Lisa’s left hanging
Our accident-prone colleague Lisa has just returned from a skiing holiday with family and friends in New England.
In the office she’s managed to wreck the fridge, the kettle and the microwave stand to name but a few. Anything might happen at altitude, so we waited with bated breath for her appearance.
We were almost disappointed when she turned up in one piece, however, it wasn’t long before she was describing the hitches.
She hadn’t been the first casualty; that accolade went to her mum who sprained her ankle on the second day. Embarrassed by her lack of ski competence she told everyone she’d fallen off a bar stool.
I’m not sure this gave her any more credibility – it’s one thing not to be able to get down black runs, quite another not to be able to hold your drink.
Lisa’s turn came however, when she took the chairlift one day. Chatting away to an attractive ski instructor, while he got off, Lisa stayed on and kicked the safety bar, causing the lift to stop completely.
Hanging in the air, there was nothing for it but to remove her skis and jump, while fellow skiers looked on, entertained.
Egged on by her friends, she slipped off the lift and made a soft landing. But boy, was her ego bruised! As she admitted to us, it took the terror of jumping off the chairlift to silence her.
Gabi’s given up for Lent
If Lisa is mischief personified on her holidays, I hear that Gabi Birbeck of Rendezvous Travel in Little Chalfont was positively angelic on her recent trip to Paris.Invited by Nova Alexandra and Andrew Hillier of the Trinidad and Tobago Tourist Board, Gabi, along with a lively bunch of agents, enjoyed a first-class trip aboard Eurostar from the new St Pancras station as well as a sightseeing tour, champagne lunch in a top restaurant and a shopping excursion to Galeries Lafayette, topped off with wine and cheese tasting.
Gabi, however, assures me she didn’t drink as she had given up alcohol for Lent.
“So it was a non-alcoholic hangover you suffered the next day?” I asked, bemused.
Gabi assured me the headache the following morning was entirely down to the pungent wine fumes from the tasting cellars they had visited. I must have raised an eyebrow at this, as she offered further confirmation of her teetotalism by describing in minute detail Andrew Hillier’s lap dancing demonstration on the Eurostar on the return journey.
Ah well, it would be wrong not to forgive a person during holy week.
Baby boom at Sunset
One person who’s traded hangovers in for good is Mark Houston of Sunset Faraway Holidays. If he looks a little the worse for wear these days, it’s down to sleepless nights as he’s just become a dad for the first time.Mark and Karen hadn’t expected the arrival of their baby for another 22 days, but little Harry checked in early weighing a very respectable 7lb 2oz. Karen might be grateful he never went the distance!
It’s my belief there’s something in the water at Sunset as, in the last month, Ann in reservations, Lauren in agency sales and Mark and John in the IT department have all produced offspring…they can’t all have sat on the same chair! Well done, everybody.
A test to our patience
When it comes to time wasters, there’s cheeky and then there’s downright rude.Lisa answered a telephone call from a woman wanting to know which destination in Ireland she could fly to from Bournemouth.
“Shannon,” replied Lisa. The client had never heard of it so Lisa suggested Dublin as an alternative.
“How much would it be?” asked the woman.
“That depends on when you’re travelling,” Lisa replied. “If you tell me the date you have in mind I can give you a price including our booking fee.”
“Oh, I have no intention of booking it with you,” the woman said, “I just want the information.”
“As I said,” Lisa continued calmly, “I’d need a specific date to help you any further.”
The woman huffed and puffed and eventually put the phone down accusing Lisa of being ‘singularly unhelpful’. I give up!
Maureen Hill works at Travel Angels, Gillingham, Dorset
