My grandad died, my mum upped her Batshit Crazy Level from 'moderate' to 'legendary' and I had to write the world's most boring piece of academic work ever. What with raising young minds, working, keeping the laundry mountain below fatal landslip level and falling over in pools of cider whilst trying to perfect slut-drops, I just kind of never got round to it.
So anyway going back to the pedalo. Way back when I decided to flex my credit card and take the kids to Ibiza. As you do when you have 2 children - one whom needs a calm, structured routine every day and 1 whom generates more volume than your average Death Metal band (we know this as we ran an experiment in the car).
Whilst on this holiday, eldest child became absolutely obsessed with taking the pedalos out. It allowed for complete control of a vehicle in a potentially very hazardous environment. I sunbathed on the back while he beat his younger brother for taking us too close to a shipping lane and muttered about currents and sandbanks and million pound yachts.
The good thing about the pedalo is that it takes you far away from other people and you can a) stop worrying some body is going to call the Spanish equivalent of social services and b) get naked.
Let me explain. The paradox of life is that when you are a teenager with a banging body and no stretch marks you will probably hate everything about it, spend hours of existential angst pinching your thighs, living on a diet of Diamond White and crisps and write to This Morning asking them to do a make over on you so you can reach your full body potential (I actually did this, handwritten from the same pad of paper I wrote poetry about my dead pet chickens. I think it was Rosemary Connelly I asked to change me life. She never replied. Probably for the best). THEN - when you are a 30 something mother of children with loads of stretch marks and thighs about twice their teenage width you won't give a flying fig and will take the attitude 'if i make it to 80 I will regret not sunbathing naked'. Plus don't forget - I lived through Beaver Creek. After that you're not going to worry about people seeing your tits.
Ever.
So anyway on the back of the pedalo I started off sunbathing topless (eldest son only agreed to this on the grounds we went nowhere near any other living human beings EVER) and then decided that whilst he lectured his brother on the nuances of wave formation and how he was basically an idiot and continually proved his idiotness, that I would go for a naked swim.
Ah the freedom. The lack of inhibitions. The sea surrounding you. The feeling of peace and joy and happiness and salt water. The pedalo heading rapidly towards some rocks……
Oh oh dear.
And thus distracted by his 'idiot brother' the pedalo got washed up on a rocky outcrop at the base of some cliffs.
Now you can pedal as hard as you like but if your rotors aren't in the water you aren't going to go anywhere (you could probably make that into one of those inspirational quotes and get it on your wall in swirly script - I will take full credit). I swam over and tried to haul it back into the sea but i physically couldn't. Eldest son was by this point hysterical with rage at the incompetence of both his 'idiot' co-pilot and also at me as apparently I'd said it was safe to go near the rocks and he knew it wasn't (he has a point here - I had told him to just get over it and stop worrying and now look where we were…… all washed up with nowhere to go. And some of us with no clothes on).
So I was only left with one choice. To haul my naked form out of the sea and up on to the rocks and push the pedalo back in. I couldn't touch the bottom and the rocks were steep and I had to do this completely replying on my upper body strength. Which, it appears, is frankly shit.
After some considerable amount of time grunt, straining, swearing and thrashing I finally came ashore.
You know the bit in the Bond Movie Dr No where Ursuala Andress rises from the sea in her white bikini and comes gracefully ashore?
Well it wasn't like that.
It was like the point in Blue Planet where the gigantic male walrus hauls himself onto the ice flow and making a guttural rutting/fighting noise flops towards to his mate.
And it was at this point - OF COURSE IT WAS AT THIS POINT - that several Spanish fishermen appeared at the top of the rocky outcrop clutching snorkelling gear and long stick things (probably spears who knows).
If eldest son was ashamed of his idiot brother/out of control naked mother before, well now he was spiritually broken.
The surge of adrenalin the fishermen (and their potential spears) gave me allowed me to refloat the pedalo in one hefty move and leap back into the sea (I couldn't get back on to the pedalo as my upper body strength wouldn't allow for this - I had to ask the children to pass down my swimwear and swim the whole way back to the pedalo man).
I took comfort from the fact that I didn't live there, nobody knew me and nobody was holding a camera phone (nobody needs their naked pedalo exploits go viral - least of all me) and left the incident to die away as folklore (the tale of the gigantic swearing mermaid with bad strap marks).
That was until the kids went back to school and eldest's communication book came back home with the words 'glad to hear you had a good holiday, I've heard all about the naked pedalo incident and the fisherman! Sounds fun!'.
Shoot. Me. Now.
