A matter of time

5. Go skinny dipping

Jess’s dad came down to our hotel on Sunday with a rental car to take us all to Cannes. So we’re spending a week down there, a good length of time for me to get a suntan. In case you’re wondering, yes it is the same place Mr Bean goes in his movie, except we’re not harbouring a Russian child who got separated from his dad. And our rental car is a Toyota and not a Mini, but other than that we’re practically the same person. We pile all of our belongings into the back of the car. It’s a people carrier which means one unlucky person is going to have to sit in the back seat next to the luggage. Since me, Jess and Nicole bagged the three middle seats, one of my parents has to take the dreaded spot. I just hope Jess’s dad is good at piling up luggage or I’m going to lose one of my parents in a suitcase avalanche. That would look brilliant on a tombstone!

My dad is left with the back seat after mum calls shotgun. She pokes her tongue out at him as he trudges to the back and fastens his seatbelt- and she says I'm supposed to be the child. Mr Parsons turns on the radio and we set off towards Cannes. 5sos’s ‘She looks so perfect’ comes on and the girlies and I begin a torrent of out of tune singing at the top of our voices whilst our parents groan and prepare for the oncoming headaches.

This charade continues for an hour and a half until the parents decide to stop for a toilet and food break- obviously not at the same time, we didn’t order the food and eat it in the ladies room. That would be weird. We order pancakes at a delightful little cafe in the service station. Soft French music plays throughout creating a soothing atmosphere as we are waited on by a group of young men in smart attire. If they lost the moustaches, they would be classed as what the urban youths call ‘buff’. Apparently Jess likes men with ‘taches as she giggles every time one of them walks past the table. They retaliate by winking and throwing her little French comments, since she is the only one of us who can actually speak a foreign language. Until her dad picks up the fact that she was trying to give one of them her number and they are sent packing by a threatening glance. I guess Jess forgot that nearly all of us can recognise 0-10 in French. But I applaud the fact she was brave enough to flirt with them under the watchful eye of one of her parents, a feat which me and Nic try to avoid. After an awkward silence we all dig into our mounds of pancakes, topped with maple syrup, whipped cream and a whole other range of toppings. I opted for strawberries, chocolate and whipped cream, yummy!   

An hour later and we are all back in the car, feeling full and satisfied. This time dad called shotgun and mum had to sit next to the teetering pile of luggage. The oldies have also managed to hijack the radio so we are forced to listen to Magic; well it was either that or LBC, which for those of you who haven’t had the privilege of hearing, is basically a radio station where a couple of boring old farts talk about current issues and invite the public to join in the conversation. I don’t know who finds that interesting during a long car journey. The sad part of the remaining journey was that I knew most of the old songs that were playing on the radio and had to restrain myself from belting out the tunes with the rest of the adults. Instead I reminded myself to do a rendition of Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I will survive’ in the shower this evening.

Due to our late start, when we get to our beachfront hotel in Cannes we grab dinner and agree to call it a night. Surprisingly, my parents are allowing me to share a room with the girlies. We take it in turns to shower and change into our pjs. Then I tell the girls my plan for tonight.

“Right guys, I want another item ticked off my bucket list tonight” I start. The girlies look at me and raise their eyebrows, not sure what I’m going to throw at them this time. They’ve scanned over my bucket list before and they know that there are a few crazy things on there. I pull the folded piece of paper containing the list out of my suitcase and hand it over to him. They scan the list until they come to the next un-ticked item. I see Nicole’s eyes widen and Jess starts shaking her head.

“No way!” they chorus.

“Yes way,” I retort, grabbing the list of them and laughing. “We said we were going to do it when we were older anyway and due to the change in circumstances we’re going to do it now.” I see both of them share an expression as I refer to my shortened life and they both agree to do it with me.

We sit and talk until around midnight. We then sneak down the hall in our pjs and check that our parents are asleep before heading out of the hotel, remembering to pick up our door-key and towels on the way out. We step out of the hotel and straight onto the silky sand. We run into the darkness, looking for a perfect spot to store out towels and clothes. We find a spot near the edge of the beach with clusters of rocks. We throw our towels down and scan the beach looking for other people. Once we are satisfied we are alone we run towards the waters edge, stripping in the process. Nicole, being the tallest, arrived first and shrieked as the cool surf smashed into her body. Jess and I soon join her and we wade in so we are submerged up to our necks. We may be best friends but I’d prefer not to have images of their bits in my head tonight, I don’t swing that way. I feel like Jess might, or she might swing both ways. It’s just a feeling I have since she’s never had a crush in her life and notice the way she stares at women sometimes. But I'm not one to judge and to be honest it would make a difference to her friendship. I need to remember to have a talk with her later. We conduct a water fight for the next half an hour before just swimming and having a good time. Then we watch the sunrise before heading back to our room. We enter the room laughing and stop dead at the sight in front of us. Mr Parsons and my parents were standing in the middle of the room with their arms folded and unamused expressions on their faces- I guess we have a lot of explaining to do. There goes any ideas of freedom for the rest of the holiday.

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Hey people, sorry for long time no update. I guess I just needed time to work out where I was going with this story. I now know where I want this story to end and I just need time to work out what exactly I want to go on before then. I don't have a bucket list myself so it's taking me a while to find interesting things to write about. I hope to update a bit sooner next time. Until then,

Ciao for now ;)