Holiday Snapshots

Little Harry is sitting facing us in his jet black pushchair in the hot Menorca sun. He is wearing a blue and green dinosaur robe with the hood up. The jade green stegosaurus's uniformly Dorito-shaped cotton plates match his large inquisitive eyes. His mum is attempting to feed him, but Harry doesn't look convinced.

'It tastes awful; I don't know how he eats it', says his mum.

Harry is not remotely interested in me, but is very taken with my friend who is in the middle of completing a crossword puzzle. He is fascinated by what she is doing and whenever she looks up and smiles at him he gives a big toothless grin in return. Each time this happens the dastardly food substance is shoved unceremoniously into his mouth.  Eventually, a big green dummy replaces the plastic spoon filled with mush. Harry smiles contentedly.

A group of eighteen guests, all English, sign up for darts by the pool. Following their confirmed interest, but just before the competition begins in earnest, they are told by the cheeky Spanish hotel rep (who sounds remarkably to my ears like Jim Broadbent's translator character in the original Blackadder series) they will be thrown in the pool if they don't score in the first round. Various rumbles of discontent mixed with bravado can be heard from the assembled guests. Some of the contenders look nervous, but despite one woman missing the dart board completely, no one goes in the pool as she pleads her case successfully.

Lucy has to be coaxed and applauded to move reluctantly from her sunbed to join in the game she had previously signed up for.  Mark really wants to do well.  You can see he has played before from the way he triple checks the old and badly weighted darts before sending them as expertly as he can into the board.

John looks quite cocky but less so when his girlfriend gets thirty one more points than him.  No one seems more surprised than her at the outcome. Young Dan looks embarrassed but earnest as he steps up to the flip flop, which is the stand in ocky, to play.

In the second round they have to hold and throw all three darts at the same time while shouting out 'love generation'. No one knows why this needs to be shouted out, least of all the chap who is organising the event. If the contenders don't shout it out they get zero as Jenny will find out to her cost.  She seems in a bit of a strop but rallies a bit as the game continues, applauding dutifully for a score of seven or sixty when ordered to. 'Applause, applause' is the cry from the organiser.

Ben, a young lad of no more then ten, grabs all three darts with a distinct zeal and flings them with all his might at the dartboard. One of them misses its target by a wide margin; by a much narrower margin it also misses the man intently strimming the lawn.  Ben raises his arms in triumph and shakes them as if miming a strongman at work.  His score of thirteen appears superfluous to him compared to his joy at throwing tiny metal spears at numbered and coloured segments.

Lucy ultimately places second and accepts her pink frothy unidentified drink with a yellow and green straw in it from the bar with humility and good grace. 'You did so much better than your lover' announces the compere.  Looks are exchanged between the couple.  The rest of the contenders avert their eyes, trying in vain to pretend the comment has never been uttered even though it has. The couple will spend the remainder of the afternoon together but barely communicating, legs dangling in the pool, faces turned to examine opposing parts of the resort. Only the all inclusive Sangria provided in the bar later will thaw the ice floe that divides them.

Mark wins by a landslide and he hands his drink over to his proud girlfriend who has been perched delicately on a sunbed throughout the contest on the periphery of the game.  The competitors head back to the bar first and then their sunbeds. All, that is, apart from one. The lady who had nearly been thrown into the incredibly cold outdoor swimming pool, but who had successfully managed to wrangle her release from this predicament, slides slowly but determinedly into the water, giggling to herself as the cool water covers her pink swimsuit and red and white skin.