I'm Hands Solo Baldrick

Verna Cook-Jackson

Earlier in the week I was reminded of a classic Blackadder quote:  ‘Leave me alone Baldrick, if I wanted to talk to a vegetable I would have bought one at the market.’

                       

I’m presently staying at a time share resort where there are large chalets each housing five units all built above one another on a steep hillside tucked in the back of busy little Paihia.  It is busy holiday season and there are a lot of people staying here.

It is lovely.  I haven’t been to this place to stay for many years.  When my boys were small we purchased the time share option so that we had a favoured place to return to every summer without the burden of holiday home ownership, extra and constant maintenance, rates, insurances and concerns.  Time share was the perfect option and over the years it worked out to be exactly that.  Indeed, we calculated that after two years of holidays we had already received value for monies initially paid out.

But this article is not about time shares.  It’s about my coming up here this year, the first for many years, and utilising the week of ownership I have.  It is my experiment to fathom out whether to retain the time share or flick it off as a bad option for someone in my situation.

My situation being a solo person with no fixed income who needs to plan ahead for a solo future with still not fixed income; except for the future prospect of becoming …..  a pensioner…. heaven forbid.

So it is I arrived here last Friday to be met at reception by one of the management team and some boofhead who happened to be floating around their office area and thought he was making the guests feel welcome on their arrival.

I am very quick at picking up on personalities and in normal circumstances would have retorted to his silly welcoming comments with some form of put down, but this day I was in a good mood and decided to play along with his silly comments, such as, “And where is Mr Cook-Jackson today?”  To which I retorted, “Well, today I think Mr Cook-Jackson may well be catching up with family in Heaven.”

Management team lady stood there staring, trying to fathom whether she heard what she heard while Boofhead, in his weak endeavour to continue a repartee responded, with a querulous face, “Ha, ha.  No really, is Mr Cook-Jackson joining you for the week?”

Boofhead was truly a boofhead.

It was that this point I recalled the Baldrick-vegetable quote and so wanted to pull it out of my repertoire.                                     

Instead I asked who he was and what business was it of his to be asking such personal questions.  Why?  He was a salesman of course, and hanging around check in all day Fridays in the hope of catching potential clients to make sales appointments with them to sell them more products. And he was Australian.  That made sense.  Isn’t ‘boofhead’ an original Australian word?

The ending to this little part of the story is both he and the receptionist seems to be surprised that a single person would be checking into a time share resort for a week.  Clearly time shares are couple or family orientated but I would not have though it all that unusual for single people to own and utilise one a time share.  Seems I am wrong.

For the next day I came across my neighbouring time share owner in the stairwell and we began chatting.  She now owns hers via her own father’s departure to the same place that Tony now resides, lucky her as her father owned the first three weeks of every year.  She’s inherited a good long holiday every year.

We chatted and I mentioned I was here on my own, to which she instantly replied, “Oh, but you can’t spend the whole week in there on your own.”

Why not, says I.  “Oh, you must come to dinner tomorrow night, I insist you are not to stay in and have dinner on your own.  We’re eating with those up in Unit 7 and you must come and join us.”

So I did.  And it seems even those in Unit 7 were curiously interested that I would have a week’s holiday here on my own. 

I began to question:  What’s the big deal?  I’ve got no one to holiday with so why wouldn’t I go on my own?  And my solo friends holiday on their own, so what’s the big deal?

Seems that to some it is a strange phenomena. 

The next evening management of time share held a Happy Hour for owners to enjoy a drink and some nibbles, an opportunity they said, to meet fellow time share owners. 

I had hummed and hawed about attending this for the two days preceding as confess to knowing these are boring occasions with only those who seek out free drinks and free food attending, but then I reprimanded myself and determined that I need to be less judgmental and go along and enjoy meet some new people – whilst having a free drink and nibble!

I went. I was the only solo person there.  The others were all couples and families.  Be many of them very odd ones indeed. 

Lucky me, I was handed a wine by Boofhead, who by this time had clearly decided not to continue repartee with me as his guard was well and truly up with conversation curtailed to “Hope you are enjoying your stay.”   Was waiting for him to add on… “by yourself”.   He didn’t.

I spent the next hour introducing myself to some of the other owners and did not bother to mention I was staying on my own, until the very last stages when the conversation turned to the quality of the local restaurants and one of the chaps asked where I would be dining tonight, to which I replied that I would be cooking my own dinner.  To which he responded, light-heartedly, “Is your husband up in the unit cooking it for you?”

Now, I did so want to make a statement that they do not do home delivery takeaways in Heaven, but under these circumstances I did have the kind sense to know it was an innocent, time filling question in the first place so bit my sarcastic tongue and told him and those in the conversation that my husband had died some time ago and I was here in Paihia on my own.

I did not expect the universal responses from others in the group.  “You are on your own?” said one in an manner that suggested surprise.  “Yes,” said I, to which others seemed to tut-tut both in sympathy for my loss and in surprise at my independence of holidaying solo.

What is so weird about my being on solo holiday on my own?  .

Do all single people have such interrogation when travelling on their own?  Or is the fact that I am now a 37 plus something individual that instigates the surprise?

So, my days continued and yesterday I went for my second long bush walk over the Cape Brett peninsula to the beautiful and remote harbour of Whangamumu.  I set off early, driving from here to the start of the walk and began the actual walking just after 9 a.m.  Just me.  Me and nature.  Until I came across a DOC ranger who was working on clearing the grassy track for walkers like me.  We chatted briefly and he asked enquiringly if I was on my own.  “Yes,” I replied, “and know I am completely safe on this track.” He agreed and off I went.

When I did eventually get to Whangamumu Harbour there were four more DOC workers clearing tracks and after sitting for a while a conversation between the head man and myself evolved to my reasoning for walking to this place.  He had asked what bought me here, on my own, to be tramping solo.  I laughed out loud, and told him that I had never had so many people so interested in the fact that I do things on my own than in the past few days.

I have some growing empathy for my friends who are single and have been for some time, especially those who have shown signs of being worried about it.  If I have had so many examples of ‘single-ism-phobia’ in my little world in these past few days what must have some of my friends have gone through over the years? They must feel bombarded with quizzical comments, questions and remarks about being solo? 

It goes to figure why so many have managed to make bad decisions in forming relationships. There must be a sense of relief within them when they settle in with someone else, knowing they will no longer stand out as 'single' or 'solo'. Until then they must feel ostracised and particularly vulnerable to reactions such as that which I have had.

The reality is, I’ve enjoyed so many of the many adventures and experiences I have had and created over the past three years.  Admittedly I have done things I would never have done if Tony were still around and I have done most of them in my journey to recover from the loss, but…. it has actually been quite a fun journey.  Yes, it has been hard and forced at times but, it ain’t all bad when you are able to make your own decisions to make things happen.

We have all heard it said:  There are at least three types of people in this world. Those who make things happen; those who let things happen to them; and those who wonder what has happened!

I’ve been the latter two in my previous lives but now that I am grown up and full of experiences and common sense I have made the decision to be in that first group.  Those who make things happen.  It’s fun.  And it’s rewarding.

If I waited and didn’t motivate myself to get up and be doing and experiencing what a dull and sad life it would be.

I told my newly made DOC ranger friend, “My life is like a romantic comedy, except there is no romance and it’s just me laughing at my own jokes.”

I made him laugh out loud.  I’ve made yet another friend.