Making sweet music
It was good to catch up this week with David Ezra of the Saltmarsh Partnership, which represents Barwell Travel.
David is an accomplished and modest musician, as anyone who saw him in action on a Travel 2 fam trip to Australia some years ago can testify. Whenever we speak, I’m half expecting him to say he’s appearing on Britain’s Got Talent or that Michael Winner has invited him to play at his birthday party.
Of course, his professionalism means the thrust of his conversation concerns Barwell Travel and its commitment to travel agents and it takes ages to get around to talking about his mean guitar playing.
David is now engaged to fiancée Ros, who is expanding his horizons – by which I mean she’s bought him a banjo.
Having mastered that, as well as the mandolin and alto harp, there can’t be too many instruments he hasn’t plucked, although on a recent trip to Turkey he was tempted to buy an instrument he hadn’t seen before.
However, Ros pointed out their easyJet luggage allowance would make it impossible to bring home unless he exchanged it for his trousers.
David tells me with some pride that Ros is a discerning woman and, in spite of the fact they have been officially engaged for some months, she has failed to find a ring that matches her expectations.
He says they have visited more than 800 jewellers (who dare accuse him of male exaggeration?) here and abroad in a quest that has become akin to Indiana Jones’s search for the Holy Grail.
I’m all for this attention to detail – engagement rings have so many functions to fulfil! Men’s preoccupation with them is limited to the disproportionate relationship between the size of the ring and the size of the hole it will make in his pocket.
Women, on the other hand, have to juggle several issues. In the first instance, the ring you choose will say a lot about the man that goes with it – his bank balance, prospects and the depth of his ardour.
Beyond that, this is a ring you have to wear every day for the rest of your life, or, at the very least, the rest of your marriage.
This means it will have to complement not only everything you possess in your wardrobe at the moment, but everything you are ever likely to wear in future. No wonder it’s taking her a long time to find the perfect one.
Given that Ros herself is also a talented flautist, I have no doubt once these two finally tie the knot they’ll make sweet music together.
Feeling the squeeze
The credit crunch continues to squeeze family budgets and folk are finding it hard to afford the family holiday (let’s not dwell too long on that horrible thought).
Take the family that came in recently to see me. Their expectations of what might be possible within their budget were not helped by their memory of securing a very cheap last-minute holiday last year.
We went through as many different combinations as I could think of to reduce costs, but even after I’d removed charges for extra luggage, in-flight meals and charitable donations, it still proved too expensive. The family trooped out and promised to ‘think it over at home’.
They returned later to confirm they wouldn’t be holidaying abroad this summer, but could we instead look for a holiday in the UK where they could take their dog?
“It’s been years since he’s had a proper holiday,” explained the mother, “so we’ve decided to put him first.”
When you do the sums, of course the dog should determine the family holiday in hard times. For much less than it would cost to put the dog in kennels, a family of four and their four-legged friend can holiday in a mobile home and afford a meal en route.
Mind you, there are plenty of other reasons why this year’s break is that much more tricky to pay for, and they’re not all related to grave economic crises.
One client called me about a holiday for her and her three children. She said she couldn’t afford much this year as she’d just spent £8,000 on a gastric band.
Naturally, I’m pinning my hopes on this band securing her as a client for a long time to come in the future. After all, anyone who’s lost weight knows the pleasure of showing off your slimmer self in beachwear…
Maureen Hill works at Travel Angels, Gillingham, Dorset