leaving on a jet plane – first published 5 August 2012

As we have just booked a little holiday for later in the month (more about that later) I thought this would be a good time to tell you about a rather special holiday we had in August 2012. The Mad House was behind me and an exciting new job ahead. Between the two we were off to Morocco to celebrate Commando’s big-five-o. One last burst of sun before the end of summer and a bit of relaxation after some hard months. Is there any better place to enjoy sun and relaxation than the beach at Agadir? Of course we had to get there first and there were a few moments when I didn’t think we’d make it.

4 August 2012

Traffic was horrendous as we drove up to Gatwick in poor little Mattie Matiz and there were a few moments when we thought we wouldn’t make it. It wasn’t all plain sailing even then. For a start our meet and greet wasn’t there and we ended up pacing around making panic stricken phone calls and looking at our watches until it finally arrived.

At least we had speedy boarding so we didn’t have to queue forever. Also, for the first time ever, I didn’t set off the metal detectors. Honestly, anyone would think I had a metal plate in my head. Then there was the departure gate debacle.

We’d had our lattes, been to the loo, bought our water and even had a cursory look at the duty free but our flight still wasn’t showing on the board even though the gate was due to have opened. Commando gets a bit antsy when things don’t happen with military precision and, after a little while, he sent me off to check out another board in case the one we were sitting under wasn’t working properly, as if that would actually happen. Still, I like to humour him so off I trotted, arriving just in time to see the Agadir flight change from ‘gate opens at 15:07‘ to ‘waiting.’ I turned to look at Commando and he was walking towards me so I didn’t bother hanging about to see what gate it was going to change to just started back in his direction.

“It’s gate 107,” he said marching off with me following at his heels. “Typical it’s always one of the furthest gates.”
Commando always thinks it’s a race to get there so we speed walked down the moving walkway and the escalator, along another walkway, still at top speed, down a corridor, round the corner and then there it was, gate 107. Whew, we were the first ones there too! But, as we got nearer we could see the sign didn’t say Agadir, it said Antalya. What was going on?

I asked the woman at the gate, “Why does it say Antalya and not Agadir?”
She looked at me like I was an idiot, “Because the flight is for Antalya not Agadir.” “But the board in departures said gate 107 for Agadir.”
“No, it’s definitely Antalya. The flight has just finished boarding,” she said slowly, as if to a particularly dim child.
“Is the next one for Agadir then? The board did say gate 107,” I said hopefully. Notice at no point did I ever consider that Commando could have been wrong. I was convinced either the woman was or the board was.
“That’s impossible,” she said, looking a little contemptuous now. “I’ll just ring to see which gate the Agadir flight is going from.” You guessed it, it was right at the other end of the airport, gate 48. Not only had we dashed all that way for nothing but now we had to dash all the way back again, against the flow of traffic and with no moving walkways or escalators because they were all going the wrong way.

Of course Commando was even more worked up by this time, absolutely convinced we would miss our flight or not get our speedy boarding. Now we were all but running. I think he would have been running if I wasn’t there slowing him down. As we whizzed through the departure lounge, I glanced at the board and can confirm it did say gate 48. By the time we made it to our correct gate, the second people to arrive, I was boiling hot and stripping off layers of clothing. There was me saying I wasn’t going to get much in the way of exercise today. How wrong could I have been?

So now I’m typing this on my iPad at thirty odd thousand feet, looking down on clouds and blue sky over somewhere or other, Spain I would guess. Commando is asleep in his window seat and the man next to me is watching a film on his iPad. In a minute I’m going to have a little catch up with Mr Grey on my Kindle as I haven’t had time to do any reading for a while. How times have changed eh? Not so very long ago if you wanted to write something on a plane you had a pen and paper. If you wanted to read you had a suitcase full of paperbacks. Maybe I’m becoming a techie.

There is something about Morocco that stole my heart the first time I came here, more years ago than I care to admit, and every time I come back it feels like I’m coming home. The smells, the sounds, the people they all make my heart sing. We got to our hotel, The Royal Atlas, just as the sun had gone down. The streets were deserted because it’s Ramadan and, as soon as the sun goes down, everyone goes home to break the fast.

During the thirty days of Ramadan no food or drink is allowed from sun up to sun down and the days are supposed to be spent thinking about Allah and going to the mosque to pray the required five times a day. Praying five times a day is normal all the time but not everyone does, in much the same way as not everyone goes to church on Sunday.

You’d think thirty days of fasting all day would be very good for those who’d like to lose a few pounds wouldn’t you? Well, you’d be wrong. Often people actually put weight on during Ramadan because, once the sun goes down, they all rush home and have a big feast, often eating far more than they would have done if they’d eaten three normal meals during the day.

Anyway, I’ve just had a nice walk along the promenade in front of the beach, sat for a while in Camel Cafe, our favourite haunt, with a diet coke and then a coffee and enjoyed watching the world go by with Commando. We’re back in our room now, sitting on the balcony, listening to the sea and looking out over the pool and the beach, which is floodlit at night. I’m going to go for a nice long walk in the morning.

5 August 2012

After breakfast we walked along the promenade to the end where it turns towards the harbour, down to the hard sand along the water’s edge and all the way back to the point where it turns again then back along the promenade by our hotel. Apparently, according to his Garmin, this was seven point two kilometres, I’m not sure what that is in real money but it must be heading towards the five mile mark. It took an hour and a quarter. We did stop to grab some bottles of water in one of the little shops along the way. It’s very warm so water is of prime importance.

We saw an elderly man walking along the edge of the surf who actually made my mad walking style look normal! You may find this hard to believe, I know Commando did, but I promise you it’s true. He was marching along in his swim shorts and with each step he swung alternate arms right up over his head. To think Commando has been moaning at me all these years for swinging my arms too much. He was moving at a fair old lick too, faster than us, although we weren’t going at top speed. Good on him I say, he didn’t care what he looked like and was obviously doing it to keep fit. I have to say, for a man who looked to be in his seventies, he was in pretty good shape. There is a lesson in there somewhere I think.

After our walk we shared a pizza at Camel Cafe and took on some more water. The whole beach front is lined with cafes and restaurants but we keep going back to Camel because the service is so friendly. Another reason is that the beach front wifi seems to have disappeared, maybe the hotels didn’t like it because people weren’t paying for their wifi, and Camel has reasonably good free wifi.

The waiter recognised us from last May and was very attentive, although that could have something to do with the blonde hair, Moroccans love blonde hair. He spotted Commando’s running magazine and they had a bit of a chat about that. Moroccans love to run, the beach is full of them in the mornings before the sea mist has burnt off and later, when the sun has gone down. I joked that Commando was built like a Moroccan Man, tall and slim with long runner’s legs, and that that was the only reason I’d married him in the first place. As we were leaving, I was presented with a little bunch of sweet smelling roses. I was quite touched.

We wanted to spend the afternoon by the pool but towels had been liberally spread around, although there was no evidence of any towel owners in a lot of cases. Eventually we found two sun beds, a little far from the pool bar and pool but we didn’t really mind that and we spent a lazy afternoon with me reading Mr Grey’s third book and Commando snoozing and occasionally picking up his running magazine. I think I may get up early and spread some towels out tomorrow.