‘Taint No Fun Burning in Der Sun

Every year Gfb leaves The Crib for a few days for the Sun. Every year, “Be careful. Cover up. Factor 50 minimum.” Every year rogue rays pierce my Maginot Line like defences and turn my dermis into pork scratchings.

Jesus it was hot. My brains were melting and dribbling out of my ears.

Gingers and the Sun? No!

Bastard Sun. Bastard Heat.

Under a parasol, thirty seven feet in diameter, dressed in a Burkha and propped up in a lead lined coffin for extra protection.

Burn Baby Burn

Still copped it though. Top of the thighs. Right ear. Left ankle and Neckline.

“Ooooh, ooooh, aaaaah, aaaaah,” goes the song at night as I turn in bed. Cotton sheets cling to me like a rejected lover just to inflict further rubbed ignominy.

Bastard Mosquitoes too. Like Drones in Helmand they were. Despite the copious application of Agent Orange (the stuff strips skin in a fashion Hannibal the Cannibal would have been proud of) they kept on a coming. Strafed and chaffed for hours until they sated themselves on my olive oil enriched blood cells.

Mediterranean diet me arse.

“I didn’t get bitten!” Ma Fightback chirped. That’s alright then.

Day 2. To the beach. Prop my coffin under the 78 feet diameter parasol. He’s there.

6′ 3″. 16 Stone. Early 60′s? Very tight trunks. Extremely tight trunks.

Stands in the Sun, hands on hips, legs slightly akimbo. He’s the man he’s telling the beach. I hear him speak.

German.

“Ich bein ein bein einstein knacke der Ooompah Band,” or some such he says to his wife who is on a lounger looking at pictures of Princess Kate’s breasts.

“Ja,” she replies. He stands over her. His foot on the edge of the lounger. He’s proud of his trunks. His very tight trunks. He plays with his hair. Flicks it. Shapes it. Teases it. He has mullet memories.

Beads of sweat form inside my Burkha.

“Wasser for dippen,” he says.

“Ja.”

He changes trunks. Yes I know. The tight, very tight trunks are removed with the aid of a block and tackle rig and support of a passing sunglass peddler.

Budgie smugglers now adorn his crotch.

He stands by the water’s edge. Hands on hips. Legs slightly akimbo. He wades into the water and then dives in. He is under for a few seconds and then Kraken like, he resurfaces. Without his hair. Worse still, the hair has been replaced by some used toilet roll.

He reminds me of a boiled egg. A Big Tuetonic Boiled Egg.

“Meinen syrup has kaput in der wasser. Scheissen schellotapen.”

“Ja,” mutters wifey now looking at pictures of Prince Harry’s testes.

He looks around in embarrassed fashion. No-one is laughing. A coffin shakes slightly though.

Eventually I spot it floating rather listlessly towards Crete. Is this is how the legend of The Golden Fleece was born millennia ago? The Golden Wig – now there would be a Greek Myth to spice the imagination.

Or maybe not.

“Thus spoke Minerva, and Ulysses obeyed her gladly. Then Minerva assumed the form and voice of Mentor, and presently made a covenant of peace between the two contending parties.”