Post-Holiday Laments

So all that stuff I said a while ago about eating properly and losing weight, you knew that meant after my holiday, right? Because if you were to look at me now, nearly a month later, and hope to see some change for the better, you’d be sorely disappointed.

I make no apologies – there was no way I was going to spend two weeks surrounded by delicious, cheap food one can’t get here, and plentiful five-star resort buffets, only to crunch glumly on celery sticks and rye crispbread. Besides, as I realised with relief (and also a tinge of vicarious shame when I imagined what the staff must think of the rich white tourists) I was hardly the sole, nor the fattest, fatty lounging by the pool.

But the self-declared diet amnesty is not the only thing I miss about my holiday. For six months beforehand my mediocre parenting and housekeeping had me merely coping at home with three small children, daily sinking deeper in despair as the house grew dirtier and the mental list of Things My Children Will Resent Me For grew longer. Then came those fourteen days spent in the glorious tropics instead of frigid and dismal winter, when my biggest worry was fighting off over-eager porky Americans who couldn’t seem to grasp the concept of waiting their turn for hot waffles at breakfast. Even with the difficulties attendant on holidaying with children, it was such a refreshing relief for me.

Now, however, I’ve been rudely thrust back into the cold and the grey of forty degrees too far south, in a one-star house without so much as a personal chef or a maid to wean me off the luxury to which I became so easily accustomed.

If, like some girls I went to school with, you opine that going on a nice holiday makes me guilty of being a ‘rich bitch’, you may be thinking something along the lines of: Aww, jaded by all the extravagance, are we? Spoiled for normal life by an expensive trip beyond the means of many of us? Try not to drown in my river of tears, Rich Bitch! And I could see your point. Even though the holiday was years in the planning and paid for by the bequest from my mother’s mother; even though my annual childcare costs when I return to work could not only pay for the same holiday but fly us first class; even though that was probably the last time I’ll see my other grandmother – my sole remaining grandparent – alive, I see your point.

Still, after a taste of champagne it’s hard to go back to swigging goon, and I can’t help but pine for the trappings of a lifestyle I can only borrow, not keep. O where is my daily housekeeping service? Whither my breakfast spread? Where is my view of the South China Sea? Who will turn down my bed?