TRAVEL TRIBES

Trish strolls the length of the continental breakfast buffet, carefully surveying the fruit, nuts and baked goods lying before her. This is good; very good, she thinks. The prunes and apricots are dry, not the stewed and soaked varieties used by stingier hotels to deter buffet burglars.

Almonds and pecans! Pecans are £2 per 100g bag at Sainsbury’s in Weybridge! The staff at the plucky, family-run threestar in Lisbon have been generous with their fruit and nuts. Fools! Trish strides down to the baked goods, ignoring the prohibitively flaky croissants (in her amateur days, she would spend the flight home picking flakes out of the seams of her Mulberry handbag) and focusing instead on a pair of sturdy ciabatta rolls. Her eyes flicker to the cured ham, luncheon meat and the triptych of cheeses, sweating gently on a floral platter.

Excellent stuff, nods Trish approvingly. The grainy TripAdvisor images offered an accurate assessment of the spoils on offer, thankfully, because gormless breakfast buffet generosity is Trish and Malcolm’s top criterion when selecting a city hotel.

Trish marches on delightedly and her eyes widen in glee, a clumsy telltale sign she furiously suppresses lest her fellow guests or the bored waitress catch her bread-handed.

She has hit the mother lode. A basket of thoughtfully foil-wrapped muesli bars! This is virtually unheard of on the breakfast burgling circuit.

Now, the final check – the napkin situation. Shiny pink paper! Not cloth! Trish exhales with relief. She can purloin as she pleases; pillage all that is rightfully hers. Because the Tupperware box in her bag can only hold so much.