It's an odd thing, but the husband I were remarking yesterday on how we're nearing H.S.P. ("Holiday Saturation Point").
Here we are, on a desert island, eating delicious food, snorkelling, swimming in crystal blue waters, sipping fresh lemon juice by day and icy cold Bintang Beer by night...and yet we find cause for dissatisfaction. How can this be?
Well the husband I know is anxious to get back to his fairly regimented daily writing schedule (novels don't write themselves or so I'm told), and equally so, I am pining for the chance to get back into the recording studio in Bali and continue working on my music. But, it also must be said, we are desperately missing our pembantu, Kadek.
If nothing else she is an extra pair of eyes. And we are in desperate need of those these days. Throw a couple of laptops, a few riveting reads and a general sense of self-preoccupation into the equation, and it's understandable how keeping an eye on the monsters isn't as easy and automatic a task as one might think.
For one thing, the little pony carts - the only wheeled transport aside from bicycles allowed here on the island - can come shockingly fast around corners. More than once the monsters have been caught unawares and have had to be jerked frantically out of the way at the last minute. The husband remarked how ironic it would be if after all these months of travelling and precarious traffic conditions we've encountered since we left the UK - one of the monsters were to be the victim of a road accident on a traffic-less island.
Speaking of which, Egg was nearly complicit in an accident yesterday as he took off running alongside a pony cart (as he is want to do...'catching rides' alongside buses, cars, motorbikes and even oblivious joggers, is one of his favourite pastimes) and scared the pony so much such that the cart driver lost control and very nearly went ploughing into an oblivious and loved-up couple holding hands on the other side of the road. Oops.
Yesterday was a big day for Egg. He tried snorkelling for the first time. I tried 'chilling out and reading with a bored Dumpie' by my side. Didn't work so well. So I gave him my ipod to watch a movie on. That amused for about ten minutes. So knowing his love of photography, I reluctantly put my camera into his eagerly outstretched hands in the hopes of buying myself a few minutes reading time. Result.
This was great for awhile, until Dumps got bored taking pictures of sand and started going all Page Three photographer on me, suggesting I pose lacivously with my hat ("Kiss your hat like dis Mama and I take picture okay?")
His next request drew a startled glance from the table beside.
"Now Mama, lift your shirt up so I can take a picture of your tummy."
Embarrassed, I casually acquiesed, glancing around self-consciously and hoping that would be the end of it.
It wasn't. Clearly he was gathering steam.
"Okay Mama now I want you take off your whole shirt now for a picture" he requested, standing above me, the Fuji Finepix held up to his little squinty eye in preparation.
I grabbed the camera.
"No Dumps. That's enough. Now let's get you a lemon juice okay?" I tried, hoping to redirect his attention elsewhere. By now, the chain-smoking blond beside us was taking no pains to hide her amusement and I tried valiantly to wrestle parental control back from my three year old.
He was having none of it. We began a furious game of tug-of-war with the camera. With an audience now.
"But I want to take picture of your nipples!" Dumpie cried as I finally wrestled it from his clutching grasp.
Just then the husband and Egg walked up, Egg blabbing excitedly about the millions of fish he'd seen underwater.
"That's nothing" I told the husband. "You just inadvertently saved me from accidentally taking part in a soft porn shoot."
"What?" the husband asked, wrinkling up his face in incomprehension.
"Never mind" I said, taking off with the snorkelling gear, leaving a confused husband, exhuberant Egg and pouting Dumps in my wake.
Holidays Schmalidays...
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