Try to remember back to when you were a teenager, go on try… I know for some of you that will be harder than for others. I was last a teenager nearly 30 years ago but in some ways it seems like yesterday.

My main recollection is that teenagers believe the world has been invented anew just for them. They develop a sense of overwhelming entitlement. No one else matters except their own kind. Everyone else’s ideas are old hat. Many sections of society are totally invisible.

I remember coming home from my first term at University and lecturing my mother on the merits of recycling. I went on for hours about how she should be saving the planet and how her lifestyle was probably single handily depleting the ozone layer. I was living in Sheffield, a city that pioneered the way in recycling and moreover made it easy to do so. I was young and happy to have over flowing carrier bags of tinnies hanging off my kitchen door handles.

I didn’t need to worry about paying the mortgage or holding down a job.

My mother gently pointed out that she had been recycling for years. Using proper milk bottles, returning pop bottles to the store for the deposit as a child, saving newspapers for charity, using proper shopping bags. The fact that my brother and I had until recently scoffed at my dads proper shopping bags escaped me.

None of that mattered to my evangelical teenage self. I knew best in my quiet arrogance. It must have driven her totally mad.

Soon I will be her. Biting my lip as my children expound on ideas and activities that they believe they have invented. I am not sure I will be as patient.

And nothing sums this up better than the disco at my holiday resort.

I may have mentioned before in Baby I Don’t Care that I like to dance. And my husband and I have, accidentally, got into a ‘step’ war on this holiday and so the extra steps from dancing are very welcome. He is losing currently. This is partly because his daily spin class (which does burn an impressive amount of calories) registers precisely zero steps. Whereas my exercise class of choice does. Tough luck matey you need to pick your exercise more wisely.

As a result we are frequenting the disco regularly where we raise the average age by about 25 years. I am maybe being kind to myself here. However my husband is younger than me and there are other ‘grown ups’ dancing too.  And now I am past 40 I have lost the ability to age young people. I am assuming most of them are in their late teens and early twenties but I have a horrible sneaking suspicion that a lot of them are not old enough to drink. I base this partially on the fact that a lot of them are still wearing braces. It is difficult to age them partly as the place is full of Germans who are just a huge, tall, hulking race on the whole. With huge, tall, hulking off spring. As my own teenage son is five foot nine at 13 the whole height thing is perhaps not the best barometer of age anyway.

So my husband and I are sharing the dance floor with a whole load of teenagers to whom we are invisible, who think they own the place and who think they invented dancing. Here are my observations to date:-

  • Modern dance music is too slow. On the whole. I like to shake my stuff like a mad thing. That is why I like 90s dance music. The stuff my husband and I were out clubbing to before my fellow dancers were even born. I just worked that out. Frightening.
  • Modern dance music samples proper dance music. So just when you think the DJ has finally decided to play a proper track it morphs back into something too  slow again.
  • This is the reason teenagers can dance in hoodies. In thirty degree heat. Bizarre.
  • Teenagers still dance in large circles taking up all the dance floor. Around, well nothing, just a gap in the middle. Occasionally a teenager will get in the middle of the circle and I expect something special to happen like break dancing but they just take yet another selfie and then post it. Whilst dancing.
  • If they are not shuffling slowly in a circle then they jumping up and down arythmically ‘to’ the music. Ignoring anyone over the age of 20 in their vicinity. Husband went all north eastern yesterday and nearly lamped a lad who had jumped on him one too many times. The guy was probably a minor so it wouldn’t have been the best idea. We left shortly afterwards. See? That invisibility thing again.
  • It seems perfectly acceptable to just stand motionless on the dance floor. The other night a girl just stood there stock still for about half and hour next to her friend who, to be fair, was at least shuffling. Getting in the way. I have grudging admiration for her staying power. But did let out a little cheer when she finally left.
  • The hair. Oh my god the hair. The swishing and the flicking. They all have long swishy hair. That they like to flick in what I assume is supposed to be a sexy fashion. I don’t find it attractive to have someone else’s hair in my face. Sorry.
  • They believe that the  rules do not apply to them. After yet another glass got smashed on the dance floor the other night the beautiful Bulgarian entertainment manager lost his rag. He turned off the music and put on the lights and said, and I quote, “I am going to ask you,very very politely for the 175th time to please, please, please not to bring glasses onto the dance floor. And I am especially talking to you and you and you” whilst pointing out the bunch of teenagers who were until a few seconds previously shuffling in a circle with a phone in one hand and a cocktail in the other. The Bulgarian was quite annoyed. I clapped after he had finished. The bar staff should probably do a braces check before serving their very strong cocktails.
  • They are slow on the up take. It takes around half an hour after the disco starts for them to roll up from wherever they have been holed up surfing social media. This is the best time to dance. Before they descend in their herds and take over every available square inch for their shuffling and jumping and circling and rule avoiding even if it was the one square inch you had carved out for yourself amid the entertainment team some of whom believe the wearing of wings is a good idea on the minuscule dance floor.
  • They don’t smoke. For which I am grateful.

When we came here in October there was an 80/90s night. Which was blissfully teenager free. It is not on the schedule this time although tonight’s theatre show is entitled “Totally 80s” and so a little part of me is hoping for some like minded music at the subsequent disco.

Then I can request “Lady” and do my totally nuts club dancing without bumping into anyone with flicky hair, braces and a surfeit of hormones taking a selfie.

A girl can dream..

* I deliberately spelt youth wrong…it’s an in joke…some of ya might get it…some won’t…. but I don’t want anyone to think I am unable to spell…