Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Top Ten Reasons Why My Holiday Sucked

Why is that when a friend or colleague returns from a couple of weeks' vacation (holiday for Britspeak readers), they are always obliged to report on their trip in the most glowing terms?

Fabulous mate. Best holiday I ever had. Superb weather for two weeks. Great food. Met lots of interesting people. Fantastic scenery. You really have to go there.

Is it because nobody ever wants to admit that they just blew five grand on a totally miserable experience? Or is it some subtle kind of one-upmanship to prove one's superior ability to discover the world's best vacation spots?

In any case, having announced my trip in advance, I feel obliged to report to regular readers on my return to Minorca Sailing for the first time in almost a quarter of a century. And if I were to observe the above-mentioned convention I would have to tell you that the weather was absolutely perfect for sailing; the instructors were competent, flexible and friendly; the bay and the village were almost unchanged in 25 years and were as peaceful and scenic as ever; the range of boats available was amazing; and that Tillerwoman and I had one of the best vacations ever.

But why should I stick to that boring convention? Hell this is my blog and I can write it any way I want. So here are...

The Top Ten Reasons Why My Two Weeks in Menorca Totally Sucked

1. One day it rained a bit while we were sailing. It was blowing 25 knots so we were all soaked through anyway but, hey, how dare god make it rain on my holiday?

2. Another day it rained a bit just as Tillerwoman and I were going into a restaurant for lunch. It stopped before we finished lunch. Ditto on the god comment.

3. Once I was just leaving the beach with a Laser when the pin attaching the vang to the mast came out. It took me all of two minutes to fix it.

4. Another time I death rolled a Laser. Must have been Minorca Sailing's fault of course.

5. At one restaurant I ordered sea bass with fennel for dinner but the waiter said it was off so I had to have sea bass with basil. Well yes it was excellent, but there's fennel growing wild all over the damn island so how can the fennel be off?

6. Another day at another restaurant I order the red mullet with black risotto and Menorcan cheese but the mullet was off and I had to have turbot. That's two times in fourteen days that the menu was wrong. How incredibly unprofessional.

7. One night there was a mosquito in our room.

8. Tillerwoman got up at 2:30 in the morning and started jumping up and down and waving a towel around to try and kill the mosquito. Tillerwoman was more annoying than the mosquito.

9. Ummm.

10. Errr.

All right I admit it. It really was a great vacation. Dinghy sailing heaven. But keep it quiet. Just between us OK? Don't want everyone to find out about our secret.

To be continued...

14 comments:

EVK4 said...

i had that mosquito thing happen in Greece once. Middle of the summer, horrendous heat, we had to hermetically seal our room, go on a mosquito safari and slaughter the whole tribe of them, then keep the room sealed while we sweated off the vacation pounds.

Santorini sucks also.

EVK4 said...

oh, welcome back. Start posting again.

Pat said...

Well, I guess it was okay as long as you didn't have to pay extra for the turbot. Then you would have been premium turbot-charged.

Tillerman said...

Pat - I did get a free upgrade of my rental car to a Saab 9-3 Turbo when we were in the UK after the Menorca trip.

Adam - I don't think a turbot has a cloaca so it can't be a marsupial. Do you know it is left-eyed?

Tillerman said...

Skip - thanks for your sympathy. It means a lot to know that a fellow sailor appreciates the depths of my misery.

Anonymous said...

I always think it's a little embarrassing to say you had a crummy time on vacation. Not that I lie about my vacations or anything...

Tillerman said...

Rhea - I think people lie about their vacations all the time. Just like I was doing in this post.

Well actually I suppose nothing I wrote is literally a lie. It's just a different spin from how most folk describe their vacations.

Of course this comment could be all lies. You never know on the internet.

Pat said...

Yep, I guessed it; T-man had a turbot-charged trip even when things weren't a little fishy. Aw, the horror, the suffering he endured. Next time he should bring some of us along to share in the misery.

Robbed said...

hello, Robin from Singapore here. I chanced upon your blog while searching for hiking information. Must say I enjoyed reading your blog! Keep posting!

Tillerman said...

Pat says I should bring some of you along next time I go to Minorca Sailing. I have to confess that it did cross my mind while I was there that it would be a superb spot for a sailing bloggers reunion. Who's up for that?

Robin - I get a lot of visitors here who are looking for hiking information. Not to mention other folk who want to find out how to remove their nipple rings. Ain't Google grand?

Anonymous said...

You know you're risking death, humilation and worse by making comments like saying Tillerwoman was more annoying than the mosquito... :D

Katinka said...

(LOL! I'll say...are you sleeping on the couch these days? ;)

Seriously though, if you keep posting on how awful this sailing and travelling thing is I'm going to become tempted to take up this sport...mossies aside, of course!

Tillerman said...

Dan - I have a certain freedom to post anuthing I want to say about Tillerwoman here because she is a technophobe, never touches a computer, and never looks at the Internet (unless she needs me to download a cooking recipe for her). However we have two sons who can be relied on to rat on me if I write anything really bad.

Katinka - I am currently on a couch but I am not asleep as I am writing this. I should be sailing my Laser in the frostbite series in Connecticut today (where it is currently raining according to Accuweather - ha ha) but we are visiting Cutest Granddaughter in the World this weekend as it is a month since our last granddaughter fix.

Zen said...

The T-man is back

Bloody mosquito!!

Long live the king!

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