I am your modest holiday expert
But paella and plonk hopes now lost
Any regular visitor to this weekly square foot of newsprint will already know that my modesty knows no boundaries or frontiers.
If restraint, reserve and reticence were all recognised sports – Sir Steve Redgrave and Sir Chris Hoy wouldn’t get jobs as doormen at my Olympic Medal Exhibition!
Yet, there is one thing I can humbly admit to being good at.
In fact – to be a damn sight less humble – I’m very, very good at.
Yes . . . I’m a world class summer holiday maker!
And from the moment the sun edges north of equator in March - until it slides south again in the autumnal equinox – no beach bar stool is safe, no poolside sun- lounger is secure.
Looking for a restaurant in Mallorca, Malaga or Marbella?
I’ll give you more than a name or a street.
I’ll give you the number of the best table, the price of their Pulpo a la Gallega and the names of the head waiter’s grandchildren!
It all started with a back- packing trip to Athens .
My 17- year- old eyes were opened like a shucked oyster.
And now I’m the guy who insists on flying home in a window seat . . . just to look down at the places I want to visit next!
I can’t remember a summer when I didn’t make at least one trip to the sun.
But . . . this one is shaping up to be a summer I’m never going to forget!
Boris and his band are going to make it compulsory for everyone to self- isolate for fourteen days after any overseas trip.
What happens if our European cousins play tit- for- tat?
If they apply the same directive – you’re going to need a month off work just to take a day trip to Calais!
It’s killed the travel industry stone dead.
It has dashed the slim hopes of hundreds of thousands of people.
Like me they were clinging to a paella and white Rioja at the end of the long, dark tunnel of lockdown.
Yes - I know its all for the greater good.
And very big yes – I know there are some poor souls out there who have lost a lot more than their summer holiday.
My heart goes out to them.
But it doesn’t make me a bad person for missing what I’ve looked forward to all year.
And making it even worse is that all this new legislation is probably too much . . . and too late.
In the first quarter of this year, 18 million people entered the United Kingdom.
The total number of those ordered into self- isolation was 273.
And whatever way you re- arrange “bolted”, “horse” and “stable door” – the numbers stay the same.
If the nation’s - and the airline industry’s - problems were not so serious . . . the solutions offered would be almost laughable. Take away the middle seat? Wear a mask?
Don’t go to the toilet for three, six or nine hours?
Who are we kidding here?
The modern air travel business is built on big numbers crammed into small spaces.
Lots of people got big bucks for designing cabins to within a centimetre of leg room and elbow rest.
The modern airliner is the ultimate converse of ‘ social distancing’.
Something’s got to give . . . even if it’s just giving way to common sense!
But as the Spanish would say . . “que demonios” . . . which is roughly ‘ what the heck!’.
Mallorca, Malaga and Marbella and all the costa resorts will still be there next year.
Sure, I’ll miss my holiday.
But my old dad – now 93 – is now in an Ayr care home.
And I’d miss him more than all the holidays in the world laid end to end.
If they apply the same directive you’re going to need a month off for a day trip to Calais