What I did on my holidays part 2. And other things

What a top weekend. Me, Small Person and the Other Half have been to the park, swimming and to the beach. A packed day and the Other Half was edging towards the front door at 4pm like a hungry dog heading for a bowl of pedigree chum. Bless.

I thought that nobody would want to hear about the Mexican extravaganza that was mine and the Other Half's hollybobs, but it seems I was wrong. A massive three people complained so, you asked for it, more of the same. I really don't know where to begin. The Other Half and me are obsessed with other people - how they look, what they do and really how bloody awful they all are. So my memories of Mexico (apart from the ones you REALLY don't want to hear about, especially if you know us), are more to do with the people we saw than anything else. I personally had never spent so much time in close proximity to Americans, and I really struggled with it. They are a nation of terrible dress sense, incomprehensible taste in music, and a propensity to go "HOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" at the drop of a hat. Particularly when the house band launched into "Sweet Home Alabama" for the nineteenth time that night. I assume that the southern states are more inclined to head to Mexico for that precious time away from their doublewide trailers and pet crocs - we seemed to be constantly surrounded by good ol' boys and their helplessly drunk companions. The Other Half and I had spent an enjoyable week feeling superior to the whooping, crew cut masses populating the swim-up bar on our side of the resort, until the fateful day when it caught us in its tractor beam and sucked us in for a whole five hours or so. It began innoccuously enough - it was very hot and we decided to head over for a refreshing drink. This was at 11am. I was on the mimosas (posh name for buck's fizz) and the Other Half was sticking resolutely to the watered down lager - which after fifteen or so tends to creep up on you. Apparently. So we were drinking and gossiping away, when a guy who transpired to be John from Denver happened along. His (presumably long-suffering) wife had tasked him with grabbing a couple of margheritas and bringing them back, which to be fair he did. Four hours later. He was ordering two at a time and necking them like it was last orders in a Nottingham nightclub. We covered such diverse subjects as American football (my assertion that it's just rugby for girls didn't go down too well, although he did insist at this point that the Other Half fly to Denver at John and his unsuspecting wife's hospitality to see a game. He was about eight margheritas in....) and working for General Motors, when the conversation took a turn for the 9/11's and I found myself discussing lovely Daddy's boy Dubbya's hard right policies, in a swimming pool, with a large drink in my hand. Weird. Although normally my far left hippy principles would have kicked in and I'd have been dismissing the Texan fruitloop's shortcomings while celebrating the fact that we're not all toast yet, a hitherto undiscovered sense of propriety kicked in and I just nodded and smiled and vowed to apologise to myself later. The American's are still vehemently NOT over the fact that another nation hates them to that extent, and I felt that a drunken argument with a total stranger was probably not the best way to resolve the Anglo-American difference of opinion on that subject. Yay me. Anyway, at this point John's wife appeared poolside, presumably wondering where the last twelve drinks had gone.. when it became apparent that the answer was "down John's throat" she flounced off and, after pledging lifelong friendship, he did the same. The Other Half and I then had a very satisfying bombing competition to the disgust of everone watching, and actually managed to make it through til 2am. There was a two hour hiatus in our room, which involved me insisting for a whole fifteen minutes that nobody should sleep or it would all be lost, and waking up hours later in my bikini and a damp towel to find that it was dark and I was still far too drunk to go for dinner. Nevertheless, a cool (supervised) shower and lots more drinks saved the day. And when we saw John from Denver the next day we were complicit in his strategy of pretending we'd never met, which we hope made his wife happy. It was obvious that he wasn't allowed to play with us any more. Sigh. It's always the same....

Oh bloody hell - you see what's happened. I've spent ages wittering on about one person we met and there's still loads to tell. More of the same soon - and I really do have to talk about the air hostess (scarily precise flight times and some very odd advice about what was permitted during takeoff and landing), and nose-picking man and the red hot chilli peanuts.

That'll teach you.