If You Took A Holiday - Monday

‘You need to get up.’ Urges my wife’s voice through a sleepy fug. Now that causes some confusion to my jet-lagged brain, as I wonder what day it is and if the instruction is some encouragement for early morning action?

‘The Germans will have bagged all the sunbeds anyway.’ I tell her drowsily, once I’ve realised you only get pre-breakfasts sex, before the first wedding anniversary.

‘What are you talking about?’ Replies my wife curtly. And an unpleasant realisation hits me just as I realise there is no embryonic sunrise-warmth colour-washing the walls. Instead that inane couple from the local radio breakfast show are jabbering the usual nonsense, urging any loser with no life and a mobile phone to ring in and talk to them. Anyone.

‘We’re not on holiday any more are we?’ I state rhetorically, as I glance at the bedside clock and realise I’m late already and that it’s dark outside.

‘You can’t have forgotten the flight from hell.’ Says my wife nudging me in the direction of the en-suite, with one leg.

As I stand unsteadily and empty my bladder, something it proved hard to do on a plane journey where the sole aim of the cabin crew seemed to be to flog over-priced drinks and perfumes while blocking your route to the toilets, I realise it’s Monday. And I’m due back at work.

‘That week went too fast.’ I tell my wife, after a hasty shave where I managed to scrape off two days worth of sunbathing, then nick myself on the neck in a place where it will probably still be bleeding when my shirt collar needs to be buttoned.

‘Tell me about it.’ She says with a yawn, padding off in her dressing gown to put the kettle on. She could read the Blog, but doesn’t show much interest in truth.

‘Can I have some honey in my tea?’ I call, as I gaze in disinterest at the array of ties I’d rather not wear.

‘Diet starts today.’ Comes the reply in the negative.

That’s the problem with holidays and an all-inclusive package. You need a lot of self-restraint. I mean, if you want to dispel the convenient notion that your morbid obesity can somehow be blamed on genetics, just take a look at where the biffers head for once the breakfast buffet opens. It’s not the fresh fruit counter.

‘I’m exhausted before I start.’ I tell my wife over a soggy bowl of bran, with that opaque fully-skimmed milk I’ve avoided for the last seven days.

‘It didn’t help the holiday operators dumped us at the airport  three and a half hours before our flight.’ She reminds me.

If looks could kill, the airhead rep on the microphone, who gaily informed us as we trooped off the coach, that the queues would be extra long for check-in, would be getting gushy memorials on her Facebook page by now.

Quite apart from their woeful plumbing arrangements and a propensity to avoid paying taxes, you can see why the Greek economy is going down the pan. The charming service we enjoyed at the hotel evaporated faster than gob on a hotplate, once we entered the airport. Surly doesn’t even begin to cover it. Those grumpy security staff and sullen passport control people will empty your goodwill, faster than a Transylvanian hooker.

I’d been feeling quite upbeat after a week of limitless food and alcohol. With only one lapse, where I foolishly looked in a Greek realtor’s window. But four hours with a screaming kid two seats behind and an intransigent woman in front who kept trying to recline her seat, despite my knees being wedged so deep into the seat-back pocket I was nearly taking her up the arse with one patella, took its toll. 

‘Try to have a good day.’ Urges my wife, as I do the customary peck on the doorstep. Then I’m passing the same faces in the traffic congestion again and suddenly I’m walking towards the office. Two  more fantasies dashed - it hasn’t burnt down and the window display hadn’t changed much either.

Think I’ll go to the travel agent at lunchtime.

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If You Took A Holiday - Thursday

It starts in the arrivals hall as I wonder if the tingling in my legs is cramp or a deep vein thrombosis? The knee-length flight socks that made me look like a nightmare version of a St Trinians’ schoolgirl might not have been worth the indignity.

‘Don’t suppose we’ll see our luggage again.’ I grumble as the baggage conveyor does the same and starts up, shunting several fat woman sideways who had sat down after the exertion of moving a hundred yards without priority boarding and a wheelchair.

‘Don’t go all negative on me.’ Chides my wife as a battered suitcase with one lock hanging off chugs round and round in a poignant search for its owner. I was never that upbeat. Who is after a childhood parental divorce and the first house move you didn’t want or need? But half a lifetime later and several thousand fraught moves on, while others take the equity and the plaudits, I’m a tad grumpy.

‘They know a property person when they spot one.’ Chuckles my wife, as suitcases recovered, we trundle through the airport and several shifty-looking Spaniards thrust up-market homes brochures at us while overhead advertising screens push new developments with waterside views and silly prices. Nothing changes.

‘Is it really three decades since we were here?’ I ask incredulously as the sun catches my face and I feel instantly better and the asking prices in my hand not so laughable. The island looked more built-up as the 737 circled the airport and it’s a fair bet I won’t be insane enough to dance to One Step Beyond by Madness this time, but the clubs are still thriving. The dream is tarnished when you see them in the daytime, but then the property market is just as disingenuous.

‘Bloody hell.’ I stage whisper to my wife as we board the coach. ‘Is this a hearse or are we booked into sheltered accommodation?’  A sea of sun-damaged faces, rheumy eyes and inappropriate sportswear look back at me inquisitively. It’s the first time I’ve felt young since that McCarthy & Stone launch evening.

‘At least I won’t have to talk to people.’ I hypothesise as we take the first walk round the resort, having asked to change the room when the sea view turned out to be another property Misdecription, only without the criminal prosecution and taped interview.

‘Why’s that?’ She asks warily.

‘Because they are all Germans.’ I tell her as a Teutonic couple march by and greet us with a, Guten Tag.

‘Look,’ I tell her as we approach the quayside shops. ‘Even the estate agencies are run by Krauts.’ And we pause by a row of shiny-windowed units with names like Engel & Humberdink and Voelkes & Himmler. They may not have hung on to Poland but they got most of the Mediterranean eventually.

‘Where there’s overpriced homes you’ll get big ticket boats.’ I tell my wife knowingly as we see equally flashy yacht brokerages cheek by jowl with the property purveyors. I’ve ex-vendors who bought in haste in Spain, sitting on 50% price falls still unable to return to the UK, yet here are row upon row of boats, all for sale just as the apartments are, just as everything is.

‘They’re having a laugh surely?’ I ask my wife as, sat at a waterside bar, we get the bill for a small beer and a diet coke costing more than a couple of NHS prescriptions. All around the tinkle of well-bred voices are, curiously, speaking heavily accented English across borders. Within view are more Sunseekers than a wet bank holiday in Hove and I just long to put the dampers on the whole fantasy by pricking the price bubble, but self-harm isn’t an admirable trait. I gently broil instead.

‘How many million Euros?’ I scoff, as I can’t help myself passing another agency window, pausing to look. The infinity pool looks enticing, as does the sun-kissed view, but come Christmas and the realisation that some Spanish planner took a backhander and you don’t own the parking or the plumbing, it might not seem so bright. I reckon David Blaine would be embarrassed by all this clumsy slight of hand.

It’s just an illusion.

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Bank On It - Thursday

‘Hey, how’s it going?’ Calls a familiar voice, as I make my way through the lunchtime shoppers to seek out another mind-numbing calorie limiting, meal deal.

Several options open up to me, as I try to place the dulcet tones. Pretend I haven’t heard and dodge past the Big Issue seller, while ignoring him too. A cursory. ‘Fine thanks, can’t stop.’ Before pressing through the throng heading for the park. Or engage briefly while glancing at watch and trying to place whom I’m talking to and if brushing them of quickly might cost me money. I turn.

It’s the crumbly-hipped banker with the charisma of a cold store. I offer a thin smile, the one graded for tradesman, office appliance engineers and those wanting sponsorship for another walk, jog, or cycle to cure cancer. He’s oblivious to an incipient brush off, but then he flogged Payment Protection Insurance to self-employed builders for years until they rumbled him.

‘Thought it was you.’ Continues the banker offering his hand. A hand I don’t want to shake if there’s no commission in it. I’m starting to feel like Howard Hughes – obviously without the money – and have to physically fight the urge to wash my hands after each contact with the public. I collect countless colds and bugs each season. The alcohol gel in the car glove box is used copiously after each appointment and come late afternoon I’m often tempted to ingest it. Just to kill the pain.

He’s grinning at me unpleasantly. I thought the bank would have made him redundant by now.  A lifer with the industry, aged mid to late forties, too long in the tooth to learn new techniques and with all the sales ability of an amoeba. I get endless CV’s from similar hopeless cases wanting to become estate agents, alongside the South African realtors who have bailed out after they realised the servants wanted their house not their goodwill. They’re virtually unemployable.

‘How’s the market?’ Probes the man, not remotely feeling my buying signals are set to stop. It’s such a cheesy question but everyone asks it. At the paper shop, the petrol station, at barbeques and those other burnt meat occasions – funerals. They don’t like me but they want my knowledge. The fact I still can’t second-guess the market after three decades is something I, and countless media “property experts”, try to keep to themselves.

I give him the standard sanitised waffle about realistic pricing, good locations and demand holding up. But I’m boring myself half way through. He doesn’t seem to notice, but then he can talk for hours about APRs AVCs and MVAs.

‘I’m thinking of buy-to-let as an investment.’ Continues the banker. ‘Still good yields if you can buy cheap and I’m not sure even my bank pension is safe.’ Terrific, if even accountant-types aren’t secure what hope for the fiscally illiterate like me? He’s going to ask, I think, as I look at my watch more pointedly than I’d do if he were a paying punter. And sure enough he does.

‘If you’ve got anything coming on cheap, under market even,’ grins the man avariciously. ‘I’d be grateful to know.’ Please don’t tap your nose, says my inner voice plaintively, but the finger goes to the septum anyway. Surely he knows I’m charged by my client to get the best possible price? But when it comes to money and your own piss-poor personal pension fund, ethics are the first casualty.

‘I’ll give you some free gratis too.’ Says the man as I start to move away, pointing at my watch now. Nothing is free mate, apart from my no-obligation valuations. ‘The Euro is a dead man walking.’ Announces the banker conspiratorially. ‘The Germans are already secretly printing the Deutsche Mark again.’ And with that he leaves before I do, wobbly gait lost amongst the Primark bag carriers.

I’m still trying to work out what to do about my holiday currency when I get back to the office, to be greeted by negotiator S saying. ‘Boss on line 2 for you.’

What can the bean counter want?

‘How’s the market doing?’

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