The three of us were being brats. Annie, Ashwin and myself headed to breakfast positively distraught from leaving the villa but my disposition was very much cheered up by the thought of breakfast. It isn't just your regular buffet breakfast at Jumeirah no, no no. The pastry counter rivals Harrods' entire bakery department and they also have a 4 tier chocolate fountain. I managed to resist - even for me, chocolate fountain is a little too much in the morning. There is Indian breakfast, Arabic breakfast, Malaysian breakfast, dim sum, chefs making you any and every kind of omelette that you like. 50 different types of cereal, 8 different types of juice and of course...full english. Every white person at the hotel, of course myself included head straight to the devil's corner - 'the pork station' to make up their full English. I'm hoping this needs no explanation since Dubai is a Muslim state...but if you're lost, be ashamed and google it. This is what I said to Ashwin when he didn't understand why the sausages and bacon were away from everything else. Lost cause.
I won't indulge what I ate for breakfast...let's just say I sampled many different cuisines including hash browns. Sorry. (IT'S MY HOLIDAY AND YES I'M USING SHOUTY CAPITALS.)
I felt much better after breakfast, all was rightly restored in the world as I was nice and full. But anguish and heartache was not far behind my new found happiness. Geeta and BBB were no where to be seen at breakfast we presumed they had already gone to the pool. They hadn't gone to the pool, they had been extra sneaky and gone to the exclusive breakfast which was available to villa members (sob we weren't villa members anymore.) 'Why didn't you come to breakfast with us - the muffins were amazing.' Kill me, kill me now. I despair. No one bloody told us - that's why. Not impressed, everyone likes a blueberry muffin in the morning. After a long scalding look, I got over it as today I had a whole day of sunbathing - nothing but uninterrupted tanning.
Trotting off to the pool, I scored a sun bed in direct 42 degree heat, no shade in site and right next to the pool. I managed about 4 minutes of the heat before I had to throw myself in the pool - about 2 hours later I had cooled down, and lost a contact lens...great start. But another dark cloud was looming, not a 'we will tempt you with this villa and then take it away from you' cloud or 'we just had the world's best muffins cloud', much, much worse. I was coming to the end of the 50 shades trilogy...WHAT THE HELL WAS I GOING TO DO NEXT?!
By lunch time I had finished '50 Shades Freed'. I had read all three books in the space of 6 days. I am embarrassed and ashamed that I read them quicker than I read Harry Potter. With no more villa and no more Christian Grey life was surely not worth living. (Some people say I'm a drama queen, I think I'm a realist.) But luckily my ailment was quite quickly cured by making some pool friends. I love to be one of those people on holidays that makes friends, since I am a social butterfly (or at least I am in my own head, it seems natural). I am constantly mocked for this by my family though, just because of this one time. (I probably shouldn't divulge but since I lost all dignity in the first post what else do I have to lose?)
I was about 7 and we were on a family holiday in Portugal with some family friends and of course I had made a friend...but my new friend just happened to be the waitress at the local indian restaurant, which of course BBB made us frequent on a daily basis. She was my friend because she brought me over extra ice-cream the first time we went there; she did this because I was the cutest chubbiest kid ever. See I have been doomed to be fat by all the people I have ever met. She proceeded to always give me extra food (god knows I didn't need it) and so I boldly proclaimed to my entire family and friends that she was my best friend forever. I even had a photo of me and her that sat proudly in my room for about 4 years...I don't even remember her name anymore. This time however food was not the binding force of the friendship, it was good old 50 Shades. If you haven't read it, read it. Trust me it doesn't take long (depending on how many cold showers you need). Suitably cheered up because I could now talk out loud about my love for CG, I decided to put 50 Shades to rest and started another book, 'Jemima J'. The plot was a harrowing mirror of my own life.
Here is the plot synopsis: "Jemima Jones is overweight. About seven stone overweight.
Treated like a slave by her thin and bitchy flatmates, lorded over at the Kilburn Herald by the beautiful Geraldine (less talented, better paid), her only consolation is food. That and a passion for her charming, sexy colleague Ben. Her life needs to change and soon.
But can Jemima reinvent herself? And should she?"
I need to stop going off in tangets, sorry. Back to Doobs. The rest of the holiday went as any Bhatia occassion would. There were arguments, there were awkward silences over breakfast as we are a family of stubborn hot headed people, there was BBB getting inappropriately drunk on the way home - sat by himself three rows away from everyone else, there was Ashwin spending the entire holiday in his room watching 'Keeping Up with the Kardashian' and sauntering around in his dressing gown pretending he was Scott Disick and then was me moping in the pool, that no one would come and play catch with me so I could pretend I was Free Willy crashing the barrier as I lept up and splashed back into the water. Suitably sunned up to the point where I was referred to as turning that 'dirty dark colour' I packed up my shit and headed home. Laters Dubai. And DEFINITELY laters family holiday.
Real world beckons, tan on and personal trainer sessions booked....I'm ready to be a grown up.
Fatty BB xxx
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