Waking up this morning, I looked across at my bride to me, neck chubb bunched up under her chin as she flicked thru her phone. She turned to me and smiled with that smile I love, the one that she does with her eyes that wrinkles the bridge of her nose in embarrassment (And I’ll likely never see again after she reads this!)
Normally she says something like “good morning my love” but today it was “good morning my finance”. I know I must have grinned back like a lovesick moron before kissing her deeply. I’m such a lucky guy and each time she smiles at me like that I always go weak at the knees, lucky I was still in bed. Her smile is one of the driving forces behind my ambitions in life; doing whatever I can to make sure Aimi smiles at me like this forever more.
We found our way up to the main restaurant that morning and saw every single food you could possibly want for breakfast, or even dinner, laid out to choose from. My tummy was calling for a plate of all of it, but there would be no way, so I’m sticking with a guilty pleasure; pancakes with bacon and maple syrup and some fruit. Yesterday morning i had tried to have tea, but everyone drinks coffee here so even the tea tasted of it. I’m just going to have to learn to drink coffee, with lots of sugar.
We mooched around for a bit and booked a couple excursions for later in the week before heading to the spa. Here we had hydro therapy together in various pools and rooms. The pool was really nice, with warm water and jets to pummel your knotty necks in preparation for later. The next part was a cold room at 15 degrees. After wandering around in 30+ heat and then water, 15 degrees felt like an arctic wind was blowing across our skin, but actually, that’s still warmer than stepping outside in the UK right now… oh man are we going to suffer when we get back! Then it was on to a hot jacuzzi bath at 38 degrees which felt like fire to get into. Then a cool pool which was hard, but then the cold pool was a real force of will to make it in. Especially after Aimi had just casually walked into it like it was nothing and an american chick did the same there was no way I could avoid it. As horrid as the cold water was for the moment we were in it, once out, we all felt really refreshed and invigorated.
Now we split up and headed off to our various treatments. Aimi got her nails manicured and I went for a full body massage. Turns out I have a collection of knots or muscles in my middle right back that, when pushed on, make me compulsively giggle and tense up. I tried my best, but I couldn’t get over it and eventually the masseuse moved on and I could relax again.
Leaving the massage parlour feeling wobbly we headed to the beach to just vegetate on the psalm shaded beds. This was how we spent the rest of the day, drinking cocktails from the friendly barman who helped me remember some more Spanish and starting the tanning process.
That evening we had reserved a table at one of the more fancy restaurants specialising in Italian. We realised that there were actually 2 Italian restaurants and we didn’t know which one we had reserved. What a problem to have! As luck would have it we got all dressed up and made our way to the wrong one first, before a short walk took us to the correct one further down the road.
That evening there was a fire show being staged on the beach. We went along as a matter of course, but could barely keep our eyes open. I think we were still on the edge of jet lag and being full of food made us sleepy. We had this odd sense of obligation to attend before we realised that actually we just wanted to be alone and quiet. We departed and walked up the beach to a secluded space with hammocks to lay there, rocking beneath the palms and stars till we fell asleep.