My summer holiday

Well it's been more than a week since school broke and I've done bugger all. I don't do the holidays well. I tend to stay indoors, cocooning until I emerge as an enormous slug. That might not be the way that slugs actually are produced, but...

I get scared because I think that I could be a person that, if left to it, would do nothing. That is a frightening thing. That I could be that person. That I am quite happy to be unproductive for weeks on end. I guess it wouldn't be such a big deal if I were productive at work. My salvation will be a few things: the Festival, starting at the beginning of August; Diana, coming to stay -- she can't know I'm a worthless dog (though if she reads this again, she'll get clued up quickly); and our holiday to France.

Yes, this is my first summer holiday with no familial obligations. It's a proper European holiday. My best friend from school's sister is now married to a German; she once said that he took his holidays very seriously. She didn't realise that wasn't an exclusively German trait -- all of Europe's like that. The whole of France will be on holiday from late July to the end of August. It doesn't get that way here, but from May to October, all the British talk about are their holidays.

Maybe it's that the whole of Europe is at our door, but British people want to go some place exotic. For Boy's Grandma, going to Berwick-upon-Tweed, a seaside resort in the very north of England, was about as exotic as it was gonna get. For his parents, it was only when Boy was in his adolescence that they even went on holidays abroad. Now it's commonplace. All the kids at my former school were going abroad -- you were considered weird if you didn't. France, Spain and Portugal are common holiday locations, but people are increasingly travelling to Greece, Egypt, and Thailand. And it's cheap as chips. In a travel agent's window, we saw a week's holiday to Cyprus, flights and room, for £250 per person!

That being said, the locations are exotic, but the resorts are anything but. People go to these resorts in these different countries expecting to eat steak pies and fish and chips or just to drink themselves into a stupor. There's no culture on these holidays, they have no redeeming value -- just a place to get a sunburn (passing it off as a suntan), a drink and a shag. Needless to say, I am not allowed to consider those types of holidays.

Anyway, about ours. We're going to France for 8 days. First three days in Corsica -- the beaches are supposed to be gorgeous and I'm trying to get myself ready for the swimsuit. Sadly, not doing well. Then two days in Chamonix -- it's in the Alps. Boy wants to take me to see a glacier (pronounced glah-see-er, not glay-shur). Then three days in Paris. I'm feeling good, especially as nearly all of it is booked.