Just got back from a ten day holiday with Rich. We decided to go green by staying in the UK and relying on public transport, so we booked a small, seaside apartment along the coast that was close enough to a train station and had plenty of things to do nearby. It’s always a gamble booking online, but the holiday camp we chose claimed it was just a short hop along the beautiful, sandy beach to the area’s cosmopolitan town. Sounded good, and it was a short distance as the crow flies, but there was also a bloody, big estuary in between and you had to walk miles inland to get around it. This was the first disappointment.
The holiday apartments themselves are family-run and very functional. Thinking we were close enough to a bit of 21st Century civilization, we weren’t expecting the raised eyebrows and barely concealed smirks when we checked in to our home for the next ten days – obviously not a hot-bed of gay vacationing, this place. The old guy who escorted us to our apartment in the nearby block stated loudly when we entered that, “it’s a double bed,” waiting for us to protest that we booked a twin room… No, no, we’re a gay couple and WILL be having sex on that bed.
Once the unpacking was done we consoled ourselves that, being self-contained, we needn’t have much to do with the staff. Spoke too soon there! It was one thing after another: a light-bulb went; no hot water; one of the keys kept sticking in the lock… This meant frequent trips to the deserted reception office (part of their family home), ringing the bell and waiting forever for someone to appear. It got better, though, because they seemed to be leaving everything to the young son. He must have been late teens/early twenties, blond, sun-kissed from all the surf and toned from all the manual work. As the holiday went on we noticed him more and more: topless up ladders; topless working on his car; topless laying bricks and topless outside our window – I thought to myself, if you’re gonna lay bait for the gays, why not welcome them when they show up?
If we felt alien at the holiday camp, this was nothing compared to walking through the local area. We had some really nice day trips out and the picturesque town I mentioned earlier had a lot do see, but to get anywhere by foot or bus we had to first venture down into our own, not-so-pretty town. It’s the kind of shitty, inbred place where they all wear tracksuits and nobody’s used to seeing openly gay people walking about freely. Waiting for the half-hour late, daily bus at the side of the main road, I’ve never felt so much like a circus attraction. Every car that went past – children, youths, adults, old people – they were all craning their necks to look at the two of us, some people actually slowing down! Did we really look so from-out-of-space? Admittedly, I was wearing a pink t-shirt, but still.
We did manage to have a good time and most of the places we visited weren’t as backward as our vacation spot, but it is nice to be home and feel normal again.
Another country
The holiday apartments themselves are family-run and very functional. Thinking we were close enough to a bit of 21st Century civilization, we weren’t expecting the raised eyebrows and barely concealed smirks when we checked in to our home for the next ten days – obviously not a hot-bed of gay vacationing, this place. The old guy who escorted us to our apartment in the nearby block stated loudly when we entered that, “it’s a double bed,” waiting for us to protest that we booked a twin room… No, no, we’re a gay couple and WILL be having sex on that bed.
Once the unpacking was done we consoled ourselves that, being self-contained, we needn’t have much to do with the staff. Spoke too soon there! It was one thing after another: a light-bulb went; no hot water; one of the keys kept sticking in the lock… This meant frequent trips to the deserted reception office (part of their family home), ringing the bell and waiting forever for someone to appear. It got better, though, because they seemed to be leaving everything to the young son. He must have been late teens/early twenties, blond, sun-kissed from all the surf and toned from all the manual work. As the holiday went on we noticed him more and more: topless up ladders; topless working on his car; topless laying bricks and topless outside our window – I thought to myself, if you’re gonna lay bait for the gays, why not welcome them when they show up?
If we felt alien at the holiday camp, this was nothing compared to walking through the local area. We had some really nice day trips out and the picturesque town I mentioned earlier had a lot do see, but to get anywhere by foot or bus we had to first venture down into our own, not-so-pretty town. It’s the kind of shitty, inbred place where they all wear tracksuits and nobody’s used to seeing openly gay people walking about freely. Waiting for the half-hour late, daily bus at the side of the main road, I’ve never felt so much like a circus attraction. Every car that went past – children, youths, adults, old people – they were all craning their necks to look at the two of us, some people actually slowing down! Did we really look so from-out-of-space? Admittedly, I was wearing a pink t-shirt, but still.
We did manage to have a good time and most of the places we visited weren’t as backward as our vacation spot, but it is nice to be home and feel normal again.