Spanish Escape

The constant upkeep of being an Indian housewife, the closing of Entropy, the return of being a glorified receptionist and the fact I was feeling a little pale all pointed in the direction that I needed a break. However I was anxious to leave Geeta - she had been such a trooper during her first three session of chemo but the fourth was taking its toll. Somehow she found the energy to tell me to get a grip and practically booted me out the door, so with her blessing I headed to the airport in search of sun, fun and large jugs of sangria.

Attempting to keep costs down I booked a flight with Ryanair. This did not keep costs down at all. I decided to check in a 20kg bag (yes I was only going for 6 nights), but my past experience with weight limits has not be successful. When packing there is always the 'definitely yes' pile, the 'definitely no' pile and the 'maybe' pile - so far I have yet to ever put anything in the 'definitely no'/ 'maybe' pile - in my head 6 pairs of shoes for 6 nights is not only acceptable but totally necessary. The worst was when I went to America and I thought I had nailed the weight limit, smashed it, crushed it, and walked over to the counter with a smug 'I don't need to move stuff into my hand luggage look' plastered on my face. In fact I was 8kg over and I had to pay £100 before I even left the county. I say I...I mean BBB.

My logic was that if I paid £50 for a 15kg I would definitely go over and thus incur more fines by paying £70 for a 20kg I was saving in the long run...I was not. But get this - my bag was 19.9kg! Winner. However I printed off the wrong boarding pass, didn't check it and had to pay £70 to reprint it.

Ryanair- 1. Billie - 0.

Clearly when I was booking this flight I was feeling like Billie Big Bucks as I clicked yes to all these crap added extras like priority boarding, assigned seating and travel insurance. Having already paid extra for a shitty piece of paper and getting absolutely no smiles from the miserable Ryanair woman I just wanted to board the flight and get my sangria on. So I  waved Kate goodbye as she joined the cattle queue and I lodged myself into priority boarding - lodged being the operative word. Ryanair are very anti-fatties.

I hadn't chosen well at all for my preassigned seat, either that or the aircraft design online was rather deceptive. Essentially I was right at the front next to the minuscule aisle, so although I was entertained judging the parade of Ryanair passengers on their choice of flight wardrobe (i still do not understand why women where heals to fly) I also got whacked (sometimes I think deliberately) by every person that walked past. To top this off...my seatbelt was broken, so I was abruptly moved from my chosen seat.  Sleep was the only remedy to my Ryanair disasters.

Ryanair 2. Billie -0.

I think now as a good time as any to mention it was a 'steal' that lead me to this holiday. Juliet is a housemate of Kate's and I stole her. Having realised we were pretty much the same person (but she a much more toned version) I was 100% committed to steal. (Gracey I hope you're enjoying my 'committed' reference) In fact I stole Grace as well - the delicate, petite, blonde, princess who after half a bottle of wine turns into a lairy chav - calling everyone 'sweetheart' with a cockney accent and a wag of her middle finger. Two of my very favourite steals.

Hitting the sangria hard on our first night the party animals that we were, we were all in bed by midnight. Juliet's villa is stunning, the views are incredible the whole place was just awesome and when I was told it was on a hillside I was lied to. It wasn't a hill it was a fuck off huge mountain - think Mount Doom.

The View from the mountain 

It being Juliet's birthday I was happy to do whatever she wanted thinking lazy day by the pool with jugs of sangria my ipod with Miley's 'We Can't Stop' on repeat and a bar of milka at the ready for fuel. How wrong I was. We were to head down to the beach (ie scale the mountainside) for some beach fun - this beach fun consisted of a 2km swim out to nice yachts and back. Ok not so bad, despite being a whale I'm a pretty decent swimmer...maybe its because I'm a whale? So minus contact lenses I didn't see the jagged rocks that lead into the sea thus I rather ungracefully fell into the water and was laughed at my all the paddling toddlers who had managed to manoever themselves with much more ease. Well done Billie. Just keep swimming. That I did until the waters started to turn and inky black colour  - at which point I knew it was the seaweed and not a whale but that didn't stop me from swimming extra fast over these bits especially when the seaweed brushed my legs and I thought it was jelly fish/piranha. So whilst the girls got their goggles on and explored the seaweed and fish I tried not have a panic attack that the seaweed (whale) was going to jump up and get me. Happy to say I was the first back to shore.

Next came the climb. Although partial to being a little dramatic, the climb back to the villa almost killed me. Imagine the travellator from Gladiators - for a 1km up one hill. Hideous. I made it to pool, the final steps to the villa were impossible, threw myself in and was utterly grateful that there was no one around to see my wheezing and streaming eyes. But hey - I did it.

After I ascended the mountain.

The rest of the holiday went as I had hoped: pool, sangria, cheesebreadmeatsalad, return to pool, cards, oreo milka, malibu, vodka, try and speak Spanish to impress a boy, fail at speaking spanish and fail at impressing boy, double vodka, blur, bed. And on top of that I managed to escape the ordeal of kayaking with children. Excellent.

The Wolfpack at its finest. 

The most magical part of the holiday, I lost 2kg. Apparently going on holiday with skinny minnies and being forced to do activities whilst eating like a horse and drinking like a fish is not only good for the soul its good on the bod. Bring on round 2. Until then I shall just bask in post-Spain glow/ gone a darker shade of black or as Boden affectionately said I looked like I had spent a week in the rice fields.

Back to reality from the rice fields. 

 Oh by the way I have my first personal trainer session tomorrow - bricking it doesn't come close. Especially when this boy looks like a god. I'm gonna Mila Kunis his ass.

Fatty BB xxx