three go mad in ibiza how a trio of friends reinvented their girls’ holiday
Fiona Gibson on reinventing the girls’ holiday now the children have left home
In our twenties we’d be barhopping until dawn, dancing and flirting
Back in the 80s, I landed a job in an office that was 100% fun. All young, free and single, my workmates and I were up for adventures and laughs. Wham!’s Club Tropicana blasted out from the office stereo, and after work I’d hit the Soho pubs with my new work buddies, Kath and Jenny. “Why don’t we all go on holiday together?” Jenny suggested one night. She might as well have added: and shall we keep on doing it for the next 33 years? Because that’s what we’ve done – despite having notched up four weddings (I’ve had two) and seven children, and the 400 miles that separate us (while I’m based in Glasgow, my friends live in London and Kent).
In our early twenties, we’d nip off for raucous weekends to Amsterdam, Florence, Barcelona and Berlin. Who cared if a bare lightbulb dangled from our grubby hotel room, or if the scary reception lady looked disgusted when we tumbled in? We’d be out bar-hopping until dawn, dancing, flirting, surviving on coffee and gut-stripping wines,
The kiddie chaos years
By our mid-thirties, jaunting off together was no longer as simple as throwing a passport, knickers, curling tongs (yes!) and vast quantities of make-up into our bags. We were all mothers now, and so began 15 years of chaotic but wonderful holidays with our kids in various Yorkshire cottages (husbands were left at home). While our children played freely on beaches, we three friends caught up with each other’s lives. Shattered but happy, we’d all tumble back to the cottage.
I loved these holidays. As younger women we’d helped each other through heady love affairs and dramatic break-ups, and now we relished an
“all in this together” sense around motherhood too. I wanted these trips to continue forever – but, one year, my twin sons announced that they did not. Couldn’t they be bribed with handfuls of coppers for Scarborough’s penny arcades, or the promise of donkey rides on the beach? “No, Mum,” one of my boys sighed, when I’d resorted to begging, “because I am 17 years old.”
Gradually, all the other children bailed out too. In our early fifties now, Jenny, Kath and I were seemingly redundant while our offspring embarked on adventures of their own. “We could still go away,” Jenny suggested.
“But the kids think we’re embarrassing and tedious,” I pointed out. “They don’t even want to do the Whitby Dracula tour.”
“No,” she said, ‘I don’t mean a donkeys-and-Dracula kind of holiday. I mean the three of us. Just… us.”
Now that sounded enticing… and also rather naughty, to go away unencumbered by children just for – you know – fun. “Maybe we could
meet at a Travelodge somewhere halfway?” I suggested, tentatively.
Stuff that, my friends retorted. We were off to Ibiza, I was to shop for non-industrial swimwear and leave my hair shirt at home. And so we headed, not to a chain hotel off the M6, but Santa Eulalia, on Ibiza’s east coast. As we arrived at the spa hotel of Aguas de Ibiza, I remembered the whole point of going away with one’s best women friends. It’s to relish maximum uninterrupted time together – hence our requested three-bed room – and to simply kick back, with no demands whatsoever. While families are welcome at the hotel, its relaxed luxury vibe is perfect for couples or a bunch of friends like us who, actually, deserve a treat.
Poolside, we lazed and we chatted, pausing only to be handed some delicious treat by a passing waiter (a plate of tiny pastries with drinks, or dinky skewers of pineapple). In those Yorkshire cottages we’d cook up vats of spag bol, or roast three chickens, and dole it all out like in a school canteen. Here at our hotel’s outdoor restaurant, as we lingered over squid, lobster, salads garnished with flowers and exquisite desserts, we decided that we really didn’t miss everyone back home terribly much at all.
I had a heavenly massage in the
dreamy spa, and we all felt obliged to take in the eye-popping view (and several cocktails) from the hotel’s rooftop bar where, conveniently, there is another pool, for adults only. And while we might not have been chasing flirty-eyed waiters this time, we happened to note that the staff, who wafted around in white linen pyjama-style uniforms, were as eye-pleasing as the island itself.
When we could bear to venture beyond the hotel, we explored Ibiza Town, its twisting streets wending between beautifully sunfaded houses and alluring tapas bars.
Dancing the night away
baskets and delicate jewellery. The Ibiza vibe here is the right side of hippy – less batik trousers, more floaty linen and cottons, and so achingly pretty that you just want to buy everything, whether or not it would be befitting Glasgow’s grey skies.
Cala Nova beach, with its silky sand and scattering of restaurants, was well worth the 15-minute taxi hop. All of this was a world away from San Antonio, the island’s clubbing capital, the thought of which had triggered a nervous rash when my friends had first mooted Ibiza as a destination. In fact there’s far more to “the white isle” than partying all night, although we do find ourselves venturing to Pikes Hotel (pikesibiza.com), the infamous venue for Freddie Mercury’s 41st birthday bash, from which the firework display could be seen in Majorca. It was also the location for Wham!’s Club Tropicana video.
Here, fuelled by espresso martinis, we somehow found ourselves dancing for hours, until I stopped and noticed that it was actually… daylight. I hadn’t danced all night since I was 20. How could this be possible? Then I looked at the two friends beside me, who have been my partners in crime for our entire adult lives, and thought: oh. So, what are we doing next year? w&h
✢ Aguas de Ibiza is a member of Small Luxury Hotels of the World. From £180 B&B; to book, visit slh.com ✢ Fiona’s new novel, The Mum Who’d Had Enough (Avon), is out now
Now it’s all about us
Going away with your best friends is about relishing maximum time together