24/08/2010

Back

Some days are worse than others. That's the way it's got to be. They can't all be ten out of ten for fun. Like Christmas or the last day of the school term, the day you finally rode your bike without stabilizers, or even just one brightened with a nice detail like the delivery of a crop of new movies fresh from Amazon.

Those are the gems. But some of them are just plain crap. And nothing takes the Oscar for downright rubbishness like the first day back at work after your summer holiday.

When the alarm goes off at 7am, first you don't remember where you are. Then you do, and the dread sinks in like paintbrush colour into the water jar of despair.

This is an outrage, you think. It's still dark outside. Just a day ago at this exact moment in time, I woke up, took a piss, then went back to sleep for another four hours.

Marbella to me is heaven on earth. You go from your bed to the pool – via breakfast – then to Las Sardinales for lunch. Eating coquinas or on an extra special day Arroz con bogavante (Rice with lobster) which the bloke manages to get down his front and over half the pristine white tablecloth. All of this with the sea breeze in your face and the thick sound of the waves lapping gently on the shore.

Then it's back home for a siesta, movie, more pool action, or if you're feeling extra energetic – a trip 400 metres down the road to the beach. After the sun has set – if you're lucky making a pink and purple mess of the sky – it's either a nice dinner at home, swapping stories with the family – or one out, where you might get to try something completely new, like rabo de toro (bulls tail) And this deserves a blog all to itself!

Repeat this sequence on every day of your holiday. Does it get boring? Not for me, and not in this lifetime.

And it's all just a memory when you rip yourself from your womb-like bed come Monday morning. The clinking of glasses around a round table by candlelight. The smell of la dama de noche in the garden while you dangle your legs over the wicker furniature and loose yourself in a book. The warm soft skin of the bloke's little nephew as he gives you a hug at bedtime.

Gone gone gone.

And in the real world your morning tea is too hot, the radio too loud. Your key feels alien when you turn it to leave the house. Your beloved little dog rubs your nerves up with sandpaper when she lingers too far behind.

The bus driver's: "buenas dias" is loaded with fakeness. The air con is on too strong and everything is slightly wrong, tiled 30 degrees off centre. The final stretch of pavement to those glass double doors of the office feels like a walk towards the GCSE maths classroom.

It's all, one, big, laboured, sigh.

But really, it's not that bad is it? Well not for me anyway. I have no business complaining really.
"Welcome back," says my boss. "How was it?"
"Oh it was great. Amazing, in fact. I can't believe it's over now, though."
"Ah come on, It's hardly a big chore, is it," he says raising his palms upward and outward. "Imagine if you had to go back to England"

Mood lifts by 50 feet immediately. He's right. My "back in real life" scenario is not rain, cold, sky to floor grey concrete and a job I hate. Post holiday blues have no place in my heart or my head. I need to remember that.

3 comments:

  1. Oh you’re so right...there’s nothing as bad as a Monday morning after a holiday.

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  2. Nope I remember that feeling all too well, grateful that my return to work was in Spain and not England xx
    I loved the smell of "La dama del noche" I cannot imagine anything more heavenly right at this moment, when summer once again seems to have left us, and the leaves are turning. xx

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  3. we wiil be back soon Mrs plaster :)

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