‘What are you guys doing for Xmas?’ we asked before we put the surfing movie, Blue Crush on our new projector that Muggie brought us to blow away our brains. The pipes, the backdoors, the friendships! ‘We’re going to Jolly Beach Resort for the day,’ the younger MickBeth, Robyn said. ‘You can buy a day pass and eat as much food as you want and use the pool.’ Our eyes widened. We hadn’t even considered the idea.. Of all the places in the Caribbean, we’d gotten married there. Just round the corner eleven years ago. Little Lulu had contracted a rash around her mouth from eating all the flower petals. Grandpa had cried his tears of ‘happiness' when I took his baby away. Four generations of women in my family walked down to the palm-frond altar and Jack had gone as pale as the white sand under his bare feet. Good times... There was no question. We had to go back. 

‘I don’t remember the food being this bad,’ Jack said yesterday, poking around at his cold rice and black ribs, ‘in fact I don’t really remember it at all.’ ‘That’s because it was bad,’ I said. ‘Each soda water is costing me about £10,’ he said, ‘let’s steal a towel.’ Meanwhile, the pool was enormous with a swim-up bar and underwater seating. We sifted through it while the MickBeth girls, who'd gotten swimmable mermaid tails for Xmas, spent the day trying them out. ‘Muuummmmm,’ Delph said, ‘you know for our birthdays?’ ‘Mermaid tails?’ A face like she was coming out of confession. ‘Yes please.’ 

‘I feel like I’ve been raped by this place,’ Jack said at about four pm. The passes lasted until six but if we wanted to be responsible dog owners it was time to go now. For purely nationalist purposes of course, MickBeth's parents were fully engaged winning a beer-drinking competition. We said good-bye to them and their great girls and discovered an afternoon tea area full of Italians and elderly people playing cards. This was more like it! Seventeen cups of tea later and a belly full of sandwiches and cakes, we stumbled our way out of the resort. The girls happily swayed in front of us, weighed down by all the cake and chlorine. ‘Man, that was a rip-off,’ Jack said as we got past the carpark. I smiled at my Grinch. ‘Could we have done it any better?’ He raised a single eyebrow. ‘Not a chance.’ 

Love from Quest and her crew xx