‘Mark, what shipwrecks have there been here really?’
‘Ah, come on Betty, even if we don’t see that we will see some beautiful fish, it’ll be amazing.’
‘I can’t stand fish and it’s perfect tan weather. There’s not a cloud in the sky. I haven’t just got boob sweat, I’ve got “humidititties”. Is there a place I can sunbathe on there?’
‘Probably, come on, life is for experiencing new things.’
‘What will I be able to see on this glass boat thing?’
‘Dolphins, maybe even a whale, come on.’
‘All right then, it could be fun, you’ve won.’
We must have only been on the boat for five minutes and my dad turned green. I don’t mean a hint of green, I mean Hulk’s second cousin once removed green. ‘I genuinely think I’m having a heart attack, I’m going to be sick,’ my dad cried.
Me and my mam rushed to get the captain. ‘He has a touch of sea sickness, tell him to hang his head over the side if he feels like he is going to be sick,’ he said.
‘It is not sea sickness. I’m a bloke, I don’t get sea sickness, I’m having an actual heart attack.’ We stayed by my dad’s side while he swayed side to side moaning about what a shit idea it was to come on a glass-bottom boat, whilst everyone else marvelled at the beautiful fish and children as young as three skipped along the deck. When we finally arrived to land, suddenly my dad’s ‘heart attack’ stopped. We still have a laugh about this and when he goes to have a bath we tell him to be careful he doesn’t get sea sickness.
I was so happy for 7p.m. to come. Nanny and Pappy were there and we made our way down to the disco.
‘Can I have a mocktail, Grandad?’ I asked. ‘That girl’s got one over there and it comes with a big straw that looks like a parrot.’
‘Is it on the all-inclusive drinks list, like?’
‘Yeah, Grandad. Look, it’s called a virgin piña colada, it just sounds like a pineapple milkshake.’
So my grandad Tommy came back with a tray of drinks and we enjoyed the hotel entertainment. It was a magician who was making doves in birdcages disappear. I had nearly sipped my way through a quarter of my drink and I honestly couldn’t stomach any more. ‘It tastes too funky, this drink, I don’t like it,’ I moaned.
Some things don’t change… My smile is still this big now when I see a piña colada.
‘Is it too milky?’ My mam grabbed my drink to have a try of it. ‘Bloody hell, Tommy, it’s got alcohol in this!’
‘Has it? I asked for a piña colada like she said.’
‘No, a virgin piña colada, that’s the one with no alcohol in it,’ she giggled. Luckily I didn’t drink too much of it otherwise I’d have been the only pissed nine-year-old in the resort. But hey, what a way to have your first ever alcoholic drink.
Me and my dad would also like to go and watch either Only Fools and Horses or The X-Files in a sports bar next to the beach. We would sit there for hours watching it. Apart from the X-Files introduction (‘do le do le do’), where an eye would zoom in. That is when I’d have to close my eyes at that part and my dad would tell us when it was over. That would freak me out.
My mam would moan, ‘Come on, we need to go back to the hotel now, there’s another cabaret show!’
‘Just one more episode and we will, Mam, pleeeease.’ Me and my dad had flown all the way to Spain just to sit in the shade and watch a show you could watch back at home.
I just loved that there was always a twist in The X-Files. I think part of me believed it was real as a kid, because my dad used to say that it’s a documentary. So I did for a good year think that it was based on true events. I did think, ‘Oh God, I can’t believe that we’re living in a world where this happens and no one is even talking about it!’ I used to get really caught up in it. No wonder I’ve turned out the way I am!
The X-Files was my guilty pleasure back then. Do you know what it is now? Love Island. Me and my mam binge-watch it. She’ll kill me for saying this, and I know it’s a weird thing to watch with your mam because it is very rude, but we record them all and watch three or four off the trot. We love it.
We all giggled so much on that holiday. I made friends who I said I would be pen pals with forever and that we would all meet up again. One letter later (as yes, I was slightly odd as a child and didn’t do the whole email thing, I’m traditional and like the feeling of licking an envelope shut. If they still had them I’d probably have a carrier pigeon to be honest) and we never spoke again. My dad’s sunburn might have faded but the memories will last forever.
I loved our family holidays. If we didn’t go somewhere in Spain or Greece we would go away to a caravan park and stay in a static, and one year we thought we would be really adventurous and stay in a tent. Now I love a caravan, especially when it’s raining and you can hear the raindrops bouncing off the roof. Me and my dad had a hilarious trick: when my mam went to the toilet, we would run out with loads of bread,
