It's another rest day today so I'm going to carry on with the next instalment from my 2013 diary, and my uneventful trip to Italy. In the last episode I'd made it to the Gatwick Travelodge with my copy of The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes and I was going to sleep, ready to fly the next day and leave a rainy old England behind me.
Well, I did that (leaving a phone charger in Room 139 unfortunately) and crammed myself onto the plane with rows of holidaymakers. Here's what happened next...
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September 6th, 2013
I'd forgotten all the little awkwardnesses of being on holiday on your own.
The travelling was fine: I enjoyed watching the clouds lazily hanging in the air beneath us, the dark alpine mountains and the shadows moving massively over the terrain. The people next to me were asleep and not awkwardly arguing or trying to peer out of the window, so that was a plus.
I had that thrill of being in another country as the heat swelled from the tarmac at Napoli airport. It's 31 degrees here and it feels great. The Bay of Naples stretches out, vast and perfect blue, the sun is bright and warm and there's a glass of wine right here on the table in front of me. But I am alone. I can organise myself to get here and fly back next week. But I can't organise for the three other chairs around this table to be occupied by people I love. I can't fix that.
And the three chairs are a great reminder to me. Perhaps then I should treat this as an opportunity to chill out, relax and take in some sun, not think too much about my solitude.
It's tough though. Everybody goes on holiday with somebody, even single people must - it's the rules, right?
--
It's nearly 10pm now. The air outside is still quite pleasant, much like one of those balmy nights we get at the end of July in England. Most people are out on the terrace, swarmed around slender bottles of wine that just catch the light. They chatter happily in groups, relaxed and free with their families and their friends.
I don't belong.
But why should I be denied a holiday, simply because I have no-one to go with? How has society done this to us? We are the misfits, the oddballs, the weirdos. If I go home and tell everyone I was lonely and a little depressed, they might all cheer in a chorus of "Well what did you expect?" as though I'm the only person alive who couldn't understand the system.
This dissatisfaction is at the heart of my mood. I'm dissatisfied with a culture that has made it difficult to enjoy a holiday by yourself.
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The bay is stunning by night. Naples gleams across the sea in a pretty array of fairy lights skirting the dark, silhouette of Vesuvius, which looms behind the city, invisible and foreboding. The water itself is inky black, stretching under the lights and out to the Mediterranean, the Great Ocean; the mystery of it in the darkness makes me want to row across it.
This hotel has a luminous sign above reception. It contains no punctuation. It simply says: WHEN YOU COME HERE WHAT HEAR HERE WHAT YOU SEE HERE WHEN YOU LEAVE HERE LEAVE IT HERE. I've got no idea what it means other than maybe 'don't steal our stuff' or 'What happens at the Gran Paradiso stays at the Gran Paradiso'. Otherwise it's quite threatening.
If it is that, like some sort of message from the mafia, you didn't hear it from me.
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