In North Germany I had a great seaside holiday, and in Helsinki, an even better one. When I go to the beach with Ian, we find a place where Ian can sit in the shade and sleep and read, while I play in the sea. We took a ferry from Helsinki to a small island where we spent the day on the nudist beach. Waiting at the ferry port, a man, younger than both of us, I suspect, but old and disappointed in his demeanour, responded to our travel tales with concern about our (or his?) health. He’s waiting for an operation on his knee, “You must be healthy for such a trip”, he pronounced. I thought of all the drugs we’re taking to keep Ian’s heart beating and my joints moving and to dull our aches and pains.
In Germany, we stayed on a yacht. In Finland we stayed in a flat above a sex shop. The flat was small, and our room was too hot when the morning sun came up. Our host was a Turkish football referee who is studying to become a paramedic, and his 5 year old daughter was also staying there some of the time. He’d put a curtain up between the living room where they slept and ate and watched TV and the tiny kitchen where I tried not to wake them as I struggled to make breakfast (making coffee with filter papers in a colander) and sandwiches for our picnics on the beach.
In Germany, we stayed on a yacht. In Finland we stayed in a flat above a sex shop. The flat was small, and our room was too hot when the morning sun came up. Our host was a Turkish football referee who is studying to become a paramedic, and his 5 year old daughter was also staying there some of the time. He’d put a curtain up between the living room where they slept and ate and watched TV and the tiny kitchen where I tried not to wake them as I struggled to make breakfast (making coffee with filter papers in a colander) and sandwiches for our picnics on the beach.
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