What I Want From My Holidays

You will remember I had a bad case of the blahs last year and didn't see the point of spending lots of money to be fed up in a foreign country when I could do it for free at home. If i'm not careful, I'll do it again this year, and I'd rather not. So what do I want from my holidays? Fantasies first, reality later.

No old people. This is getting to be a real problem. Go on sunny-places holidays in the off-season and there are eighty-year-olds in the hotels. Pushing retirement is one thing, cheating the grave is another. I know I'm no spring chicken, but, no, eighty-year olds are depressing. My work colleagues are attractive people in their twenties - I have high standards.

No bald people with tattoos from Essex at the pool bar. That cuts out every beach hotel in the world except possibly a Four Seasons.

No poor places. You may be comfortable with the thought that you are paid more in a week than the families in the mud huts round the hotel make in a decade, but I'm not. 

No days on the coach, or on the train - unless it's a sleeper or a TGV and Julie Delpy is sitting across the table from me. I spend five days a week commuting. This is a holiday. I want everything within walking distance, or a short-ish cab ride.

No long flights in cramped seats with wailing babies. Yep. That pretty much cuts out air travel.

I'd like to sleep for ten hours a day. I get about six hours a night, seven if I'm lucky, and eight leaves me feeling actually rested.

Blue skies. Sunshine. Temperatures no higher than 80F at noon and no lower than about 55F at night. Good restaurants. Things To Look At. Places To Hang Out In: cafes, beaches, gardens with swimming pools. In fantasy land, I'd like to meet someone and carry on a flirtation. Actual sex would be amazing - if I can remember what to do and why at the same time. Failing that, broadband access.

Ask me what the best holiday I had was, and I'll say it was two days in Paris, an overnight sleeper to Nice and an overnight sleeper back, followed by a TGV to Amsterdam for a weekend staying with friends. I'm not sure I really like the idea of seven days in one place, but two here and two there sounds about right. Nice-Sardinia-Paris. Milan-Basle. I don't need to get to know a place: it's not like I'm going to live there. I need it to be not-England.

What I'll tell you if I'm feeling cynical is that I'd like a week not being me. That's not quite true. I'd like a week when I don't have to amuse and busy myself all the time - gotta see the sights, visit the galleries, pretending I'm having a holiday, pretending this is a rest.

Maybe I should just go on a retreat. Four days in a monastery.