute spent there we are of a view that we have squeezed as much out of the place as we are likely to. If we go back we are likely to face the law of diminishing returns. As the old adage goes a change is as good as a rest. The children too are a bit restless with it and in need of fresh adventures.

Normally we go to another hotel but changed this time. It was a choice we did not regret. Our fellow guests were for the most part English, thoroughly pleasant and far removed from the lager louts that so many holiday makers dread running into.

My wife put the holiday operation together and as ever was meticulous in her planning. As usual a book by Antony Beevor made up part of my reading ensemble. He is now mandatory for holidays abroad and The Battle For Spain was atmospherically ideal for our location. My aim was to complete four books and I managed to finish the last one waiting in the hotel lobby for the bus to take us to Palma Airport. Cutting it fine but still within the set period. It hardly matters. Also conquered were the 570 pages of the second in a trilogy by the brilliant Stieg Larsson. For those not yet initiated it is not too late. The best in crime fiction I have read for years.

Kid watching – not in the priestly sense – is a tiring activity. With two of them in the pool and often wanting to be in separate but adjoining pools a parent needs eyes like a hawk. My wife told me just before we went out that most kids who drown in pools do so within 25 metres of their parents. Learning that does not produce an effect equivalent to Valium on the nerves. Then separating their fights while the more reserved English clientele looked on was hardly conducive to rest and relaxation.

I don’t take kindly to the sun. It led me to endlessly quaff pints of San Miguel and I can hardly feign the chutzpah to complain. A warm climate induces discomfort in me more easily than a cold one. Last Christmas here with its persistent snow was less challenging than two weeks of Majorcan sunshine. Yet, the pool and the sea compensate enormously. Sailing around the coves of the Mediterranean and leaping from a catamaran into the warm water with my daughter has provided a memory to be cherished.

And that’s what it is all about – memories of great times shared with those we love most. Although I did not come to appreciate this until late in life it causes me few regrets. In earlier years circumstance beckoned and I followed. I remain avowedly philosophical about that. But sitting in the Majorcan sun with my wife and children I knew that nothing now comes before them, neither cause nor campaign.


Now, back to the grind.