Dear Diary - T Minus 6 - Positivity

The temperature here, in Salford this evening, is 2 degrees. One short of a Motown band. It's cold. Perhaps not cold to an Eskimo or a Norwegian Gravadlax hunter, but certainly to me and my goodly wife. The temperature in the Maldives, for all of the rain, is a reasonable 27 degrees at the bottom end. There are things to be very positive about. Indeed. With but six days to go and no opportunity to feign bubonic plague and claim on the travel insurance, we must conduct ourselves with an air of excited optimism.

And, let's face it, pink is not an attractive colour in every case....

I Googled sunburn and the picture on the left is the one that, for obvious reasons, caught my eye. I wasn't aware of a sexual fetish for sunburned women but, by God, she's gonna be in a load of pain when she tries to have a hot bath or shower. Interestingly, her make-up appears to have saved her face from turning puce too. The girl on the right is also pink and I'd be much more comfortable with the consequences of giving her a friendly slap on the bottom. But I digress...

Riding the crest of the wave of positive thought, I went back to the heroes of my childhood and considered what they might have done in similar potentially challenging circumstances. In particular I fell back on the books of the famous children's author Enid Blyton and her series entitled The Drunken Duo. 

Three short of her most popular series, the Famous Five, and five short of her Secret Seven series, the Drunken Duo books follow the exploits of a pair of forty somethings who, unlike the Franklin W. Dixon Hardy Boys series, are not gay. The jolly japes that the duo try to get up to as they drink with pirates and philanderers makes for compelling reading. Originally intended to warn children of the evils of alcohol it quickly became a bestseller amongst servicemen returning from the Second World War. By 1948 "The Case of the Missing Pint" had reached number one on the Bloomsbury Bestsellers listings.

It would seem, from a quick scan of the numerous books in my collection, that at the first sign of inclement weather, the Drunken Duo commonly retreated to an inn, a bar, a public house or licensed hostelry. Inspired by these heroics I set out to discover what our options on Meedhupparu might be...

There are, apparently, five options for inclement weather intoxication on Meedhupparu:

The Main Bar. Here there is, according to one reviewer, "diabolical" evening entertainment involving a bad pianist, a pair of Asian ladies and the ubiquitous rep. The same reviewer complained that the only comfortable seats were in the non-smoking area and, as a non-smoker, he objected to these being too close to the stage. 

The Grill Bar. Located on the beach near the dive centre. This appears to be the focus for 'speciality nights' during which, I'm sure, we will be asked to go somewhere else.

In one review there is a mention of two additional bars; the Sunrise Bar, tucked away on the East Side (Sounds like New York... note to self; you have a compass on your phone) and the Sunset Bar opposite the North jetty. The fact that I can find only one review that mentions these gives me hope.

Finally, The Pool Bar. From what I can tell you can swim up to it from the water side but I can't find any mention of whether or not you can access it in dry clothes from the other side.

So, in the spirit of Enid's Drunken Duo adventures, we have our options.