Holidays in August sound sunny and delightful but they can be just about anything.
My father, who would climb mountains in Scotland, would often find that the only dry place to sit at the top was the inside of his hat – my son, as a child, thought one day he would go round mountains “collecting granddad’s hats”.
The trouble is that holidays are made of illusions: the sun’s going to shine but not too fiercely; everyone’s going to be kind and helpful and you won’t get cornered by the most boring woman on the tour who thinks you will be her closest buddy.
You might go to a good foreign hotel looking forward to French or Italian cooking but find the hotel prides itself on giving you British food, to please you. You go and stay with two female cousins who have a couple of dogs you’re expected to walk; you went because they live in a seaside village but it turns out there’s no way of bathing without stones and mess.
Some of the worst holidays you can have are the ones where you’re supposed to be grateful for being given a chance to do something new – and it turns out you’ll never be a skater no matter long you try, and you don’t want to master a weird type of exercise however healthy it is.
In distant time I said yes to going away with a fairly new date – and he turned out to be the last person you’d like to spend time with. Well, it certainly stopped me getting any closer to the chap, but unfortunately his car was the only way of getting home – or going anywhere else.
Ah well. At least you’ll soon be back at home. Happy holidays.
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