Home, wet home
It was back to earth with a bump, well, back to Gatwick anyhow, after a wonderful fortnight’s rest in Greece where the temperatures averaged 36C.
By contrast, the UK looked grey and damp and it was clear that we had missed an unspectacular August. Even our window cleaner, a man who ordinarily boasts the best suntan Britain can provide from March to October, could have modelled for Dulux pure brilliant white, so pallid were his legs in comparison to my own.
The tan may not last long in these disappointingly wet conditions, but the memories of another super family holiday with Mark Warner will linger for a long time.
The company, staffed by energetic young people, makes it impossible for me to exercise my rights to be a ‘grumpy old woman’ and it’s always lovely to be around that sort of enthusiasm.
As ever, I couldn’t help but mother one or two of the girls out there but Beau and Claire in customer relations didn’t seem to mind my daily visits.
Both of them agreed the one thing they miss about home is shepherd’s pie. I told them they couldn’t complain about the food in resort – I piled on half a stone – but they told me there’s nothing like your own mother’s special recipe.
I’m so glad they’ll never have to try mine; I’ve never known exactly what you’re supposed to do with the shepherd before you cover him in mash…
In search of the sun
Back in the office and the ‘stay-cation not vacation’ campaign is backfiring big time. People who tried to enjoy the UK in the rain are coming into the shop desperate for a last-minute trip to the sun to stave off seasonal depression.
Others have decided to holiday during the October half-term to compensate for the lack of summer. I think we could see demand rise in October and over Christmas as people thumb their nose at talk of the credit crunch and fuel surcharges and just go hell-for-leather for the sun.
Playing the wrong card
It was good to meet up this week with Natalie Reed of Gold Medal Holidays. We lunched in Gillingham at the town’s popular eaterie, the Smouldering Boulder. In spite of its name, the place is not going to set the world on fire.
Natalie and I followed a party of senior citizens into the premises and then became a mesmerised audience as they ordered their lunch.
Would Jim manage the garlic bread with his new teeth? Did Elsie want the salmon baguette if the salmon didn’t come out of a tin? Was it wise for June to opt for a sweet white wine given that she was still on the tablets for her irritable bowel?
All of life was there, and it took an age for us to get served.
As we chatted, Natalie revealed what had happened to her boss Lee Marshall, head of trade relations for Gold Medal, when he took part in the Expert Trade Panel at the Triton conference along with Manuel Mascarenhas of Kuoni, Trudy Redfern of Silversea Cruises and Helen Burgess of Worldchoice.
During the session in a schoolboy jape, Lee passed Manuel a series of increasingly rude messages written on the back of his business cards in an attempt to wrong-foot him. Manuel, unfazed, put the cards back into Lee’s pockets.
Lee thought no more of the incident until he received a phone call a week later from a travel agent who had attended the conference.
At the end of the conversation, she asked if Lee was in the habit of writing personal messages to agents on the back of his business cards? Not understanding her point, he laughed and said goodbye.
Half an hour later, he was experiencing that hot, sweaty wave of nausea that overcomes you when you know you’ve made a boob. He called the agent back and established that she’d received the first and least rude of the four cards he’d written for Manuel.
He has now accounted for two, but there are still two in circulation with some indescribable suggestions on the back.
I worry there are a couple of agents out there who may expect more than an update on Gold Medal trade relations when next they meet Mr Marshall!
Editor’s note: One of the cards ended up with our news editor. On the back was the message: “You are a very handsome man”.
Maureen Hill works at Travel Angels, Gillingham, Dorset