Something to Declare

Danny Robins is itching for a well-earned holiday.

Something to Declare

ILLUSTRATION: SPENCER WILSON / SYNERGY ART

IT WILL HAPPEN WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT. It could be when you realise you’ve just put depilatory cream on your toothbrush, or that you’re wearing slippers in the supermarket. Or perhaps it will be the shocking revelation that you’ve just forwarded a naked picture of yourself under the subject line “Look what you’re getting when I come home” not to your loving and expectant partner but to your regional manager. It’s the moment when you realise you need a holiday.

Because the simple truth of human existence is this: no normal person can possibly work 52 weeks a year. The body just won’t take it. Work 51 weeks in a row and in week 52 someone will find you hiding under your desk shaking, and whispering: “I’m a mole, I’m a mole.”

For me, the moment of revelation came a few weeks ago. I’d just got home after a long day and went to take out my contact lenses. As I reached into my right eye, to my surprise there was no contact lens. Puzzled, I reached into the left and found two lenses – one on top of the other. While I was relieved that my blurred vision wasn’t the onset of cataracts, clearly if I was starting the day by stuffing two lenses in one eye like some sort of astigmatic cyclops, I pretty urgently needed to find myself on a beach with a book in one hand and a pina colada in the other. Or, better still, pina coladas in both hands with the book balanced on top.

Some nationalities are better than others at recognising their holiday needs. In France, as far as I can work out, everyone very sensibly takes a whole month off each year. I went to Paris one August and the only people there were confused Americans trying to find out why all the restaurants were shut. In Sweden, a very law-abiding country, 20% of police stations close down in July safe in the knowledge that even the criminals are having a chillax. The Spanish have really got it cracked with the siesta – spread your holiday out over the whole year by taking three hours every single day. That’s the equivalent of 45.63 days a year.

If you’re reading this and are one of the lucky ones already heading off somewhere sunny, have fun but spare a thought for those still stuck in the office, even now watching the clock tick slowly down to the end of Friday, week 51. Under the table is looking pretty tempting right now. Repeat after me: “I’m a mole, I’m a mole.”

FLY TO MALAGA, PARIS (BEAUVAIS AND VATRY) AND STOCKHOLM (SKAVSTA AND VASTERAS) FROM ACROSS THE RYANAIR NETWORK. VISIT www.RYANAIR.COM