Week 49 - Notes from a Greek Island

The days have winged heels, Homer said (the Greek fellow, not the yellow one).

This week has been one of jet lag without the benefit of actually going abroad. The jet lag was caused by a Bank Holiday here in the UK which crept up on me and messed up my already fragile plans.

As predictable as traffic jams on a Bank Holiday, is the fact that I am running out of days at an alarming rate. Then along came that extra day’s holiday and where did I find myself?

Surrounded by thirty-seven women.

Now I would like to claim that these were Novel Blog groupies; but they weren’t. They were - and believe me I counted them - the number of women who entered the cinema I was sitting in with my wife before another man came in.

I don’t think you need a PhD in Cinematic Theory to realise that this can’t have been a James Bond film. No it was...Mamma Mia!

I always worry about those exclamation marks. They seem to say - this is going to be loud and screechy. And it was. The hoards of women surrounding me wept, clapped, sang and even danced as the film unfolded before my cynical eyes.

Of course, I didn’t enjoy the film. True, I did get cramp in my feet which manifested itself in what someone could be forgiven for thinking was foot tapping; and the silly smile that kept crossing my face must surely have been a result of too much fibre in my diet. And what some believed to be laughter as Julie Walters strode across tables while singing Take A Chance On Me was definitely caused by me choking on one too many Malteesers.

That’s not to say the experience was a total waste of two hours (and let’s be honest, two hours in the presence of Amanda Seyfried is hardly a waste).

I was struck how much the plot resembled a crime novel. There was a list of suspects (i.e. possible fathers), a set of clues and red herrings and finally a denouement with a twist.

Looking at it this way, I can satisfy myself that Monday wasn’t a day lost to the thief that is time, but rather a research trip that just happened to be made up of dozens of slightly insane women having the time of their lives.

When all is said and done, my plans didn’t meet their Waterloo. They actually made another step towards my goal; and as planning goes, that’s the name of the game.