I don't remember yesterday...

Last night I was making a shopping list and I found a notebook that I took to Tenerife over summer. It was a very interesting read because I took it everywhere with me. I remember making waiters nervous when I sat in restaurants by the seafront taking notes. That may have been why they kept lining up free drinks for me.

Enjoy.

Lying in hospital strapped to machines on oxygen with numerous IVs in each hand:

"This never happened before I met Bill, it's all Eric's fault" - Apparently I said that. Lying in a Tenerifian private hospital somewhat pissed off that I'm in for a long recovery because APPARENTLY vampires don't actually exist and so I can't just siphon some blood off one of them. Crapola.

Reflections on being in hospital:

Two hours of my life spent thinking I was Sookie Stackhouse. So not only did I think the voices I was hearing where thought, I thought I was American, had no parents and was screwing at least one of two very hot vampires. Oh how disappointed I was to be.

Sitting by a volcanic beach contemplating nudity:

Climatising to public partial nudity the only way I know how = staring hard. Somewhat annoyed and insecure that my reaction is larger than those of the guys here. Maybe all Spaniards are celibate. I'm willing people's shorts into action just so I look normal.

How much the locals loved me:

Already renamed 'Señorita Loco' by the local locals after I invested in a particularly unbecoming hat.

Sat in a bar with small children screaming at their parents for money:

I am far too poor and humble to be around so many spoilt, whiny and rich children. When I have kids, we'll live in a trailer in Louisiana or Arkansas and a 'treat' will be a trip to WalMart where I'll buy them chocolate milk... IF THEY'RE LUCKY. Yeehaw.

The Presidente-lady of the apartment building visits:

The Presidente visited the pool today. Tempted to have a 'The Young Ones' moment and strut around in a motorcycle helmet with a baseball bat yelling 'VIVA EL PRESIDENTE!' - it's a pity I can't move.

Ruminations on the law:

One of the great things about Tenerife is the law. It's AWESOME. Hospital time aside, I've spent every night ordering drinks and being dared to down x amount of shots by bar owners. I think the USA's drinking age restriction is 21, in the UK it's 18 and here in Tenerife it's about 5.

Looked in the mirror:

Look like Frankenstein's monster's wife's second cousin-in-law. Feeling similar.

Decided bad things only happen to me when I do expensive things:

Furthermore, will not spoilt kids so that they know a good thing when they see it, unlike my mammon of a sister.

Setting affairs in order:

List of priorities:
- Have more vampire dreams
- Find purple hate
- Buy cheap but nice jewelry
- Buy stamps
- Send postcards
- Cause Cleo harm
- Get a decent night's sleep.

Must've written this in the dead of night because my handwriting is impossible:

...And on the ninth day, she arrested.

Must've missed English food:

...Ploughman's sandwich. And if you don't know what one of those is, I'm disgusted and think you should go assemble cheese, lettuce, cucumber, tomato, Branston Pickle (only the best) and a tiny splodge of mayo on some buttered brown bread and sink your teeth in. It's 400 calories of burning love.

I love myself:

Ten good things about me:

1. I am charming. Really.
2. I almost never forget to brush my teeth.
3. When I sustain blows to the head I talk funny.
4. I make the best mushroom stroganoff EVER.
5. If I freak out, I got the whole hog.
6. I don't do small injuries. At all. Ever.
7. I'm so allergic to everything at bread and water is good enough in ANY situation.
8. I can make you look skinny.
9. I can drink like a whale.
10. I'm very simple.

Oddly enough I can't remember writing any of this.

Tenerife recap: It's all Eric's fault.

Ahh, Tenerife... Where do I begin?

You see, Tenerife was lovely and I have some great stuff on my camera, but the problem is that I honestly don't remember what the hell I did there, and at one point, I didn't even know who I was.



So yeah. There's me on what I'm told was my second or third day in a hospital in Tenerife, on oxygen with IVs in each of my hands and cuts and bruises from head to toe.

I do this shit with styyyle.



Me a few (eight) days later, reenacting the cause of all the memory loss. But what happened to me, dear peeps of the web? Did I pass out from the SEARING EFFIN' HEAT at the top of some CONCRETE stairs, fall down, smash my head on EVERY step before finally ending the fall on my FACE?

Bloody hell, that was a good guess.



I'd been by the pool for all of thirty minutes (did you know that pretty much every building in Los Cristianos, Tenerife has an outdoor pool? York has THREE, and we're real proud of that. I got schooled.) when it got too hot and we started up towards the apartment. The gate to get out of the pool area was locked at the top of about ten stone steps and I was waiting for someone to unlock it when I just blacked out. Or white-ed out. And when I woke up, I wasn't the person I thought I was.



Seriously. I could not remember who I was. I could just remember the book I'd been reading just before I fell, and I put two and two together and got 15.

Yeah. I thought I was Sookie Stackhouse.

I scared the shit out of my mum when she asked if I remember what happened and the first thing I said was, "Did Eric send us here? I never got hurt before I met Bill."

Which led to people asking me questions about what my name was and where I was from and who the hell Eric and Bill were.

It was my little sister who supplied everyone with the answers to the last question (she's ten years old and she watches True Blood with me every week... disturbing) and went on to say "What page number are you on, Nicole?"

"37. Nicole?" And that's when it started to come back to me.

I was Sookie Stackhouse for all of ten minutes, and I didn't even get to see any vampire action in that time. There is something wrong with the world.

I earned the title of 'vampire' anyway because after I got burnt the day I fell down the stairs, I refused to leave the apartment until nighttime because my sunburn was chronic. Beyond peeling, I was blistering and splitting all over the place. Bleurgh.



After I was sprung from hospital (somewhat literally) I spent the following four nights getting sympathy from gorgeous waiters who would take one look at my big, beautiful (black, due to landing on the face) eyes and line up free drinks.

In every freaking bar and restaurant I went into.

I was VERY merry.

You know how you have to be 21 to get served in bars in the US, and 18 in the UK? In Tenerife you can be all of 5 and get a drink. And I know this because I actually had a five year old with me who ordered my drink.

I shit you not.



Tenerife was total hormone hell. On the plane I was in the throes of pure teenage hormonal rage because I had to sit next to my sister in a sealed tin for five hours and ohmygodwouldyoushutthefuckupplease? and then when I got down to the beach there were topless, tanned rolling abs everywhere.

As in, e v e r y w h e r e.



I do have my concerns around the yummy Spaniards though. There were lots and lots and lotsandlotsandlots of topless women everywhere, and these men didn't even blink. Not even a tiny bit. It makes no sense. Even if you are used to people walking around half naked (I'm totally used to this, you should see the centre of York on a Saturday night) you should at least get a little kick out of the woman in front of you taking her top off and jiggling about all wet in the sun. I cannot count the amount of times I found myself willing some guy's shorts to make an appearance. I wonder if they're all just secretly dysfunctional in that area. I was getting a bigger kick out of it all that they were, which is saying something.

Getting back to England was something else entirely. I almost cried with happiness when it started raining, freezing cold in Leeds-Bradford Airport. And then the day after I went to a BBQ where people were admiring my sun-worshipping mother's tan.

...And then they saw me.

"Christ Nicky where have you been? You're as pale as ever."

You see, I thought I was tanned and nice, but apparently I'd just tanned to the normal human colour, rather than my usual pallor.

Well, fuck. All my poolside suffering was for nothing.

Conclusion: Next year I'm going somewhere nice and cool like Norway and Finland and I'll just hope to hell that I don't fall off a fjord or something.