From glumchal to Funchal
Sitting in the departure lounge for the flight to Madeira is like waiting at the last chance saloon. The average age of the passengers must be 101. Here we all are – Saga rejects - reading our telegrams from the Queen. The younger ones are jigging to the strains of Vera Lynn on their Ipods.
I am well aware by now that Madeira has a reputation for attracting oldies. It’s like Torquay with sun. The chief attraction of Funchal, the capital, is its botanical gardens. It’s like Wisley-on-Sea, where the idea of a good time is to be shoved down a cobbled street on a toboggan.
Every time I told friends of our January holiday plans the response was the same: “You’re not going to Madeira are you? It’s a bit past it isn’t it?”
We’re staying in an apartment a little way out of town. We have been told where to eat, what shows we must see and who we must visit. My mother-in-law, who usually comes here at this time of year, warns us to stay clear of the precipitous levadas –water channels that follow the contours of the mountains.
So we have packed our hiking boots to walk the levadas. If we must go to Madeira, we’re going to walk on the wild side.
I worked all weekend to complete various columns, pushing the parameters of procrastination to hitherto unexplored limits. By Monday morning, with just two-and-a-half hours’ sleep from the previous night, I am not the cheeriest of travellers.
What’s so good about travelling anyway? The more I do it, the more I hate it. The airports are guarded by men with machine guns – like prison camps. You’re shoved around from queue to queue, you buy some Euros at a rubbish rate of exchange (why the hell couldn’t the UK have gone with the Euro?) and all the time there are those stress-inducing announcements: bing bong: “We’re sorry about the delay to our announcement that your flight has been delayed.”
Once on board, with all the Zimmer frames and prosthetics stowed in the overhead racks, we experience a momentary frisson of giddiness as we’re placed next to the emergency exit with added legroom. But the euphoria is short lived.
Above the din of rattling angina tablets, I can hear the grating rhythms of piped, tinny, garage music. There must be good grounds for a case of common assault. You can feel the agitation among our fellow passengers. Where’s the Mantovani? Where’s Smooth FM?
The food arrives, if that is a fair description of what we discover sulking inside our little plastic oval dishettes – a less than hearty serving of Jamie Oliver-condemned chicken. The white chunks look and taste like classroom erasers.
The worthlessness of it all. This poor bird lived and died in misery to provide unwelcome sustenance for the world’s most undeserving diner. Instead it feeds me with guilt, knowing that a child in Eritrea would walk over broken glass for the chance of such a feast.
What joy, what pure, unadulterated, exquisite happiness it is to be on holiday. Madeira here we come.
I am well aware by now that Madeira has a reputation for attracting oldies. It’s like Torquay with sun. The chief attraction of Funchal, the capital, is its botanical gardens. It’s like Wisley-on-Sea, where the idea of a good time is to be shoved down a cobbled street on a toboggan.
Every time I told friends of our January holiday plans the response was the same: “You’re not going to Madeira are you? It’s a bit past it isn’t it?”
We’re staying in an apartment a little way out of town. We have been told where to eat, what shows we must see and who we must visit. My mother-in-law, who usually comes here at this time of year, warns us to stay clear of the precipitous levadas –water channels that follow the contours of the mountains.
So we have packed our hiking boots to walk the levadas. If we must go to Madeira, we’re going to walk on the wild side.
I worked all weekend to complete various columns, pushing the parameters of procrastination to hitherto unexplored limits. By Monday morning, with just two-and-a-half hours’ sleep from the previous night, I am not the cheeriest of travellers.
What’s so good about travelling anyway? The more I do it, the more I hate it. The airports are guarded by men with machine guns – like prison camps. You’re shoved around from queue to queue, you buy some Euros at a rubbish rate of exchange (why the hell couldn’t the UK have gone with the Euro?) and all the time there are those stress-inducing announcements: bing bong: “We’re sorry about the delay to our announcement that your flight has been delayed.”
Once on board, with all the Zimmer frames and prosthetics stowed in the overhead racks, we experience a momentary frisson of giddiness as we’re placed next to the emergency exit with added legroom. But the euphoria is short lived.
Above the din of rattling angina tablets, I can hear the grating rhythms of piped, tinny, garage music. There must be good grounds for a case of common assault. You can feel the agitation among our fellow passengers. Where’s the Mantovani? Where’s Smooth FM?
The food arrives, if that is a fair description of what we discover sulking inside our little plastic oval dishettes – a less than hearty serving of Jamie Oliver-condemned chicken. The white chunks look and taste like classroom erasers.
The worthlessness of it all. This poor bird lived and died in misery to provide unwelcome sustenance for the world’s most undeserving diner. Instead it feeds me with guilt, knowing that a child in Eritrea would walk over broken glass for the chance of such a feast.
What joy, what pure, unadulterated, exquisite happiness it is to be on holiday. Madeira here we come.
Labels: chickens, dishettes, Funchal, glumchal, Jamie Oliver, Maderia, Mantovani, prosthetics, Smooth FM, toboggan, Torquay, Vera Lynn, Wisley-on-sea, Zimmers
posted by Richard Donkin at
12:37 PM
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