back to life

Here I am back again.
Life as I know it.
No more crystal clear warm agean sea to splash about in with Liz & Mol.
No more Amstel beer to neck after a long slog on the beach.
No more over-sized tomatoes that ooze Mediterranean-delights.
No more factor 50.
No more hot nights listening to mosquitoes honing in on my legs for their supper.
No more hunts for the goggles - the biggest stress of the day.
No more skies as high as can be filled with stars that twinkle in such a cliched way its almost not real.
No more skies filled with bright azure blue and bright blazing sun.
No more no-skimmed-milk.
No more hot tip-toed-runs across slippery sand.
No more wondering whether to have coffee or 7-up or beer for 11-enz-ees.
How do holidays go by so incredibly quickly?
You book the flights and before you can blink its like a dream and already you're back at home doing the washing hanging up the washing ferrying grumpy kids around rummaging in the freezer for fishfingers again listening to the sirens blaring up and down Green Lanes endlessly buying skimmed milk because its there in the Tesco cold-box under bright lights all sterile and impersonal.
The photos come back and I think to myself was I really there? I can just about smell the sea and feel the texture of the white bread in my mouth and the warm tiles of the veranda under my toes, but it doesn't feel real any more. Did Liz really swim with no arm-bands? Did Mol really spend 4hours a day laughing and splashing in the sea as though the sea was her home not the land? Did Husband really not have a single conversation with work for a whole 8 days? Could it really have been possible.
Apparently so.
The problem with really brilliant holidays is that you have to come home. And however lovely it is to come back to your own bed and sleep really well again, the grime of the streets, the constant having-to-do-things, the computers, the work, the phones - all the clutter comes back so quickly - and that is the bad thing about brilliant holidays. There is no clutter on holiday. You need only fret about which beach you're walking to and which bikini to wear.
Right now all I can think of is Shirley Valentine.