IT'S summer madness time again. It's that time of the year when the workers are released from the shackles of their employment and are given those few vitally important holiday weeks to do as they please. This means that you have to get away, far away, anywhere ...
It's like a mass jail break. Under no circumstances can you stay at home. These valuable "free" weeks have to be utilised. You could be dead next year: you might never get another holiday. All your neighbours are thinking along the same lines. When they ask where you are going, you better - for your own self-respect - have your answer ready. You don't want to drop in the esteem of your wife, family, neighbours, friends, club, church, do you? I mean, you can't simply say you are not going anywhere. You can't solemnly declare that you are going to cut the grass or read a few books. You have to get up off your butt and join the great rush, the mass evacuation, the exodus from suburbia.
Why not jump on a plane with the happy family in tow? Spend two or three frustrating hours in the airport waiting for the plane to take off. I seem to spend my life hanging around airports, listening to all types of unbelievable excuses why we can't depart on time.
Get into the plane, relieved, strap on your safety belt and immediately you have somebody's bony elbow stuck in your ribs. Somebody's knee is already stuck firmly in your back. Then the little tray with the tasteless food comes around and you try to smash open the damn plastic containers. Dynamite is out of the question. We are up too high. Whoever packs these meals should be in security work. I invariably squirt the milk all over my neighbour, which makes the rest of the trip decidedly frosty. I bury my face in a book and my wife puts on her long-suffering look. I pretend I don't notice.
Even if you are not going away on holidays, sunny weekends have to be active weekends. Sun makes people light-headed and do crazy things. Have you ever noticed how we all seem to lose the run of ourselves once we see a bit of sun?
We jump up and burst into instant action. We explode into a frenzy of hyper-activity, throw down the paper, get out of the armchair. Everyone is doing it, rushing into the great out-doors. Just remember, the sun might go in any minute; clouds might appear. Quick, quick, quick: catch it before it disappears. We have to make the best of it: if we don't avail of this weather, God knows when we will see another bit of sun. It is imperative that everyone does something. Like what? Like go out and get stuck in the traffic jam to the beach?
How often have I spent balmy summer days in three-mile-long tail-backs, oil fumes wafting into the car, the sounds of some match in Croke Park blaring into my eardrums from adjoining cars? Perspiring, angry, dehydrated kids in the back trying to kill each other. And asking that stupid question: "How long more, Daddy?
And this is enjoyment? This is happy, happy summer time? And you know only too well that it will be even worse coming back. In fact, you know that by the time you arrive at the beach it will be ti me to come back. But you musn't let your frustration spread to the family. You must remain jolly, jolly. Aren't we having a lovely time, folks? Isn't the summer wonderful?
Isn't it great being out and about. The motor industry says there has been a boom in car sales in the past two years. Good for the motor industry. The problem now is we are running out of roads to fit all these shiny chariots.
If you don't get high blood pressure or a heart attack in the drive to the beach, you are warned that you will get skin cancer if you lie out too long in the sun. So you spend the first hour on the beach sloshing suntan cream over each other in the hope that it will be the other family that will get the cancer, not your lot. And what good is a tan going to do for you anyway? First shower of rain and a bit of cold weather and it's gone. You get very warm sitting on the beach, but you can't go for a swim - that would wash away the expensive suntan lotion. You have to wait until the last moment before cooling off in water. Yes, beaches can be hell on earth. Getting a tan is bloody hard work.
So the best thing to do is to stroll over to the pub for a few pints? No, that's not a good idea either. Everybody else will have the same idea. It will be packed to the rafters; you will be crushed to bits. You will also have to put up with the second-rate singers, singing third-rate ballads, badly.
BEACHES, in my view, are danger areas. I once spent Easter Sunday on the beach in Puerto-Rico in Gran Canaria and it was an experience I will never forget. I must explain that I don't believe in sitting around the pool in the apartments or hotel's complex, as I like to get out into the sea and do a bit of real swimming in salt water. I'm not a fan of hot fresh water, mixed with God knows what, or being dived-bombed by a 10-year-old exorcet. Therefore, whenever I go to the Continent, I get down to the beach, pronto. The bigger the waves, the better.
Well, that Easter Sunday was a horror story. In Ireland we have this civilised understanding that everyone is given a detached space on the beach. In other words you are prepared to leave a few feet between your head and the next person's backside. In Spain - or the Canaries, to be more precise - it is perfectly all right to sit, literally, on top of your neighbour. It is also quite permissible to let your children run amok and trample over unsuspecting people's torsos and kick sand into their face.
Have you noticed how beaches are now being turned into public parks?
They have regular football and short-tennis matches, bouncing the balls off the nearest sunbathers' heads. In the water they play polo and take up huge slices of the swimming area. If you try to escape and go into the deeper water you could be beheaded by a jet-ski machine travelling at about 50 mph. Yes, all great fun indeed. When the sunshines we all enjoy ourselves.
There is simply no hiding place in summer time. And the trouble is it comes around every year. You end up being delighted to get back to work.
