Today, in light of the appalling weather I have decided to continue my holiday horror stories. I will start with a trip to the Greek island of Lemnos, which was the first holiday that the girls and I took alone. We had opted for a Mark Warner holiday, which is a bit like Butlins with botox. I thought it would give me a break and I hoped my daughters would get to experience the beauty of the Greek islands. But the island wasn’t remotely beautiful, it was barren and bleak, with a large military base and lots of dry, brown scrubland – oh, and some goats.

It was a fairly uneventful holiday; I sailed a bit, swam a bit, and got a saltwater enema courtesy of the waterskiing instructor. The girls had a whale of a time, and made full use of the excellent activities provided by the kindly blue-shirted staff. I tried my hardest not to look too out of place amongst the plethora of upwardly mobile families, but in the end I had to admit defeat and brazen it out as the only single woman there. One couple were kind enough to befriend me; they ran a well-known accident claim company. The wife appeared on their television commercials, although I failed to recognise her on the occasion of our first meeting because I was concentrating on trying not to trip over with a bucket of hot tar...

I can’t say any more about the holiday than that. The beds were hard; the sea was wet and the sun shone. End of story.

The next year my in-laws agreed to accompany me to Crete. It was an experience that made me determined never to travel with Thomson holidays ever again. The hotel was expensive, but made even more so for the single parent. (Here’s a tip if you are travelling with children; book one of your children as an adult and you will save a fortune in single-supplements.) The sea looked so inviting when we arrived, but we soon discovered that the reason there were five pools in the hotel grounds was because the beach was too dangerous to swim off. There was a very strong swell most days and a nasty undercurrent. Coupled with that, the shoreline appeared to be constructed from uneven concrete, which made the prospect of falling over less than desirable. I felt terribly guilty as I had been the one who had chosen the hotel, but I do think that Thomson holidays should have mentioned the dangerous beach in their glossy brochure – in fact I’d like to write the entry now: ‘Rethymna Beach Hotel – lovely pools, occasional aggressive English lounger-grabbing yob, good food, nice rooms overlooking the dustbins, lethal beach with dangerous swell and deadly undercurrent that will pull the feet from under your children. And lastly, helpful reps who insist on using the term ‘miself’ in every sentence; for example: ‘If you have a problem, come and see myself, and either miself or Darren will try to help yiselves to sort it out. And to finish our welcome meeting Darren and miself would just like to add that you can get maps, guidebooks, postcards and a bad case of Chlamydia from either miself or Darren which will be a lovely reminder of your holiday.’

After a week at the Dangerous Beach hotel, the rest of my party returned to England and my girls and I were left alone. We did manage to strike up an acquaintance with a lovely couple from Devon, and that at least made the second week more bearable. I think the highlight of our stay had to be the night I awoke with a two-inch cockroach crawling across my naked stomach. I managed not to scream, captured the creature and put it under a glass in the bathroom. The next morning I put it in an envelope and took it to reception. When I showed it to the receptionist, he just shrugged and said, ‘It’s nature.’ And that was it. No apology, no free meal, nothing. I didn’t get cross, which I should have done, but neither did I tell the hotel staff that it was by far the most exciting thing that had happened to me in bed for many a long year.

I know I like to bang on about it, but holidays are hard when you’re sad and single. I think we can all learn a lesson from my good friend Sarah. She’s just about to go on holiday for the second year running with a couple of delightful gay men. Gay men are funny and kind and unthreatening. They are the perfect holiday companions for any widow, and so my advice to anybody that’s thinking of booking a late holiday is try to choose companions who like to go Greek…

I will finish this entry by explaining my reasons for telling you about my holidays. Money and material possessions are unimportant to me and I don’t write these holiday journals to try to impress anybody. I do so with the sole intention of letting you use my experiences to help you avoid a disastrous trip abroad. I am aware that I do write about travelling to some breathtakingly beautiful places – and Lemnos…. but the plain fact of it is that I can only afford to take nice holidays because my husband died. It’s one of the perverse benefits of my widowhood, I get to go to nice places by myself; I get to watch married couples having a nice time together; I get reminded for two solid weeks just how lonely I am. I’d happily spend the rest of my life holidaying in a leaky caravan in Ryhl if I could have Charlie back for a single hour. So, if anybody is jealous of me for being able to go to a ranch, please, go ahead, take my holiday in Colorado, and I’ll have my husband back.


© Kate Boydell 2004. All rights reserved. e-mail: [email protected]. Close window.