Lets talk sunburn. Oww Mutha F*#’!!##N OUCH!
In order to save £160 on taking suitcases on our RyanAir flight to the Canary Islands, I bought us some funky, cabin -sized cases from GroupOn & we rammed a weeks worth of clothing & shoes, books and laptops into each,deciding to buy toiletries etc from the supermarket when we arrived. Simples!
Yes, our trip over was heaps easier & less hassled but the worries of lost luggage was magnified since the overhead lockers were a complete catalogue of GroupOn’s finest. Obviously, everyone else resented paying outrageous suitcase fees too. Bummer!
We arrived to cloudy skies, having brought the Welsh weather with us, so we decided to buy the sunscreen in the morning. Rookie mistake you are thinking but No, we were all still lilly white the next day. We bought a recognised brand that cost double the Euros of Spanish branded products, then trotted back to our hotel pool.
Now here is what I wish I’d known pre-flight…sun lotions from abroad are PANTS! Water-proof? Factor 50? Recommended by skin cancer specialists? My Backside! Naked, I looked like a lobster in a white bikini. By the end of our first full day in Tenerife, we were unable to hug each other without a serenade of “oww” “Ohhh” and “arghhh”
So here we were on day two in Siam Park, a beautiful aqua adventure park. Littered with beautiful women resembling Dora the Explorer’s sexy (and almost naked) older sisters. Hubby & Son did their best to have a sneaky, make sure Mum’s not looking, ogle (Fail. Lesson. Mum knows all, sees all, remembers all). My daughter managed to pull off the lobster look with the utmost glamour. Then there was me. Festering on a sun-lounger in a one-piece cossie, crispy skinned and grateful for the rain that was piddling on me, whilst my family whizzed past me on water-slides so scary that I would likely cry if I tried them.
Ok, I admit it. I started to feel a bit insecure. Ten years ago, I’d have looked just as glamorous and been just as fearless but truthfully, I sat sulking, I felt Middle Aged. Yes, I know that at 36 I’m supposed to be past all that insecurity crap, appreciate that my body has created life, accept the coming of age gracefully yatter yatter yatter. Well I am not that evolved I’m afraid. My thoughts were as shallow as the nearby toddler pool.
Deep in my sulk, gingerly slathering the Spanish branded after-sun lotion which I’d brought in the coolbox, I indulged in my ‘are my face-cheeks as wide & wobbly as my ass-cheeks’ self-defeatist mood. A bunch of British lads were acting rowdy on the river nearby, drunken banter so loud it was impossible to keep a full frump sentence coherent in my head. Basically, they were pissing me off! I looked across and could see they were making the universal gestures of ‘head between the boobies snufflling’ and I looked around for a nearby Dolly Parton on a pogo stick. Nope. It was either me or moob-man across the way.
Annoyed, I looked back and they boys grinned and blew me kisses; pity kisses I assumed. Well, they could shove em where….”Wow Mum, working the beach look, you look gorgeous” I eyed my daughter as she bounded over to me, dripping wet from some scary-assed slide. Her frazzled skin looked painful but she still somehow managed to smile without making her sun-blisters weep. The rain, drizzling onto her face, made the after-sun I was applying, drip into her eyes yet she still grinned and said “Come on Mum. It’s not as much fun without you”.