Hellish Holiday Happenings

I have been away from my desk, gentle reader, for a few days.  I am on annual leave, and more or less enjoying some time with my children.  We decided to journey en famille to the Central Coast, The Entrance, to be precise.  Mr Bingells happily announced he had booked us the executive suite of a resort right on the water.  Too fabulous, I thought.  We arrived, checked in, and were given a key.  I took into account the shabby carpet as I climbed the stairs.  Stairs don't worry me too much, but I couldn't see an elevator anywhere, so the place might have been not very wheelchair friendly.  We opened the door, and the first words out of my mouth were, 'Executive suite, my arse!'  Indeed, we had been put in the wrong room, and when the problem was sorted, and we got to the right room, I echoed the cry I had given in the previous room.  It was truly the shoddiest room I have ever stayed in.  Now, I have stayed in a hole in the wall - literally - in India.  In India my bed was a bunk carved into the wall, and I didn't mind so much because, hey, it's India; it's to be expected and part of the ambience and experience of travel.  The so called private balcony was perhaps a little over a metre in width.  The folding shower screen was a design of cumbersomeness sufficient to be an occupational safety hazard.  There was scarcely any dunny paper, to boot.  With the innocence that is the sole province of children, my ten-year-old ventured the opinion the self-contained cabin we rented last year was better  My ten-year-old was correct.

Still, we decided to soldier on.  We clambered up and down the stairs, and I took into account the melon rind on the floor, and the cigarette butts not cleaned away from the communal balcony.  We entered the games room, which due to the fans blowing hot air from the Daytona car machines was untenable.  Also, the ripped baize on the pool table would have ensured no decent game would be played, with hypothetical pool balls either bumping and rolling backwards at the tear, or clattering over it but with their trajectory altered and no subsequent sinking into the pocket.  Interestingly, Mr Bingells is quite a good player (he goes for competition), and he might have calculated a trajectory and a strike with the cue that could have circumvented the problem of the torn and raised flap of baize, but he didn't bother trying. 

But I didn't want to spend too much energy moaning about the accommodation.  The next day, after a pleasant morning boating, we returned to the cesspit hotel to shower and dress for dinner.  My ten-year-old mounted the stairs and turned down the corridor leading to our room, whereupon his toes snagged in one of the multitudinous carpet rips, and he was sent sprawling   I demanded rhetorically, not for the first time, how the hotel dared to charge like a bull with an erection for such a substandard dump. 

Not to worry, I thought.  Dinner would be enjoyable.  It was so not enjoyable.  I ordered the barramundi.  We waited.  And waited.  And waited some more.  I can normally cope with waiting, but with hungry children it is on par with water-boarding.  Finally - FINALLY- the food arrived.  I salivated at the thought of my succulent fish.  My eyes bulged like Ping-Pong balls in their sockets at the ersatz creation masquerading as a meal that was placed before me.  After moving a few watery vegetables, I located my fish.  Well, again, it was something masquerading as a fish.  It was miniscule and dry to the point of being a fire hazard.  Somewhere, a befuddled nun is trying to find her underpants.  Did I complain?  Yes.  Did I tip the restaurant?  No fucken way.

But it was not all crud.  Enjoyed a train ride into Sydney and a few hours in the Power House Museum, and an absolutely scrumptious Japanese meal on our last night, which our oldest son used as an opportunity to showcase what he's learned in Japanese as he conversed with the waitress.  And we have learned next time, we are booking early and getting into a decent spot!