Abroad

Only in France can you order a salad and be presented, avec the necessary flourish, with a plate of sliced iceberg devoid of dressing. My A-level French temporarily deserting me, I gestured wildly to be surlily handed ready-ground pepper and salt. In a huff, I waltzed up to another’s table and grabbed the oil and vinegar, making a red faced scene.

The crowds were piling into the exclusive old town resort of Porte Vecchio. With the kids getting cranky after a long day on the beach, we had flung ourselves down a flight of stairs into a sparsely decorated restaurant with a view, having hastily vacated the last – the only spare table edging out onto the cobbled streets, crawling with ants.

In this heaving, well-heeled tourist magnet, restaurants can afford to offer diners a Hobson’s choice between crappy frites and limp lettuce. They will keep coming nonetheless, tottering in heels and weighed down by gold bracelets and whipped hairdos.

I left the restaurant hot and embarrassed, with salt tousled hair, in my slightly tight shorts and blouse which looked nice in Topshop, but here, on the Corsican riviera, just felt frumpy. I’d split the zip on the dress I’d worn on my wedding eve, when I tried to pull it on, sweaty and hunched in the car. On the verge of tears, I was accompanied out into the heaving, neon lit streets by an uncharacteristically concerned Jonah, who had wrapped his arms around me when he saw my face begin to wobble – he who had been given the choice between my breaded veal and Tom’s calamari to avoid yet another steak hache – and to cut the cost of another night eating out. As it was, he’d eaten practically nothing, yet, sensing the approaching storm of my mood, hadn’t complained one jot. Tired and annoyed with myself for sabotaging yet another childhood memory, I treated les deux petits to yet another ice cream before we piled back in the cheap Japanese hire car and drove the dark coastal road back to our apartment on the cheaper side of the island. Luckily for Tom, we all slept, drool accumulating on lolling cheeks as it approached midnight.

But my anger had longer tendrils than simply an evening gone askew. We’d traveled to the beautiful beach of San Ciprianu on a single carriage road, halted an hour and a half beyond the promised journey time by caravans, slow pokes and through-village traffic. Tempers were frayed when we arrived, only day two into a much needed two weeks away, the first in several years.

Only just unwinding after the stress of travelling with kids and orientating ourselves in our apartment near the beach at Moriani Plage, finding our way along the strip where the restaurants and ice cream parlours line up on the sea front, a cloudy day threatened so we took the plunge, and headed an hour up the coast, Tom said, to a beach he’d gone to on his honeymoon – but not with me.

We arrived, hot and bothered, Ava was sick after half and hours’ griping, though luckily most of it flew out of the window. Jonah threatened to throw one too, as yet another tailback added chunks of time to our increasing sticky journey, but stopped once he recognised the warning signs that I too, was about to blow.

It felt pretty churlish, arriving to white sands and turquoise seas in such a hot grump, and so, determined to swing things around, I plonked myself on a palm shaded matalo, argued with the harassed looking chap taking orders from the busy bar and restaurant, ordering a bottle of rose, and cokes for the kids.

I de-stressed as the kids and Tom took to the crystal waters, armardered by yachts and speedboats, interspersing the wine with fizzy water. It was a much smarter resort to the one in which we are staying here. Our sand is grey, and women don’t wear jewelry to the beach. Here, on the white sands, babies are rocked and joggled by shaded Asian nannies while barrel stomached, berry-brown playboys and their skinny post-partum wives entertained the rest of their brood inbetween lolling, expensively, on loungers. The presence of children here is a status symbol, and my two – pale limbed, gawky, cola m-fuelled and shrieking – did not pass muster. I fell firmly asleep, dreaming of how to make enough money so that two weeks in the sun felt like a right and not a barely affordable privilege.

I am spoiled by my upbringing, and the erosion in my lifestyle is something I feel keenly. It’s not the fact that I went anywhere particularly flashy as a child or teenager – two weeks in the Algarve more often than not – although my dad loved his posh hotels as his business began to grow, they were never particularly my cup of tea. It’s just than, back in the eighties, everything seemed a little bigger, better and brighter. 

In those days, we flew Caledonian, and I marveled at the doll-pretty hostesses, not a hair of place, neat as a pin in their kilts and hats, serving a three course meal as we traversed the Med. These days, glazed by overwork and timezone dislocation, I guess it’s progress that staff no longer have to pass an arbitrary attractiveness appraisal to get a job in air hospitality. Yet the garish efficiency of Sleazyjet’s  supafast turnaround meant I had to wipe clean sticky table trays before the kids could eat their Pret sandwiches, the overblown threat of Ebola lurking in the back of my mind. I’ve learnt not to wash my hands after using the loo (handheld is fine!) because the water tanks are so filled with gunge it’s probably more dangerous than abluting in toilet water.

The erosion of standards is tangible in more than just air travel. In the 90s, when I was effortlessly thin, bikinis had clasps so that lying on one’s stomach meant an easy twiddle so one’s once perfect bosom didn’t get exposed as one tried to avoid tan lines. These days, despite spending a necessary fortune on a Karen Milan job with underwiring and “fuller legline”, a cheap plastic hook means I have to wriggle and fiddle, post breastfeeding dugs akimbo. Not that I care that much about the new length of my breasts when my stomach has cellulite despite the yoga and routine carb avoidance. There’s an inevitable downward trajectory in all things. Perhaps it’s just my age.

Where once my holidays were accompanied by the evocative waft of Ambre Solaire and Silk Cuts, (Mum’s, I may hasten to add, not my own) now, I make do with the cloying sweetness of Asda Protect and the haze from menthol e-cig. Perhaps some things do change for the better. But where once our apartments had marble floors and maid service, now, they have plastic wood and blankets that billow dust when you shake them. I spent mornings one and two removing sand from the previous occupants so we might scatter the floors with our own. The twitch in my left eye took three whole days to ticker to a stop.

Perhaps it’s the difference between France and Portugal, but the past is also a foreign country and the one we live in now is shrinking and dividing as the population reaches its zenith. 

It’s not that I’m complaining. I know how lucky we are to get two weeks in the sun at all. But despite spending a higher proportion of my salary getting here than the twice yearly trips afforded by my divorced parents, things just aren’t what they were. The resorts of the eighties and even the nineties are, like me, beginning to show signs of wear and tear. Newer ones are cramped and Ikea furnished; more people crammed in smaller spaces; the pool cloudy and full and shallow enough to stand in.

I miss the deep waters of my youth, where time stood still and the stars were bright and humbling. The tiny tranche of time where ordinary people could enjoy the life of Riley is eclipsing too. I often wonder what will pass for a holiday for my children’s children, and whether they too will feel disappointed that they can’t do for their children what we are able to do for ours.