Menorca (part 1)
We were on an early flight meaning 3.30 am alarms to peel two sleeping children out of their beds and bundle them into an Uber. Ordinarily, there is nothing good about being in a twilight taxi aged 35 but this was our first trip abroad since 2017 and I was in terrific spirits. Sadly, this was quelled as we arrived at Leeds Bradford Airport to see an unfathomably long, snaking queue to security. Joining us at the back, a man in a tracksuit was livid, swearing quite a lot, then saying he was willing to pay “up to £35” to jump to the front which seemed an oddly specific limit. He eventually stormed off, presumably to find a Jet 2 employee to haggle with.
“What did he expect?” Louise said, shaking her head. “Has he not been watching the news?”
“I know, how ridiculous,” I replied.
I had not been watching the news and I was not expecting this. I had a vague flashback to Louise raising concerns the previous night and assuring her it would all be fine while trying on my new sunglasses.
The boys, still half asleep, were no problem initially, munching on snacks and watching a YouTube video of an anonymous hand pushing toy cars into a puddle for approximately the 9,000th time. However, around 5 am, Jacob sprung into life and shouted, “I want to be on the plane now!” which signalled the start of a stressful hour of squabbling, squirming, and questioning (“Why aren’t we on the plane now?”) while the threat of a full-blown tantrum in a claustrophobic setting simmered. To add to the tension, I’d noticed an old acquaintance/brief-spell-as-actual-friend-in-2003 stood in the adjacent fast-track queue. This was absolutely not the time for small talk, and relief poured through me when he opted for a very slight nod before getting his phone out. Unfortunately, the way the queue meandered meant that I just kept being stood centimetres away from him. It became unbearable.
“I’m glad he wasn’t on our flight,” I said to Louise as we finally boarded, “it will be great to have some quality time, just the four of us.”
“Yep, I can’t wait to get away from it all,” she said, looking out of the window with a smile. Suddenly, her eyes widened and her mouth opened. “Oh my god, Andy!”
Seconds later, literally one of my best mates appeared at the front of the plane with his wife and two children. This was not, as Louise suspected, an inside job, just a bizarre coincidence and our shock made way for laughter when they ended up on the row in front of us and informed us that they were, of course, staying at the same hotel.
The boys were thrilled to be on a plane for the first time, chatting to my friend’s kids, and excitedly looking out of the window, shouting. Midway through, however, enthusiasm waned, and Jacob started repeatedly telling Joshua to “Go to bed and bump your head.” Having planned for this scenario, Louise placated them by presenting them each with a “plane bag” full of toys and crayons. That is definitely not a thing, is it?
Jacob’s bag contained a small, complicated Lego rally car set and Louise instructed me to sit him on my knee and “do it together.” Obviously, within seconds he’d swept all the pieces from my fold-out table and onto an elderly man’s lap. By the time I’d apologised to the man and rummaged around under his feet for slightly too long, Jacob had lost interest and returned to sit on Louise’s lap. Unwilling to give up, I spent the next 20 minutes carefully building the rally car on my own.
“Does he always bring his Lego on the plane?” A stewardess asked Louise. “That’s sweet at his age.”
After landing at Mahon airport in glorious sunshine, the transfer went smoothly aside from a (possibly deliberate) miscommunication leading me to tip the driver 10 euros for a 15 minute ride. We arrived at the Royal Son Bou and, seeing palm trees surrounding a beautiful swimming pool, felt excited about the week ahead, albeit alarmingly tired.
Thankfully, the boys both had a long nap in the apartment. They were sleeping in a bedroom together for the first time, which was all very sweet, but left Louise and me on sofa beds in the living room. Joshua, age 4 and 3 ft 4’, had a double bed to himself while I, a 6ft 5’ adult man, was consigned to sleeping in what was effectively a drawer. I was unsure about this arrangement but didn’t comment.
After they woke up, we went for lunch and a pre-midday glass of Sangria in a local Buddhist-themed bar, before heading to the shops to stock up on supplies, which took a while. Jacob now refuses to get in a buggy and insists on walking, so our trips out are entirely dictated by a toddler who may, at any moment, sprint off in the wrong direction or sit down and refuse to move.
The boys’ eyes lit up when they saw the toy aisle and we told them we might treat them to something later in the holiday if they were good. Approximately 7 minutes later, we were leaving with a selection of racing cars, a tractor, a packet of plastic zoo animals, and a giant inflatable whale.
In the afternoon, we took the whale (it was too big) to the beach along with a four-pack of Estrella and a fold-up tent which was nauseatingly stressful to set up. The beach in the Son Bou resort is stunning – fine white sand, turquoise water – and represented a step up from our last beach trip (the artificial one by the Pancake House in Center Parcs.) Our friends joined us later, and the kids were in their element, building sandcastles, digging holes, and, in recreating a scene from The Snail and the Whale, fetched pots of water to pour on the inflatable whale for an inordinately long time. Put children on a beach and they will entertain themselves indefinitely, it seems.
It was an idyllic afternoon until the beers started to work their way down and I realized there was no toilet in sight. After weighing it up, I decided it was acceptable to go in the sea as long as I swam out a reasonable distance. That’s fine, isn’t it? I think? Just as I was about to go, however, I noticed a completely naked woman paddling in the shallows (not Louise, by the way.) Where on earth had the woman come from? Thank god, I hadn’t actually pulled my shorts down at this point. Getting arrested would have put a real dampener on our first day.
As I returned to the beach, now beyond desperate for the toilet, I passed two middle-aged men, also devoid of clothing. Why is everybody suddenly naked? I thought. Is this normal in Menorca? My personal preference is to wear at least some clothes in public but each to their own, I suppose.
Part Two is here!
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