I have been in the Kon Tiki paradise for a little week now (think luxury huts on the beach with a lot of disco parties as my daughters call them and an atmosphere that reminds me a lot of that one vacation of Baby in Dirty Dancing) and I recognize patterns again. Vacation patterns. Because when it comes to vacations, I am terribly predictable.

The annual canker sores

Well, maybe not the freshest start to this piece, but that canker sore is bothering me quite a bit. Put me on a plane to a sunny destination and boom, a canker sore pops up in my mouth. And with a bit of bad luck, maybe another one or two. I've just accepted it. I build intense relationships with all the pharmacies in the world and the only tiny advantage is that I usually lose a bit of weight during vacation. Eating is incredibly painful. Anyway.

The inflatable obsession

Every day I buy something inflatable. Preferably wide rays, floating armchairs with a space for a drink or a little pool with a raised area and an inflatable slide. The latest addition is a three-person lounge bed with a space for a drink bucket. Which of course never works because you always end up falling off. But anyway, if you see an inflatable caravan swimming along the coast, that's me with my little ducklings.

The big comparison

I don't know if you recognize it, but every woman walking on the beach I compare to myself. Ranging from size 34 to 40. “Do I look like this?” I ask my love. “Or more like this?” I would really like to have a kind of body double to see how I look. How others see me. It ends with me asking my love to take a photo of me in a bikini. Awful, right? I'm darn 42.

The photo book

During the vacation, I take an incredible amount of photos and I am already compiling my little book in my head. My rule is that I can only go on vacation again once I have finished the photo book from the previous vacation. Since it apparently is my job, I am also constantly busy taking the right photos because I already know in my head how it should look. And the right cover is also a task. I still don't have it now.

Buying the wrong things

Buying milk instead of yogurt, or thinking you have very pure yogurt that secretly is still incredibly sugary. Today I found that the clean dishes smelled incredibly nice. It turned out I had bought blocks for the washing machine (Ariel 3 in 1) instead of dishwasher blocks. I must honestly say; the result was fine.

If I line it all up like this, I can only conclude that I could use a bit more vacation. I'm staying a little longer.