Our Natalie’s back from her first educational; she was one of eight lucky agents selected by Prestige Holidays to visit top resorts in Cyprus.
Taking care of the group were Louise and Karen from Prestige, and Mario from Profile Hotels. You always remembers your first educational, and this one was the business, by all accounts. Long gone are the days when you ‘did’ 27 hotels in one week, and even scrupulous note-taking of bathroom sizes and so on left you confused and bewildered.
Natalie was spoilt rotten with a suite to herself at the Landra Hotel and the five-star Columbia Resort. Needless to say, she hasn’t stopped talking about it, which is lovely, if a little wearing after a while.
Of course, the weather behaved impeccably throughout her stay and she has returned to us bronzed and beautiful. Penny couldn’t help but compare her tan to Natalie’s.
“The difference is,” she said after some consideration, “that yours is straight out of the Mediterranean, while mine is straight out of Boots.”
Penny is getting married in July and has been trying various fake tanning products in the hope of finding the perfect shade for her wedding photos. We are all now fully educated in the theory of the sunless tanner, and get to judge the success of the various brands.
I had no idea that there were quite so many. As far as I knew, Holiday Skin was the sort of brilliant red, thermo-nuclear glow achieved by reckless Brits after a day fully exposed to the sun, while Fake Bake was a cookbook for cheats. God only knows who Famous Dave is, but he also lays claim to a celebrity-endorsed tanning product that promises a natural shade.
At the moment, Penny is a pale honey colour. I think she should ease up a little now; the danger with these self tans is that you can take them too far. We’ve all seen those teenage girls who slather it on instead of doing their homework, and rock up to school looking like frankfurters. Hold the ketchup and pickles!
Kicking up a stink
Piggy in the middle was the game we played in our office this week, when one old chap popped in to pick up his tickets. In spite of the rain that was bucketing down, he was dressed in tracksuit bottoms and carpet slippers, both of which were clearly strangers to detergent.
Close by was a well-groomed older lady who was waiting for Penny to find a brochure. The lady caught my eye and flared her nostrils. I smiled weakly. She made fanning gestures with her hand, her nostrils widening like Red Rum’s.
The old gent caught her at it and, smiling, said: “Is my aftershave a bit strong for you?”
“It probably is,” replied the old woman, “but I think it’s more the fact that you’re supposed to wash before you put it on.”
I looked away as I handed him his tickets, and he shuffled out as fast as his slippers would take him. The woman turned to me and demanded to know where he was going on his holiday. I told her it was against the Data Protection Act for me to divulge such information.
“Well for God’s sake don’t book me on the same flight as him – there wouldn’t be enough sick bags to cope!”
Thatch life in Devon
Down in here in the (very nearly) West Country, the tourist season is slowly taking off.
I say slowly, because obviously we’ve been at the mercy of the weather forecasters, whose inaccuracy over the recent bank holiday weekend meant that local resorts potentially lost out on millions in revenue as visitors stayed away, put off by predictions of severe thunderstorms that never materialised.
Those already down here, however, enjoyed fabulous weather and less crowded beaches. The Americans who came into our shop looking for local coach tours had nothing but praise for our part of the world, even if they don’t much understand it.
“It’s just so cute,” said one, “it’s like being on a film set. We drove past what looked like a thatched cottage, but I guess it would be concrete.”
I assured them that thatching is still a big part of the local roofing scene and thatch itself is 100% genuine vegetative matter. Perhaps the only thatching they’d seen before that was on the heads of balding Hollywood men.
Maureen has started a travelhub group to highlight travel fraud.
Join up to help other members – including the head of anti-fraud body PROFiT – show Westminster the extent of the problem…
Maureen Hill works at Travel Angels in Gillingham, Dorset