one week to go

One more week.
If all goes to plan, my derriere will be planted firmly on the lapping shores of the French Mediterranean.

I haven't craved - clawed my way towards - a holiday like this in a while. Usually my holidays involve some sort of work.
1) Find a very inaccessible, difficult place where I haven't been before
2) Organise the inevitable visa I'll need
3) Go there, and once on the ground, explore the crap out of it
4) Go home

There's no real element of relaxation when you're trying to explore, say, the Ukraine.

Well this time, I'm going to have a holiday like everyone else. Mainly because I fucking need it, but also because I 'm going somewhere I've been before.
This weekend, I'm going shopping with She Who Also Loves Tweed and will buy myself a new bikini in which to endow my white bottocks. The Brit and I are going to the south of France to play. Only for four days, so I intend to make the most of it.

The Brit has booked us a hire car, mainly because I reminded him about the [hashtag amazeballs] announcement jingle the trains use there, and this catapulted his decision to hire an Audi [he wants to be James Bond. Fair enough] in which to cruise the winding roads.

It's amazing how your problems shift when you're on holiday. I am neurotic by nature (no, you don't think?), and always have to have something to worry about, so this is generally how the shift unfolds:

Not on holiday
I need to check my mail. I've been out of the office for half an hour. All hell could be breaking loose.

On holiday
Wine glass empty? Garçon? Waiter's totally dropped the ball.

Not on holiday
Missed my train. Going to be late to meeting with MD.


On holiday
Crisis. My strapping thighs appear to be exploding out of my bikini; whiteness of thighs also blinding people lying next to us.


Not on holiday
Drain is blocked, causing massive churn of indescribable detritus to vomit itself up through the sink.

On holiday
Surely not. Not more tiger prawns drizzled with butter and lemon. 

Not on holiday
If one more assfuck stops at the top of the escalator to look around before proceeding forward, causing a massive game of human Dominoes, I am going to pull their hair. Off their head.

On holiday
What an annoying state of affairs. I forgot how greasy suncream is.

Not on holiday
Journalist calling my phone wanting answers, which I don't currently have.

On holiday
I have a blinding hangover from all those pretty pink cocktails I drank last night, and now need to lie down on this reclining chair in the sun, next to a glistening pool, to rest my weary head.
  
Not on holiday
I have a hangover. Have to sit in front of screen and be nice to reporters on the phone. Kill me, anyway way you like. Just make sure I'm dead. 

On holiday
Hair is frizzy from humid, beach-swept weather. How bothersome.

Not on holiday
Hair is falling out.*

*True story. Not clumps, thankfully, just a series of very bulky strands. It's been a stressful few weeks.

Can't wait to shop for holiday attire this weekend.