Pauline booked this holiday not because it was a “Thomson Gold” one, we’d never heard of it before, but because it was a good last minute deal. Having said that, I was quite looking forward to a holiday in a hotel that wouldn’t have any families with screaming kids or eight or nine year olds taking over everything from the swimming pool to the pool tables. This sounded ideal when we booked but one day into the holiday and it’s becoming clear that Pauline and I are the youngest here apart from Emma and Dan.
We’re sharing the hotel with the living dead.
As we sat around the pool you could hear a pin drop. It’s so quiet. There’s just the peaceful murmur of gentle splashing punctuated by the occasional wheeze and shouts of “Call a doctor quick.” A car hooted its horn just now and three people have been carted off to the local hospital with suspected heart attacks.
There seems to be a lot of topless sunbathing going on around the swimming pool but it doesn’t quite have the same allure somehow when every woman here seems to be over sixty in age and bust measurement.
It’s cellulite city.
The only thing disturbing the peace and quiet is a Thomson rep. called Emma whose sole job is to provide the resident’s entertainment. She does this by organising events on the hour every hour and by announcing each one on the half hour every hour. She manages to annoy me every time she does this in a grating voice sounding like Hylda Baker on drugs. “See you all later by the poo-el everyone, where we’ll be playing carpet boules for the prize of a Thomson baseball cap. Oooo-er.”
More of Emmathethomsonrep later.
I swear next door’s balcony is bigger than ours.
Their balcony juts out a good two feet further from the wall than ours does.
I mentioned this to Pauline who peeped over the dividing wall and said, “It can’t be, look at the floor tiles, they have the same number as we have.”
“But how come their balcony is two feet further out?” I said, “If they really do have the same number of floor tiles, then their tiles must be twice the size of ours. Bloody hell, this doesn’t make sense. Look, they’ve got the same plastic table and two chairs that we’ve got but look at the space they’ve got around them.”
By this time I was standing on the dividing wall and all but bent double peering over at next door’s balcony arrangements.
“Maybe the rooms are staggered,” said Pauline, “maybe their room juts out further than ours in the first place.”
“Well it doesn’t seem to,” I said, “Where’s that spirit level and tape measure I packed in the hand luggage? I knew they would come in handy. We’ll soon sort this out.”
I clambered off the wall and said, “Look, our room ends here, our balcony starts here and it ends here. Their room ends here in exactly the same place, their balcony starts here in exactly the same place but their balcony ends here, two feet further out. It’s bloody bigger.”
“It can’t be,” said Pauline, “the number of floor tiles are the same. How many more times?”
“They’re bigger floor tiles,” I shouted back, “they’ve got to be. Look, hold this end of the tape measure, place the theodolite,” which I’d thoughtfully packed along with the tape measure and spirit level, “place the theodolite at that end of the balcony and I’ll recalibrate the measurements I took earlier. Right, now move all the other surveying equipment from our balcony over to theirs and I’ll do the same over there. Quick, before the occupants turn up.”
While I was over on the other balcony I decided to re-measure using a different method. This involved seeing how many tables and chairs I could fit comfortably onto the balcony and still have room to drink a beer. It already had one table and two chairs with plenty of room for more.
I hopped over onto the neighbouring balcony, picked up their table and chairs and quickly lobbed them over the dividing wall. Still room for more. On to the next balcony.
“Pauline?” I shouted, “Get on the balcony next door to this one and catch the table and chairs when I throw them over, then tip them onto the balcony next door to ours.”
That did it. Three tables and six chairs on next door’s balcony with plenty of room to drink, that’s the size of their balcony.
“Right,” I shouted to Pauline, “let me finish this fourth beer and brandy and then chuck all the tables and chairs onto our balcony. If I’m right, they won’t all fit in or if they do, I won’t have room to comfortably drink.”
I ran back, hopping over the balconies until I arrived at ours again, sat down on one of the six chairs and tried out the drinking theory. Yup, I could still comfortably drink my fifth beer and brandy with the same elbow space as next door. Bloody hell. They must be the same size balconies after all. By now, next door’s balcony was swaying a bit and there seemed to be two of them.
“Bloody bloody hell,” I said, “they’ve got two balconies and we’ve only got one now. I can’t cope with this.”
Then Pauline said, “Look, if you’d taken your measurements before that second lager and brandy you would have noticed that the rooms really are staggered. Next door’s room really does jut out a couple of feet further than ours and consequently so does the balcony.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” I slurred, “that means they have a bigger room than us……..unless……..the front of their room starts further back than ours does.”
It was 1 a.m. when Pauline left me sitting on a pile of tables and chairs muttering quietly to myself, “If the room starts there, then it must end there, but our room starts here and their room starts over there and that must mean the balcony………………………………”
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