Recently I’ve been having a problem. And that problem is Fiji.
Well, to be more precise, that problem is that I agreed last Christmas to go to Fiji this year & now that the time is rolling close, I find I’m really depressed by it. Okay, not depressed. More like stressed, upset & annoyed.
And why, you’re wondering, am I annoyed about a trip to a tropical island that I, as a grown woman, agreed to? Yes, it’s a good question, isn’t it, & I myself have spent the last month wondering what the hell the answer is & what is wrong with me & whether I’m quite sane.
But then Friday after 2 glasses (could’ve been 3) of red wine & some of my favourite cider from one of my favourite pubs, it hit me with all the sudden clarity that alcohol, in its raw animal wisdom, can invoke.
The *reason*, you see, that I agreed to go to Fiji is that it’s the place where my grandfather spent part of WWII as an engineer for the Colonial Sugar Refinery Company (CSR) in Lautoka. And it’s where my grandparents were married. And given this is Female Appreciation Month, I can confess to you, gentle reader, that nothing has been the same since my grandmother died in, was it 2001? It’s a blur, really, because in a way her death has never stopped happening for me.
So, no, I don’t quite appear to be sane!
And if my travel companion, my mother, is as unnerved by this trip as I am, it could probably explain why SHE herself appears to be limping forward with the planning that I’ve been trying to avoid! But by god we’ll get this trip sorted & we’ll visit that damned church in Lautoka (er, I’m not sure which one, but I’m assuming NOT the Sri Krishna Temple) & — by god — we’ll have ourselves a tropical holiday if the damn thing nearly kills us!