Travel Home (Bonus Blog)
Travel home day arrived like a kick in the testicles. I flung open the curtains to greet whatever the day had in store for me. I’m a MAN, I can take it!… rain?! I started to cry. I hate rain. Why did god ruin the last day of my holiday. In an unusual moment of reflection later I realise actually this is perfect. The weather here has changed for the worse. The UK is heading into a heatwave. Looks like I’m winning at life.
Who needs rainy Bermuda. I abandon plans for a dawn assault on the landing beaches and instead set about collecting two weeks worth of dirty under crackers from around the room and securing them in my case with the standard detritus of a two week getaway in the sun. This includes two T-shirts I’ll never ever wear. A chonk of a book that for some reason was free. I’m expecting halfway through I’ll decide I believe in some weird Bermudan deity and start praying to a bottle of rum each morning. What else do we have…. Crockery… why do we have crockery? I don’t effing know!! It’s just the obvious must have buy when you already have two massive cases that have NO spare room in them. I know who I blame. But we operate a no blame culture in this retirement community. (It’s deffo her fault!)
Today we are off for a posh lunch in an expensive hotel. It’s not really that posh but it doesn’t sell rum by the gallon and they don’t have cottage pie on the menu, the heathens!! We sail across the bay for the last time. The captain of the ferry thinks he’s seen us before but isn’t too sure. (Every day Derek you moron!). As the weather is rather less than clement, we elect to sit inside at the restaurant. We have arrived at 11.54am for a 12 noon reservation. The maître d’ explained to us that the lunch service does not commence until noon so they would not be able to take our order just yet. Oh no… how will I cope? But also, did you even need to mention it you officious tosser,
Sometime after 12 the waiter came over to take our orders. To my immediate right was a TV screen showing the Brighton game. Because I’m such a good husband I’d elected to miss the Wolves game on this occasion. Yeah, I know I’m an old romantic fool. I was absolutely fine with this arrangement until the second half kicked off and at the far end of the bar I could see the Wolves game playing out. I say I could see it. I knew it was Wolves, but at an acute angle to a screen 20 metres away, I have no clue what was happening. Long story short after many minutes (seconds) of soul searching, with a heavy heart I concluded my love for Matheus Cunha was indeed more than my love for my wife. The bar steward successfully got us 70 inches of Wolves watching pleasure to accompany our romantic meal.
In my defence m’lud, I didn’t actually see either goal two or three live because I was busy whispering sweet nothings into Snuckems ear about if Wolves always play with this diamond formation or do we sometime shift to a more traditional 4-4-2. I did see Jose Sa save Jamie Vardy’s penalty. My celebration in a quiet restaurant muted from a roar to a squeak in a millisecond. Did I punch the air? I don’t remember. I was too busy being in love and holding hands and stuff.
Snuckems, having been bribed with a potential replay of this once in a lifetime holiday next year, was remarkably tolerant. As was I with her constant annoying questions. There was the touching moment after we watched the Strand Larsen goal go in, where I talked her through the lyrics to his song.
Strand Larsen woo -oh
Strand Larsen woo -oh
He’s Scandi-navian!
He hates the Al-bi-on.
If you pronounce the words in a disjointed fashion with a Black Country accent, you could be mistaken for thinking it does actually rhyme! I’m not sure there has been an occasion where Snuckems has loved me or Strand Larsen more.
Full time. I celebrate with an $18 Old Fashioned because I used to be fabulously wealthy until we came here for bloody lunch. We need to be back at our hotel for the 1960’s coach to the airport at 5.30pm. So we waste some time here instead. Oh look a shopping mall. A key ring $15, a pack of cards $30, a bag made of straw in a sweat shop $265. At this point Snuckems agreed my $18 drink was great value and I allowed her to buy a $4 postcard as a treat for agreeing with me. Eventually we tired of the luxury of shit we couldn’t afford and headed back to Butlins on the bus.
As an unwelcome treat the sun had finally made an appearance and the walk from the bus stop was both torturous and great for my sun tanned calves! Back at the hovel, we sit by the pool listening to a new golf wanker explaining that when he goes into a restaurant, he has no clue what to eat. He just shows them his money and tells them to bring him whatever. The crowd of who hence forth I will refer to as Golfers (wankers) all nod in agreement. And of course they have all been to this place….
The deal here is… give them $300 per head, plus tax, plus drinks, plus tip. So let’s call it at least $500 because these Golfers aren’t drinking Diet Pepsi. And for that they are given 16 courses. Yes sixteen courses of dead raw fish. Prepared for them by some guy in Charlotte, North Carolina, who learned how to be a sushi chef from YouTube. And I use the term ‘chef’ against my better judgement, because this tosser cooked nothing at all. In fact he’ll tell you that cooking the fish would ruin it. You know like everything else you’ve ever eaten. You’d have to be a proper Golfer to swallow this bullshit.
Anyway, it turns out the Golfer boys were having some sort of get together. Soon there were no less than 10 of them. All spouting utter nonsense. This was my favourite twat:
The look here is… hair pulled up through your 80s Golden Girls sun-visor. Disguise the fact you are a twat in a sun-visor by wearing really cool sunglasses. But then absolutely fail because you’re wearing them above your eyes! I won't even mention his oddly empty looking face. Like a scrotum minus the balls. I’m not sure I’ve seen a bigger twat all holiday and I do have a mirror.
Soon they announce to the entire hotel that they have to go and wash off some of the bullshit before this evenings meal at blah blah blah ... please just eff off.
We also had to make a move, we headed to reception to meet our coach to the airport. The coach firm is somewhat ironically named Limo Bermuda. The limo that arrived was the same Charabanc that brought us in on the first day. This made our usual mode of transportation, a Chinese built plastic bus, look like a Rolls Royce. We had the same driver (Clive) he is still as bad ass as he was on arrival. But spent much of the time on the phone doing deals and arranging pick ups and drop offs. Nothing to do with drugs!! You are just judging him because you are a bad person.
We arrive at the airport and check our bags in. Both are marked with the HEAVY sticker of shame. I knew those Bermudan dinner plates were a mistake. We leave the desk and head for security. No fast track for business class tut. We go to start the wandering around 4 miles of empty queuing barriers. A Bermuda security bitch calls us over. “Lift the barrier and come through here!” This doesn’t happen at Heathrow I think to myself. “This wouldn’t happen at Heathrow!” she repeats having literally read my mind.
The queue at security was us. Yep, just us. No one else. Our personal security bitch escorted us through the process. “Leave it all in the bags, it’s all cool”. “Henry, wake up and scan these cases” Henry was just amazed his job gave him the X-ray vision that normally it took him 3 joints of the good Lebanese black to achieve. I imagine he saw we were smuggling crockery and thought he was still tripping.
Security cleared we wandered down to the Bacardi lounge. The Bacardi lounge had a lot of Bacardi. Every single variety. In addition, one cheap whisky, one cheap vodka, one cheap gin. Ok lads… Bacardi it is. The food selection was equally diverse. Two types of soup, four trays of those M&S style sandwiches. I’m not knocking it these looked and tasted proper home made. Oh and they had some crisps! If you were still peckish, have some more Bacardi baby! My impression was some ladies off the bus did this buffet on a Saturday for the airport and on a Sunday did the same spread for the church.
Our flight was the last to depart that day. The plane was also the last to arrive. You won’t believe me, but they intentionally parked the plane right next to the lounge to save us rich bastards the walk. We all staggered out of the Bacardi lounge en masse 20 mins before the flight. Oh the poverty! Economy class passengers in their “Bermuda” hoodies. How common. My “Beer-muda” T-shirt was safely stashed in my expensive hand luggage. Partly to hide my working class credentials, mainly to protect the fucking crockery from damage. See woman!!! Now you’ve made me use the F word!
The plane journey was mainly uneventful. Take off was delayed slightly because they couldn’t turn off the classical music they play as you board. They literally had to switch the entertainment system off and back on to get it working. This takes 20 mins so the safety video was acted out by the unamused stewards.
Everyone on the plane just wanted to eat and go to sleep. Our exceptional business class service today certainly seemed to be working on Bermudan time. I’m not gonna lie. I couldn’t be bothered with the cheese course. I pressed the button to recline my seat to the fully flat position with my nose and everything went black. It stayed black until we were an hour from home. Oh the pain of being awake!!!!
Soon we smashed into the tarmac. “Welcome home! It’s a lovely sunny day and currently 8C in London”. EIGHT!!!! Someone said I was coming home to a heatwave. Great. Having slept in our clothes all night I felt dirty and not in a good way! We waited an age for our bags and walked through the green lane into Heathrow Terminal 3. I confess at this stage I experienced a bit of a panic attack. There was a sign. “You are now leaving the pretending to be wealthy zone”. I totally couldn't cope.
We seriously took an immediate U-turn and found ourselves in the small but perfectly formed American Airlines “Arrivals lounge”. All it had to offer was a full breakfast selection and hot showers. Hot showers… I didn’t even know I wanted a hot shower, but suddenly I wanted a hot shower! You probably don’t think you want a hot shower in an airport when you’ve just arrived and should be heading home, but OMFG you do!
They have food and coffee and shit… great…. The shower was life changing. Naked body cleansed, lovely RAB shorts on, calves out. Ok I’ll put on the white polo shirt. That’ll really show off the old carcinogenic sun tan for the ladies.
We leave T3 feeling fantastic. The rest of my day ... London Underground, Euston Station, Avanti trains and Wolverhampton. I may consider killing myself.
Truth is:
- I don’t have another holiday booked.
- I have nothing to look forward to.
- But, I’m not going to work on Monday. GET IN!!
Brunch? Who’s up for it?
Stay B...brilliant bitches!