So we left the Andaz at stupid o’clock in the morning and went back to LAX where we checked in our luggage and went through the delight that is security in US airports. Actually, it wasn’t that bad although it would be better if the staff occasionally smiled. You feel you dare not crack a joke for fear of being escorted to a nearby room strip searched, anally probed and other such indignities. I’m sure there are some people that might enjoy such searches but I ain’t one of them. So it was keep schtum and carry on. Once through, it was a case of sitting about waiting for our flight to be called. I got my book out and continued to read. This years holiday reading material was a volume written by Mark Manson. Mark is a well known blogger, life style coach and general good egg apparently. The book I had was (and is) entitled “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. A counterintuitive approach to living a good life”. And what a jolly good read it was. I will undoubtedly read it again. There was some very good advise and excellent explanations as to what he is on about. Basically, he states that it’s not a case of not giving a fuck about anything at all – that’s being a psychopath. This is about being selective about what to give a fuck about.
It’s not about giving a fuck about everything your partner gives a fuck about; it’s about giving a fuck about your partner regardless of the fucks he or she gives.
Indeed.
Anyway, our flight was called so off we trundled down to the gate and took off on our 4 and a bit hour flight to the most isolated population center on the face of the earth.
We landed on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Oahu is the site of Honolulu, Waikiki beach, Pearl Harbour, the only royal palace in the United States, the site of the worlds largest wind generator (it wasn’t while Greg was there!) and for those of you who are surfer dudes, the place to find the Banzai Pipeline.
We were staying on the North Shore at the Turtle Bay resort and once again, PIL nailed it. It was lovely. Gorgeous rooms.
Pools, restaurants, shops, bars, a ranch where you could go horse riding and for Ed and Greg the absolute ultimate – a championship golf course designed by some bloke called Arnold Palmer. The beaches weren’t bad either.
It goes without saying that we all descended on the golf course so that Ed and Greg could play a round while PIL, CJ and I looked on in amusement. Actually in truth, PIL and I love watching our two sons playing golf together in an atmosphere of friendly rivalry. To do so meant that we had to learn yet another new language. Perhaps it’s to do with creating a mystique around it and all other sports. The first picture below is of the bane of Ed and Gregs life.
To you and me, it’s a ball but not in golf it’s not. In golf it’s called a “bastard”. We’ve heard it called other things, some of the terms used have shocked both PIL and I causing PIL to put her hands over CJs ears. We never knew they knew such words but we’ll stick with “bastard”. The object of golf, or so it seems, is to hit the bastard off a little thing the golfer pushes into the ground called a “tee”. It’s not shaped like a tee though. It looks vaguely like a miniature egg cup on a spike. The idea being to get the bastard down a small hole somewhere off in the distance.
The distance varies for each hole and you have to do this for EIGHTEEN different holes. Each individual hole has what is known as a “par” which is the number of strokes it takes to get from the teeing off position to the bastard going down the hole. Normally, it’s either 3 for a short hole, 4 for a slightly longer hole and 5 for a hole way off in the distance. Occasionally Greg or Ed will achieve par. Not very often, but sometimes. And when one of them does they are both ecstatic. Scoring the number of shots required to make the bastard disappear down the hole (whereupon you immediately take it out again!) is also odd. Golfers don’t use numbers. They use words like “par” or “birdies” or “eagles” or “bogies” or even “double bogies”. There’s probably a “vulture” and a “snot” in there somewhere but they must be for really low scores cos neither Greg or Ed have had a vulture or a snot. I think there’s an albatross in there somewhere as well.
The route from the tee to the hole is also fraught with danger. Along the way are “bunkers” which are just sand filled holes and “water features” that are really ponds and small lakes. The bastards that Ed and Greg use must be a special type because they seem to gravitate towards these hazards fairly regularly. The other thing that their bastards seem very fond of are areas known as “the rough”. You and I would call these areas “long grass”, “lots of bushes” and “trees”.
The boys seem to have bastards that have a particular attraction for these areas and it has to be said that sometimes, when the bastard lands in these areas, the language did get a bit ripe! The huge golf bastards shown below would be the boys ideal as it would make their life so much easier to find their bastards in amongst the “rough” but unfortunately, these ones are the domes from one of the radar stations dotted around protecting Pearl Harbour.
Irrespective of that, we all had a wonderful time on the course. The setting was glorious, the sun shone and it was just a joy for us all to wander around enjoying each others company.
Sometimes you had to settle in for a long wait
The kids also played tennis on one of several courts on the resort. PIL and I didn’t indulge but we went along to watch and act as umpires. Ed was wearing his sliders so just indulged in a knock about while Greg and CJ played a one set match. It was too hot to play more.
As in indication of the heat, the air conditioning in our room was set at 70F and it felt like a fridge when we walked into the room.
Most of all though we did that family thing we do. We slobbed around by the pool, drank and had far too much to eat.
Every evening we, like most of the resort guests, went and watched the sun go down. It was always spectacular and I make no excuses for the number of photographs we took. Every second of every sunset was different. The colours changed constantly and the way the skies altered throughout each setting was just amazing to watch.
We walked along the beach and poked about on the movie set when they weren’t filming (or looking). It seems Disney were filming a Christmas movie for release this year I think. Some famous actors were banging about and staying at the resort but I have no idea who most of them are. I did recognise one but not got a clue as to his name. No doubt CJ will remind me. Every now and again, each of us would wander off for a few minutes alone, to collect our thoughts and spend awhile losing ourselves. We were staying in a place where you could that.
Every afternoon at around the same time, turtles would appear just off the beach. Possibly to feed, I’m not sure. Their arrival could have had something to do with the tides but the tides in Hawaii are minuscule, a couple of feet at most. There are reasons for this but primarily there are points in the middle of oceans where tides are much smaller. These points are called amphidromes. Hawaii is near the center of the Pacific and only a few hundred miles from one of the amphidromes, hence not much in the way of tides. Whether the turtles were feeding or not I’m not sure but they did seem to be, coming right up to the solidified lava rock that formed a sea wall on stretches of the beach and poking about in all the nooks and crannies.
The sea itself was wonderfully clear and I have to say that on the parts of the beach we wandered along, there was a noticeable absence of any type of plastic. It was the same at Santa Monica and Venice beaches where the beaches themselves were clear of any plastic or litter of any kind. It was only beyond the beach at Venice that litter could be found. In recent years we have travelled to beaches in the Caribbean (Antigua) and the Indian Ocean (Mauritius and Kenya) and we found plastic litter dotted about but there was none to be seen in Hawaii. There may have been elsewhere on the island but we never left the resort so I couldn’t say.
Unfortunately, the time came when we had to leave and return home. As ever, we all wished we could stay but it as not to be. We gathered our belongings and went back to Honolulu International airport, went through a check with the Hawaiian Agriculture Department, checked in our luggage, went through security without a problem and flew to San Francisco where after a few hours of waiting (and going through security again) we got on our flight back to Heathrow. We turned left again as we entered the aircraft and took up residence in our lovely seats, drank drink and stuffed our faces with pleasant food. As time went on we all turned our seats into beds (press a button and hey presto!), had a nice sleep before arriving back in England and facing a 3 hour journey via the M25 before getting home.
Once again, PIL had sorted us all out with an absolutely superb holiday. Everything she had arranged was simply first class and leaves all of us wondering how to follow that? No doubt she will and we are all eternally grateful to her for putting our holiday together.Where to next? We shall see.
Have a wonderful time wherever you may be.
More Dick soon.
iplonker 
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