The flight to Tenerife was chaotic. It was a sold out flight, and the passengers were a youthful demographic. I am not saying they were all feral but there was a sizable number who seem to  have been dragged up. After a spot of turbulence I decided to avail of the facilities. The agitated, young man in  front of me  in the queue starting banging the toilet door shouting ‘Will you hurry up, I’m dying for a slash!’. I recoiled in horror. The occupant was a companion of his and the expletive laden response burned my ears. Everybody seemed to order multiple mini bottles of hard liquor for the flight. Being far classier, I demurely sipped my bottle of flat warm Diet Coke, while reading ‘Enduring Love’ by Ian McEwan. I ordered pasta for lunch estimating a twenty minutes delivery time. I took my insulin injection at what I thought was a reasonable time before food would arrive. One hour later there was no sign of it, and the food trolley was still far away. I was starting to feel poorly so I invoked the help of the lovely Clondalkin girls beside me who fed me a Kit Kat. ‘Are you alright love? My sister’s s diabetic. It’s a SCOORGE.’

My friends collected me in the rental car and we made our way to the villa in Adeje on the south west of the island, which was to be our home for the next five nights. Four days before our arrival I had received an email from booking.com informing me that due to an ‘electrical fault’ at the property our reservation had been cancelled. No alternative was offered – leaving us without a place to stay mere days before departure. With four of us in the group I was stressed – booking rooms had been my job. Thankfully AirBNB offered a few alternatives. Several were managed by a character named Oksana however – the same charlatan who had cancelled our booking.com reservation. Avoiding all properties managed by her, I located a beautiful house with a pool, only marginally more expensive than the previous place. That evening we dined on steak – mine as always, rare – and met a Scottish couple. They had been a couple for a few years – she’d been widowed three years earlier and this was her first subsequent relatrionship. We consumed a few beverages with them.

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