Monday 20 February 2012

The Tenerife Holiday in 1995


Back in 1995 I was having the time of my life. I don't think I had ever played quite so hard as I was at this point. The holiday to Playa de las Americas in Tenerfie would in fact turn out to be my last "boys" holiday.

Every night we would start off in Molly Malones and drink until they threw us out. I will of course claim that the photo above is a bit misleading and actually all that happened was I took a slight tumble :) We would party until the sun came up, go to sleep until the afternoon, get up to sun bathe and then go out and do it all again every night for two weeks. The holiday got off to a typical start. We stayed up all night and were drinking in the bar at Gatwick Airport at 5:00 in the morning making nuicanse phone calls to our friends. I have to confess that on the plane I managed to throw my vodka and orange over the lady sat next to me! Kind of set the tone for what was to follow...

Such was the extent of the drinking that whilst having our usual early evening meal one night, I went completely numb and lost all feeling in my hands. So I was holding a knife and fork, but unable to get anywhere close to the food! The boys thought it a good idea to get me back to hotel room for a lie down and some water... It did the trick as it was not long until I was back down Molly's on the Guinness and away we went again.


There was the occasional moment of sanity though and the lovely Sinead Kelly in the above photo is testament to that. No idea what she saw in me! I think she quickly saw sense :) I'm afraid my character T-shirts were in their prime back then, and I would wear some unbelievably "nasty" shirts and shorts :)


The young lady in white was Linda Foy from Dublin. Mad as a hatter, but we stayed in touch and visited each other a number of times. I remember meeting her dad for the first time on a Sunday morning at their house in Dublin, and myself and Ad sat down with him in the living room at 10:00am having been out clubbing until the early hours and being offered and accepting an Irish whiskey. Definitely a case of kill or cure! On a trip to the UK I managed to lose them on the tube whilst trying to get them back to Heathrow for their flight home which they ended up missing and had to sleep at the airport!

The third girl in the holiday trilogy was Therese Jordan, a lovely young nurse from Waterford. I stayed in touch with her afterwards while she travelled around Australia and went over to see her in Dublin a few years later. I think she is married now, but someone with a true heart of gold.


But in many ways Sinead, Linda and Therese summed up the whole holiday adventure. You met people with a lust for live, who certainly lived life to the full, but at the same were amazingly friendly and welcoming. Sometimes it's easy to lose sight of this...

There were 3 boys from Reading partying for 2 weeks in an Irish bar with just the best crowd of people you could meet and we just had so many laughs. It was a great unforgettable holiday as I came towards the end of the madness years. My body had started to tell me it was time to ease up and it knew best I have to concede.  

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