Free Going Up and Going Down by Eva Bielby Page A

holidays without me which was a good sign - they obviously
didn’t feel the need to watch my every move any longer. I went to Paris with them for the occasional long weekend but that was it.
    Not long after
our holiday in Spain, Cindy, the receptionist from work announced her marriage.
She had first met Adam a couple of months before our holiday. Once she was back
from Spain they became an item. He proposed on Valentine’s Day and the wedding
was planned for August. I felt quite honoured when she asked me to be a
bridesmaid along with Gemma our office manager. We eagerly accepted and with
only six months until the nuptials it was back and forth to the seamstress
every two or three weeks, shopping for the right sandals and hair accessories
and a trial run at the hairdressers. It was a busy time for us and Cindy’s
excitement was infectious. I felt quite envious at times. The wedding came and
went. Cindy had looked so radiant, pretty and happy. I was pleased for her.
Gemma and I didn’t look too bad either. There was a weird moment when Cindy
threw her bouquet into the eager crowd of waiting singles. I stood and watched,
totally bemused, an innocent bystander, at all the young ladies and their
eagerness for the exquisite, airborne blooms and berries, to fall into their
grasp. When the flowers, which hit me on the forehead, landed in my arms and
knocked off my headband in the process, there were howls of laughter along with
some jealous mutterings from the wannabe brides.
    As we all stood
and watched the classic Rolls Royce, adorned with the old boots and tin cans as
was tradition, pull away from the Majestic Hotel, Gemma whispered in my ear,
    “That’s one
less for our holiday to Tenerife. We’re down to five now. So don’t you go off
and fall in love will you?”
    I widened my
eyes in horror.
    “I’m off men,
Gemma, so that’s not bloody likely to happen.”
    Christmas came
around again along with the chaos that the British weather had been causing
since early November. After a quiet but pleasant Christmas day with my parents
Boxing Day morning soon arrived. The pre-booked mini-cab picked me up at 11am
(after Gemma) then after collecting Nina, Gillian and Janet, our other friends,
it was Gatwick here we come. We had yet another good holiday together doing
exactly the same things that we did in Spain the previous year, along with two
or three bits of excitement that we could have done without. Gillian left her
handbag in a bar one night and on returning there to look for it, found that it
was gone - nobody had handed it in. Her credit cards had been in there and she
managed to call the card companies to get the cards cancelled and before her
account had been used. Fortunately she hadn’t taken too much cash out with her
that night but obviously she was upset. Nina, despite protecting her very pale
skin with a high factor protection and avoiding spending too long in the
sun, still managed to get quite badly burned. We all attended the hospital
emergency clinic with her and sat around for four hours before she was even
attended to.
    Then there was
me. I was doing my forty lengths one morning while the pool was fairly quiet
when some stupid kid, not looking where he was going, dive-bombed into the pool
and straight onto my back. I seemed to be under the water for ages, panicking
and gasping for breath, but I finally managed to surface. I was laid on the
poolside in shock and in absolute agony with my back while a small crowd
gathered around. The parents of the kid, sat on the opposite side of the pool,
were glowering over at me with looks that implied, how dare I be in the pool
when their little boy was having some fun, or stupid woman, it’s her own fault.
Serves her right for getting in the way! My back ached badly for a couple of
days but thankfully there was no lasting damage.
    We still
managed to have plenty of fun and like all holidays it came to an end all too
soon and we were back at Gatwick again. I wondered