Liah, you have so much knowledge, have thought so much, experienced so much and read so widely - how can you be only 37? Actually it's probably because you don't have any kids which means you can get on with YOUR life. Motherhood does have it's joys but is a very mixed blessing and hell quite a lot of the time. It means you don't get to read a book or watch a film uninterrupted or sleep through a night for what seems like several centuries.
Make the most of being on your own Liah, it has a lot of compensations and joys of it's own. Yes, a lot of people end up marrying, and a lot of people end up having children, just because they can't bear to be on their own - poor things.
Yes we flew to Egypt. I guess you wouldn't think to go there for snorkelling as you have so many wonderful places to go snorkelling much nearer to home. We tried it first in Greece and liked it so much we went to Egypt to the Red Sea specifically for the marine life. It was absolutely amazing and I'd love to go back again. So many places and things to see, so little time!
I don't normally mind being out at sea when I'm on a big sturdy boat - although there was one time, when Martin, Clive and I were travelling back from Germany and we caught the ferry back from Calais (France) to Dover. Hurrican Lily hit while we were out in the Channel and what should have been a 2 hour ride ended up with us bobbing about in the Channel for 9 hours. The seas were so rough that they couldn't risk negotiating the boat into either port and we just had to sit it out. It was very scarey and the ship was full of very ill people (and puke) and broken crockery by the time we docked in England (Clive jumped out and kissed the ground when we got there!).
I had never thought of eating icecreams in public as brave but now I think about it I can see what you mean. The scenario you describe as regards bars, women, children, breathalisers etc reminds me very much of how things used to be in England when I was a child, which was considerably longer ago than when you were one. When I was first driving there were no seat belts and no breathalisers, but there were far fewer cars too which is probably just as well!
Bing