Back to reality

Well, here I am... back in front of my laptop in the office, kids in the lounge watching That’s So Raven, and Lola at my feet crying for (another) lunch. The past few days in Tenerife might have felt like some kind of dream if I wasn’t so tired - the last three nights we got to bed at 4am, 6am and 5am respectively, and I now feel like I could go into hibernation for about a week quite happily. And I have an absolutely awful cold, and a sore throat, so today I’m going to do absolutely fuck all other than watch some football and catch up on the last week’s episodes of 24 and Battlestar Galactica! For a guy, could there be a better day than that? (Errr, yes actually, but it’s not bad as days go!)

If you’d suggested to me a while back that I’d find myself in Tenerife one warm night in October, standing in the middle of a football stadium with about 40,000 screaming Latin Americans watching Marc Anthony on stage with his wife (yes, Jennifer Lopez herself) I’d have thought you were completely insane. But what an amazing experience – and each one of those 40,000 sang every word to every song, with a passion that bordered on hysteria.

Also pretty amazing was the birthday party for Beatriz the night before, with about 20 members of her family, and friends, of who 2 could speak just a little English... although the after-party, with one or two substances of an illegal nature making a belated appearance, was also something of an experience. And everyone went out of their way to make me feel comfortable, knowing that I’d potentially be feeling a little out of place amongst them. Especially as Beatriz’ mum kept asking me what my name was, which was marginally disconcerting!

But now, it’s back to reality for me... and that means blowing this rather red nose of mine again, and then taking more washing out of the tumble dryer. I think I preferred it on the beach, frankly! Well, wouldn't you?