It is worth acknowledging, with the benefit of post-pubescent hindsight, that any holiday with 14-year-old me probably had the potential to become the holiday from hell.
My self-esteem would have been at its lowest, my anger that “nobody understands me!” at its highest.
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In the summer of 2010 I can only imagine that my parents, who bore the brunt of my adolescent rage, were at their wits’ end.
Little did they know that taking me (along with my 16-year-old sister and 11-year-old brother) to a paradise-like Greek island would have the opposite of a calming effect.
The Incident
To be clear, we weren’t at each other’s throats all the time.
Before catching a ferry from the Athens port of Piraeus to the tiny Saronic island of Agistri, I remember enjoying plates of moussaka and pastitsio in Athens, after sweatily traipsing around the city’s ruins.
And on the island itself, we bonded as a family over card games at a beach bar, and giggled together when, on a boat trip, our pony-tailed captain stripped off, revealing a flame-shaped tattoo protruding from his Speedos.
But five days into the trip, I was returning to shore after one of the many long swims I took in the sea (probably as an attempt to simultaneously escape from and instil fear in my family).
As I got to the shallow water, I began to wade, and promptly stood on a sea urchin.
