Читать книгу Confessions of a Holiday Rep - My Hideous and Hilarious Stories of Sun, Sea, Sand and Sex - Cy Flood - Страница 8

I WAS AT the front of the crowd, leading it through the streets of San Antonio towards the next bar. This was the first pub crawl of the year, but we had still managed to get about eight hundred people booked up, and we were now marching them towards the third bar of the night. The atmosphere was electric; they all seemed to be chanting in unison some song about travelling: ‘Here we go, here we go, here we go!’ Everything was good-natured and fun. I had to pinch myself to be absolutely sure that I was really doing this. Just a few short weeks ago I had been selling sandpaper to boring old carpenters. Here I was today leading a large group of British youth on a bar crawl in Ibiza. I knew where I preferred to be, and it wasn’t sniffing sawdust. I jumped along with the crowd, feeling tipsy – not only because of the free drinks I had just helped myself to in the last bar, but because of the fantastic atmosphere. The free drinks bit was a real godsend. I was learning fast that the name badge with the company logo pinned to your left breast was more than just a name tag. It could be a bloody credit card. A credit card that came without any bills dropping to remind you of your sins. Brilliant! I’ve really landed on my feet here, I thought to myself.

Bar crawls were a very common sight in Ibiza when I worked there. Ours was mainly a family company, but we seemed to have a lot of youth arriving at the start of the season, so we had no trouble getting our own crawl up and running. The companies who specialised in the youth market had eyed our arrivals with envy; they would not be happy with our crawls starting before their own. Rumour had it that day that the competitors were going to combine their guests so as not to lose face and get their own bar crawl on the street that night as well. This kind of collaboration between competitors was apparently unheard of before, so we didn’t take it too seriously and set off earlier in the evening without checking with the bar owners whether anyone else was going to be in, and if so at what time. This all seemed a distant irritation as we led the group around the corner on to the sea-front in San Antonio town.

My mate Chris grabbed my arm and I tried to push him away. I was having such fun. This repping stuff was truly wonderful. Chris grabbed my arm again, this time more forcefully. I looked at him; he was staring straight ahead. I followed his gaze. There before us, fifty yards away, were one gang of youth reps with the other boys, and about five hundred of their youths all drunk, singing and full of beans. No problem, I thought to myself, we can just walk around them. Chris, however, being a veteran of two years’ service in this business already, had quickly realised this could be trouble. Any youth rep worth his salt knows that when Brits get together in groups, violence is never far away. It’s one of the reasons that bar owners are always reluctant to let groups of lads into bars unless they are firmly under control. What looks like good fun one minute can quickly turn nasty. Our group of lads had begun to notice the group of British lads in front of them with their own reps and they started to chant: ‘Who the fuckin’ hell are you? Who the fuckin’ hell are you?’ Quite a good question under the circumstances. What we really needed now was a group of Germans to walk past, so the entire group could unite in their antipathy for the German nation. Where are the bloody Germans when you need them?

We realised we were going to have to act fast if we were going to avert a potentially nasty situation. A bottle came sailing through the air in the direction of the other group. It smashed somewhere in the crowd. Then, all at once, both groups broke ranks and started to race towards each other. Within minutes there was skin and hair flying in all directions. I suddenly began to think that selling sand-paper was not such a bad proposition after all.

Chris grabbed me by the arm and taught me the first lesson for every rep in crowd control. Self-preservation. We ran like hell to the safety of a nearby bar; the doorman quickly ushered us in and shut the door behind us. Within minutes the police had arrived in force. They seemed to be enjoying the baton practice this opportunity afforded them. Arrests were few; bruised ribs were plentiful. Within half an hour ambulances had arrived and the paramedics were quickly sorting the drunk from the injured.

We emerged from the bar to find several of our colleagues had done exactly the same thing that we’d done, in other nearby establishments. Now our work would really begin. ‘Pick an ambulance,’ shouted Chris. ‘We’ll have to go with the gits to hospital now, just to make sure they’re all right.’

I took his advice without question, as he had already saved my bacon once that night. I jumped into an ambulance with a young bloke who had managed to cut his head open, either on a bottle or from a fall. Either way, he looked pretty miserable as he sat meekly on the seat of the ambulance. His girlfriend, very obviously the worse for alcohol, was lying on the floor in front of him, laughing. At least she had had the wherewithal to notice me climb into the ambulance and sit opposite her stricken boyfriend. She opened her eyes as the ambulance doors slammed shut and we began our twenty-minute journey to the hospital in Ibiza town. ‘Cy!’ she screamed as she hauled herself up and tried to sit beside me. She looked at me blankly. ‘My mate fancies you,’ she gibbered, ‘but I think you are an ugly bastard.’ Then she slumped down with her head resting in my lap and fell asleep. Good start to the season, really. If I had known it was going to be like this, I’d have joined years ago.

* * *

One thing that inspired confidence in me that I had made the right decision when joining this company as opposed to all the other tour operators – apart from the fact they had been the only ones to offer me a job that summer – was that they offered thorough training. I had already been through the mill before I left the UK and, on arriving in Ibiza in late April 1992, I soon discovered that the guests didn’t actually start arriving for another two weeks. We were there to face another gruelling training course. That, coupled with the time spent learning the ropes in a hotel in England, certainly adds up to a lot of training before you even see a punter.

I was not alone; there were another hundred recruits as well for this season in Ibiza. We all arrived together in the middle of the night in a very quiet Ibiza airport. As soon as we walked through the arrival doors into the eerily quiet arrival lounge, we were each given an agenda for our latest training course for the next couple of weeks. We were then whisked to waiting buses and onwards to the resort of Playa den Bossa. On arrival at our home, one of the hotels in the resort (home for the next two weeks, anyway), we were handed our room keys. My worst fears had come true. I would be sharing a room. It turned out that my room-mate had arrived earlier that day from Manchester. He was already in the room. My room.

I hadn’t actually shared a room with anyone since I was six years old but, even way back then, I knew I wasn’t cut out to share my sleeping quarters with anybody. It was tough then, and the room-mate in question had been my brother. Now it was going to be a complete stranger. You get used to your own company in bed. I like the privacy to daydream about the day gone by or the day to come. I like the privacy to pick my nose, or even – if the need arises – to scratch my arse or fart or both, or even to read, and many other things that I dare not mention. Wrist exercises and the like. This is always difficult if you are sharing. I’ve always found that you quickly get used to your own bodily noises, functions and smells. You become quite tolerant of your own shortcomings. Yet when you witness the same smells and noises coming from a bed a couple of feet away, it’s incredible how disgusted you can become.

This was a bad start, but I had no choice: it was a case of share or go home. I decided to share. I just had to hope that this would not be the permanent arrangement for the whole season.

The hotel was quite expansive and judging by the number – 2353 – my room was quite a way off from reception. I don’t quite know how I worked that out; I just had this sixth sense about it. I was right, though. It was bloody miles away from reception. If you walked it in your shorts and T-shirt, it would take maybe just a couple of minutes at a brisk pace: up the stairs and past the pool and the entertainment area outside, up another two flights of stairs, along two more corridors, and you were there. No problem. It’s a different story when you’re laden down with heavy suitcases containing enough luggage for the next six months. My suitcases were heavy – dangerously heavy. Heart-strainingly heavy. This severely compounded the difficulty to the task in hand. After a long, tiring journey, which had begun that morning in Bristol, I dreaded this final thrust.

I decided there was only one way to approach it. I summoned all my last reserves of energy in an attempt to get the cases to my room as quickly as possible. This went OK for a while. First I attacked my hand luggage, taking it straight to the room so I could familiarise myself with the geography of exactly how to get there. When I arrived, I decided to knock on the door in case my room-mate was taking any midnight wrist excursions. I knocked politely. After waiting for a few minutes, I started to reach into my pocket for my own key. Just as I did so, the door handle turned and the door opened slightly. I pushed my head through the gap, just in time to see a figure climbing back into bed. This was my first encounter with my new room-mate, Martin. The time in Ibiza was 11pm. Going to bed at 11pm where I came from was unheard of. I figured he was either upset about something or a boring bastard. I later learned neither of these assumptions was true, but more of that later.

Back in reception, there was a general hive of activity as other nervous trainees were scuttling to and from rooms with gigantic suitcases filled with God only knows what. I saw my largest suitcase sitting in the corner of reception, looking menacing, with its outsize zipper grinning at me defiantly, like a row of silver teeth, saying, ‘Come on, have a go.’ I summoned all my strength and lunged at the case. I figured that once I got this heavy one out of the way, the rest would be a cake walk.

At first the case was stubborn. It seemed heavier than before. I went as quickly as I could with my cumbersome load – through the reception hall itself and out towards the courtyard and past the pool. The doorway to the staircase proved tricky, but with an even sterner effort I managed to drag it through. The stairs required superhuman stamina, but I didn’t stop. I pressed along through the corridor, and with one last effort I grounded the defiant bundle at my door. I rested before opening the door and giving it the final push home. In truth, I was tempted to break into a mad bout of laughter in celebration of my first conquest on foreign soil. Small as it was, I was jubilant.

Then a squeaky voice piped up from behind me. ‘I think you’ve got my suitcase there,’ it said. I turned around to see a small, pretty blonde girl, with the biggest blue eyes, looking accusingly at me.

‘Oh no,’ I replied confidently, ‘it’s definitely mine.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s definitely mine, look at the tag.’

I looked at the tag, expecting to see ‘Cy’ written soberly in the corner. But when I turned it around, there to my utter horror was written the name ‘Monique’. In crayon.

‘See,’ said the girl. ‘Thanks.’ She dragged the case to her room, two doors away. The last I saw of her case as she disappeared into the room was the grinning zipper. I was mortified. All that effort, to carry someone else’s case to their room. My immediate thoughts were to run after the girl, grab the case and take it straight back to reception, whatever the effort involved, but she was just too quick for me. If only I could have got my hands on her case, I could have beaten it up, disfigured it in some way so I could never mistake it for my own again. I consoled myself by reflecting that mistakes can happen to anyone. I returned to reception to see my cases where I had left them; they were grinning at me defiantly. Half an hour later they were in my room, where I resolved to leave them untouched until the morning, when I could thrash them relentlessly.

I prodded my room-mate to see if he wanted to join me in the bar for a quick drink. He refused with a grunt, and off I went alone for a solitary nightcap. As I sat alone in the bar supping a well-earned beer, I felt no small amount of anxiety about the future. In essence this was just another training course, but whereas the last one was still in the UK, things now suddenly seemed very real. I was here in Spain, and there was no going back. I had given up everything I had at home for a moody room-mate and heavy suitcases.

Not surprisingly, I was feeling a little lonely and nervous about the future. Dotted around the bar were others huddled together in little groups for security – there is safety in numbers. It was a low-key start to the greatest adventure of my life to date. I sat there contemplating the world and was down to my last sip of beer and about to retire to bed when from around the corner came my old friends, Liz and Julie, from my training course back in England. I was very glad to see them charging towards me. They hugged me together; it was a bit like being in a scrum down with the England pack, but it was very welcome to know that I had friends here after all. A few more drinks were imbibed, and suddenly it didn’t seem such a bad place after all.

Some time later, my mood had lightened as I made my way to my room for a good night’s sleep. But my plans took a severe beating when I opened the door of my room. I was nearly knocked back by the sheer volume of my room-mate’s snoring. It was deafening. How the hell anybody in the room next door was managing to sleep was totally beyond me. How I was going to sleep was the more immediate problem, and I couldn’t for the life of me see how it would be possible with Martin letting passing ships know of his whereabouts in the bed next to me, barely two feet away. I felt like I had been invited to an exclusive horn-testing session of the QE2’s finest.

I immediately considered the possibility of sleeping on the bathroom floor. No good, too small. I should mention at this point that the area we were staying in for the duration of this course was situated right alongside Ibiza’s only airport in Playa den Bossa. Planes regularly roar overhead, either taking off or landing. Compared to Martin’s snoring, however, this noise was tame. The only consoling thought I had was that by the end of two weeks of this row I would eventually collapse exhausted from the lack of sleep. Mind you, I would probably also be deaf.

Sometimes when you cough or shout or find some way to distract snorers, it disturbs their sleep pattern and they will move to a new position and so clear their airwaves for a while, thereby providing a short respite of silence. I had learned this skill when I was a child. My father would fall asleep in front of the TV after a hard day at work, and he too had a real problem with loud snoring. A clap of the hands or a loud cough would disturb him and bring a little peace. It didn’t wake him, just stirred him enough. I had honed this trick to a fine art as a child. You had to be careful not to rouse the snorer completely from his slumber, for if you did wake him, and he thought the noise had come from the TV, he would just walk over and turn it off without any explanation and then return to his chair and resume sleeping and snoring. A fine balancing act indeed. Worse still, if my father thought it was his oldest son – me – taking the piss, he would belt me on the way past, just for good measure. So the stakes were high. As they were now.

As I lay there in my bed listening to Martin howling, I decided to test my skills on him. I coughed loudly. There was a moment’s silence. Was this success? A few grunt-like sounds and … all he did was change key from a deeper E flat to a louder A minor.

I tried again. And again. Martin simply changed tune and slumbered on regardless. It was intolerable. I put my fingers in my ears, but my hands got pins and needles. I put my head under the blankets, even under the pillow, but I had to resurface for fear of suffocating. I sang to myself; I stuffed toilet roll in my ears, all to no avail. Martin continued to snore more and more loudly. In the end I had no option but to wake him. I pushed him awake. ‘What?’ he said.

‘You’re snoring,’ I replied.

He turned around. Hooray, I had won. There was silence. I curled up into my favourite sleeping position and waited for Dr Sleep to welcome me into the house of dreams. Then Martin started again. Louder and louder. I woke him again as politely as I could two or three more times. Eventually I was shouting, ‘Shut the fuck up!’ I finally got to sleep about 6.30am. At 7am the alarm went off. Martin was up first, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. He pushed me awake and introduced himself.

‘Morning, mate, I’m Martin. Sorry about not coming for a drink with you last night, I was in a session with me mates all day in Manchester before I left. I was a bit tired. Might have one with you tonight, though. Cor, you look a bit tired, mate. Did you have a late night, then? By the way, I think I snore a bit, hope it doesn’t keep you awake.’ Then he disappeared into the bathroom to freshen up. Yes, I thought, I can confirm the snoring bit.

Over the next couple of weeks sleeping became a real problem for me. I devised new positions for Martin to lie in, in order to try to prevent the racket recurring. Fair enough he tried them all willingly. I think we had some success when he lay on his stomach with his legs tucked underneath his body. Unfortunately, this meant he didn’t sleep, but at least he didn’t snore either. Eventually I moved my mattress next to the balcony door. It didn’t stop him snoring, but it did reduce the volume. I really liked Martin once we had got through this difficulty. We eventually became good friends. That said, I know that I couldn’t have stayed in this room for more than two weeks with him. I think I would have died of exhaustion. Or he would have died of strangulation.

A couple of years before this excursion into the world of tour operating, I had tried my hand with another company, and they had taken us all off for a training course in Majorca. It was great fun, but I hadn’t taken the experience too seriously. I had looked at the letter saying, ‘Training course … Majorca’ and thought, Great, a holiday. I’d gone away to that course in a very relaxed mood. I remember packing lots of pairs of shorts and T-shirts. On arrival at the course venue, I was horrified to learn that ninety per cent of our time would be spent in an office environment, where you would be expected to wear ‘office dress’. Which, of course, meant shirt and tie. I spent most of my free time in the week washing and re-washing my one shirt and tie. Over and over again.

I decided before I set off with this new company that I wouldn’t make the same mistake again. So, plenty of smart office clothes were packed this time. On day one I dressed in my smart shirt, new trousers and sensible tie. Sod’s law meant that I was the only one who dressed that way. One of our first tasks was to answer a practical quiz that took us all out and about to parts of the island away from Playa den Bossa all the way to Ibiza town. A distance of about five miles. This would all be done walking in groups that had been organised that morning. The groups consisted of a couple of experienced reps and a collection of ‘greenies’, people like me. We set off to walk to Ibiza and answer the questions along the way. The theory was that the experienced members should have a good idea of the answers and help the newcomers along the way.

Good theory, I suppose, but not so good if your experienced rep, Cerise, is pursuing the affections of another rep in the group, Motorbike Mark. They only had eyes for each other. It soon became clear that Cerise knew all the answers. Periodically she would fill in a few of the questions and then hand them back to us newcomers who were all following her eagerly down the street. We would then copy what she had given us and wait for more. Our collective fear as the new kids on the block was that if we got all the questions wrong we would all be sent home for failing. This, it turned out, was highly unlikely, as I don’t believe that our papers were even looked at once they had been handed in. They all came back with the same comment, ‘A good effort, well done,’ written on them.

The day itself had been very hot and tiring. A heavy pair of brown Marks & Spencer corduroy trousers probably work very well in the winter months in England; they keep you very warm. On a mildly hot spring day in Ibiza, walking ten miles in the same trousers is, to put it mildly, very hot and sticky, and very uncomfortable. I had been a little self-conscious about wearing shorts for the first couple of weeks in Ibiza, because my legs were lily white. This turned out to be no problem at all. All the dye from my cords transferred on to my legs after the first three miles. Try as I might, this dye proved impossible to remove, without taking a layer of skin with it. Some of our group might have learned a lot from that first day in Ibiza, but I learned nothing, except how to walk to and from Ibiza town in a pair of heavy cords that have been made twice as heavy by being laden down with a liberal helping of sweat.

Rather unfortunately, I had also chosen that first day to give my new hobnailed boots their first airing. This too, for obvious reasons in retrospect, was a big mistake. They stood up rather well to their first test, but reaped a terrible revenge on me. From that day on, they stank beyond all comprehension. One whiff of them could paralyse your nostrils. As they were the only sensible pair of brown leather footwear I had, and that was the company uniform, they just got worse as the season got hotter and drier. I had to lock them away at night, or leave them outside my apartment. Needless to say I reverted to wearing a cooler pair of trousers for the remainder of the course.

The agenda for the two-week course looked quite busy in theory, but some of the times allotted for different sessions proved to be wildly inaccurate. As a result, there were times when our trainers didn’t know what to do with us. This left us all with a lot of free time to kill, which proved to be no problem to anybody. I had brought a lot of spending money with me to see me through the first month, and it didn’t take that much effort to plug into holiday mode quite quickly. I took many long and leisurely lunches with my new friends and got drunk. I also took every opportunity to do the same in the evenings.

Martin and I got on very well outside the bedroom, and we would have lunch with Liz and a girl called Beth whom I had met in Gatwick airport on the way out. We would spend our time either bitching about other members of the staff or recounting our past. You learn quite quickly who you like and don’t like, and who you want to spend time with, or not as the case may be. We passed many hours discussing our futures, where we would like to work on the island and how we would like to fare in our first six months in the job. We all preferred different areas of the island, but the powers that be, i.e. our trainers, were not going to tell any of us where we were heading just yet. At that time we had no comprehension of how big the island was or how we were going to get around; it was all so new.

Towards the end of the first two weeks, with D-day – the arrival of our first guests of the summer – coming closer, we found ourselves on a coach that took us all for a grand tour of the whole island. The guide was one of our trainers, a guy called Charlie, who had worked on the island for a couple of years. We were all asked to pay particular attention to what we would see, for after this little excursion we would be asked to fill in a piece of paper as to our preference for where we would like to work. We were told that our requests would be looked at sympathetically, but that no promises would be made. To me this was all a blur, as one idyllic location after another passed us by through the coach window. At the end of the day I couldn’t put any particular preference down on paper, so I just left it blank. From what I had learned while on my previous training course in London, I felt that it was a good bet that I would be going to San Antonio to work with the youth programme. I only knew two things for certain from that tour: I didn’t want to work in Portinatx and I definitely didn’t want to end up in San Miguel, at the northern end of the island. I remember Charlie joking about how remote these two places were as we breezed past them and how we all laughed about them being at the end of the world. Somebody would have to go to these places. Whoever they were, they had my sympathy – they would need it.

The day arrived when our summer destinations were to be revealed to us. We all waited nervously in the reception of the hotel to be called in by our bosses and told our fate. The meetings seemed to be lasting an average of ten minutes apiece. This was to be a crucial time for all us novice reps. Some had threatened that if they didn’t get what they wanted they would be heading home. There was quite a bit of tension in the room as we all waited. I didn’t see anybody cry, but plenty emerged from the room smiling.

Eventually it was my turn. I was called into the room by Fanny, the lady who was to be my boss for the season, my senior rep. Fanny was a cuddly kind of person. She was about five feet tall, with a kindly smiling face and a hefty frame – she was about fifteen stone – topped off with a neat blonde bob that gave her a motherly appearance. Not at all like the kind of person you would expect to be in charge of one of Europe’s leading hedonistic pleasure paradises. She sat down in a comfortable chair in front of me and went through various pleasantries about the last couple of weeks, asking me whether I had enjoyed the course and whether I was ready for the season ahead. I made all the right noises, but couldn’t help feeling that I was being built up for some bad news. Finally it came.

‘I want you in my team,’ Fanny told me.

‘I’m flattered,’ I replied. ‘Where?’

‘The El Greco. Portinatx.’

My face dropped. I felt like I had just been told that my passport had been confiscated.

‘You don’t look very pleased,’ Fanny observed.

‘Oh I am, don’t worry, it just needs time to sink in.’

I was numb. I had been dreaming of spending wild nights in San Antonio, fighting off the bikini-clad lovelies. Instead I was headed for Portinatx, which according to the reps who had worked here the year before was the second closest thing to a graveyard on the island. Still, at least it wasn’t San Miguel. I would have to make a point and find the person who was off there, to see how depressed they looked.

I wasn’t alone. Apparently there would be a big team in Portinatx. My first problem was that none of my friends would be there. Martin, Beth and Liz had all plumped for more fashionable destinations. My second problem was that I couldn’t pronounce the place. The ‘natx’ bit was a real tongue-twister. Most people seemed to plump for a version that came out as ‘Portinatch’, so that would do for me. I was Portinatx bound and that seemed to be that.

The vast majority of the reps seemed quite happy with their destinations as we gathered together for a drink that evening. There was a feeling of relief that we would soon all be on our way to our destinations and that our guests would shortly be arriving for the season ahead.

In hindsight, I believe that I had made a mistake a few days earlier when I had performed a welcome party speech at a training session in front of all our bosses, as we all had to do. I had wheeled out my mad version of the hillbilly hoe-down that I had perfected on several previous occasions. Fanny had been present at that meeting, and she later told me that on the strength of that performance she had earmarked me for her team. Still, I suppose it was a compliment. I made conversation with my team-mates in the area, and with people who had experience of working there, and soon I had reconciled myself to six months in Portinatx. It wouldn’t be that bad after all. It could be the happening place for the coming summer and it had to beat hanging around at home. And whatever happened, it would be a great experience. I was determined about that.

There was, however, a twist in the tail. I had phoned home with details of my new address in Portinatx and had packed my bags ready for the journey, when Fanny called in to the hotel for a meeting with me. There had been a change of plan. I wasn’t now going to Portinatx. My hotel wasn’t opening for the summer. I was quietly relieved. The company had decided that my talents would be better used in a sports complex. So they were going to send me to San Miguel. SAN MIGUEL! At this point I considered resigning. They had to be taking the piss. It felt like being imprisoned by the Iraqis, and then escaping to be caught by the Iranians. I remember sharing the news with my friends. Their eyes seemed to cloud over and lose focus. The idea of San Miguel for six months filled me with dread. Oh well, such is life. Fanny softened the blow by telling me that I would have to help out with bar crawls in San Antonio once a week and that the girl who had worked in San Miguel the year before had asked to go back. Surely, then, it couldn’t be that bad, could it? Anna, my new colleague, had not yet arrived in Ibiza, but I looked forward to meeting her.

We had one more act to perform before we left for our resorts. Throughout the two weeks we had been sampling the different trips that we would be selling once we got to our hotels. Every rep has to be able to sell. It’s a part of the job, and a very important one at that – no sales equals no commission. I think it’s great to be able to sample these days and nights out, and it was still a great novelty to me to get all your drinks for free and your food as well – what could be better?

I wasn’t the only one who thought this way. When you looked around at the end of some of these evenings, I reckon some of the reps would have had trouble remembering their own names, such was the amount of alcohol consumed. Those long, boozy nights also provided a good opportunity for us to get to know each other.

This, of course, is a ritual that the people who own these excursion venues have to go through every year. Goodness knows what they must be thinking when loads of fresh-faced new recruits descend upon them, full of enthusiasm and lots of nosy questions. It must be great entertainment for the locals. They all really push the boat out, because they know that if the reps have a good time then they are more likely to sell their excursion than someone else’s. The best-selling trip in a resort from year to year can depend upon how good the owners are at making their day with the reps successful. With that in mind, the whole team are treated like VIPs when they arrive at the venues. We had done all of these trips, bar one. That was to be the ‘Country Feast’. It promised to be a good evening, not least because it would be our last opportunity to socialise as a group.

The mood was very upbeat as we boarded the coaches for the little country farmhouse in the middle of the island for the evening. The farmhouse was owned by a couple from New Zealand, who treated us to an evening with Maori entertainment and food.

It was a great night and proved to be very popular throughout that season, so judging from that alone it must be a great success with holidaymakers. The food is cooked under the ground in a hungi oven and served to everyone after an explanation from the Kiwi owner, a very nice gentleman called Art. As far as I can remember, a Maori does a little dance and the entertainment begins – and ends, for that matter – with an Irish two-piece band called Sean and John. They are very good, but as far from the theme of New Zealand as you can get. Why anyone would come all the way to Ibiza to spend an evening in New Zealand while being entertained by an Irish duo is beyond me. Oh well. Suffice to say, it’s a great night out and, if you are ever in Ibiza, go along and see it, it’s really quite fun. (There I go, selling it again. Old habits die hard.)

Anyway, off we trundled to the Country Feast, all one hundred of us, for a romantic last evening together until who knew when. Our guide for the evening was a little Spanish fella called Diego. Martin and I had met Diego a few days earlier. We had come back to our hotel after a day’s training to find Diego standing at the bar in a very unkempt old uniform that looked as though the owner had slept in it. He had a brandy in one hand and a cigarette in the other and looked completely at ease with the world. The company rules state that you can’t smoke, drink or swear in uniform. We thought that perhaps Diego had been placed there as a plant by the company to see how easily we would be distracted. He took one look at us and gestured us over.

‘Come on, fellas, have a drink,’ he said.

‘Oh it’s OK,’ we answered nervously, looking around anxiously.

‘Please yourselves,’ he replied.

‘We thought you weren’t allowed to drink in uniform,’ we enquired.

Diego looked at us, startled. ‘You can’t drink in uniform, you can’t smoke in uniform, you can’t do fuck all in uniform. Bollocks,’ he sneered and laughed heartily before swigging back his brandy, and then ordered another one. He invited us to join him again. We assured him we were all right and quickly scurried away, thinking we had had a lucky escape. Basically, Diego didn’t give a toss. But I can assure you that he was one of the best guides that company had. He made every evening or day he guided great fun. He had a good way of painting a picture of the venue before you got there that made it sound like the best place on earth. ‘This is gonna be the experience of a lifetime for you all this evening. You are going to sample a unique food experience the like of which is reserved for only the chosen few, and you have all been chosen tonight. You have all been personally invited, by Rose and Art, the only New Zealand couple here in the Balearics, who have prepared this special treat for us. The entertainment is the cream on a very exclusive cake, and it all takes place in their home.’ We could hardly wait to get there.

On arrival, the tables were bedecked with wine – free, of course – and if you wanted beer, all you had to do was ask. Martin and I polished off four bottles of vino between us and the evening just flowed by. The excursion coincided with a bit of an episode for me, one that could have resulted in an amorous evening with one of my colleagues if I had let it get that far. Living on the same floor of the hotel as us was a girl called Flo, who was also in her first year as a rep. Flo, to put it gently, was fat. Very fat. She had the most penetrating blue eyes that stared right at you and said, ‘Let’s have fun.’ Now, I was pleasant to her, but nothing more; I didn’t want to encourage her at all. During our training course she had made a few suggestions to Martin and I about coming to her room for a massage – both of us – but we always turned her down, thinking she was only joking.

Well, that night Flo was sitting on a table near us at the Country Feast. She kept looking over and smiling at me all night long. At first I smiled back just to be polite, but, as the frequency of her stares and winks grew, I became more and more uncomfortable. I foolishly voiced my concerns to Martin, who really didn’t help the situation by smiling back at Flo and winking at her, while nudging me. My concerns grew to something near to panic when Flo followed me on an excursion to the bar. She leaned towards me on the bar and whispered into my ear.

‘Cy, you look all tense and stiff. Why don’t you let me give you a nice slow massage? I can move that stiffness to another part of your body.’ She giggled and slapped me on the bottom.

‘It’s OK, Flo,’ I replied with a nervous little giggle. ‘I’m not that tense really, I just need a good night’s sleep before we move tomorrow.’ And with that I beat a hasty retreat back to my table.

The final hour of the Country Feast was a bit of a nightmare. I tried to persuade Martin to accompany my every move, and to make sure he sat by my side on the coach back to Playa den Bossa. I ended up sprinting from the coach to our hotel, with Flo in hot pursuit shouting, ‘Come here, you little tiger!’

On the return journey, Diego made the evening complete by singing all the way home. It was a great evening apart from Flo’s pursuit of me, and certainly a good way to finish off our first two weeks on the island. God save me from fat women.

The next morning we were all packed and ready to leave the hotel to go to our respective resorts. You get very attached to each other during these courses and, instead of it feeling like the beginning of something exciting, it felt very much like the end. The truth was – though we couldn’t quite feel it at that time – that this was the first day of a great adventure. In another couple of days our guests would be arriving. That was when the fun would really begin. After all the training and re-training, that would be the acid test. Now things were going to get really exciting.