No Complaints

A holiday is what you make it, no matter what happens!

TO be honest, even as I was leaving the house this morning, having checked everything was switched off, I still wasn’t sure whether this coachtrip mini-break holiday was really going to be “my scene”, as we used to say back when I was in my teens.

But now I’m filing on to the gleaming coach with my fellow travellers in the spring sunshine, I do feel quite excited.

Maybe the fact that it’s Easter Monday helps. When I was a child, we always went out somewhere for the day on Easter Monday.

But this, of course, is for longer than one day. We don’t return till Friday.

The holiday was advertised as “The ideal short break for arts and antiques enthusiasts”.

I’ve recently started an art class as part of my programme to make a more rounded life for myself.

After my divorce from Bill – perfectly amicable; we married young and against our respective parents’ advice, too – I’ve pretty well devoted myself entirely to my little delicatessen shop.

But the idea’s grown on me, since Christmas really, that there should be more in my life than selling people olives and salami!

So, as they said in the advert, this seems the ideal holiday for me.

I’m glancing again through the glossy brochure – there’s a gallery we’re going to tomorrow that I’m especially looking forward to visiting – when someone plonks themselves down next to me in the seat I’ve taken near the front of the coach.

I turn and smile at him. He is, after all, going to be one of my companions for the next few days.

Compared to most of the rest of us, in variations of jeans and fleeces, he’s very smart. Neatly trimmed moustache, ever-so-shiny shoes, a newspaper tidily folded under his arm. I’d say he is about my age.

“Maurice,” he introduces himself.

“Fiona.”

“Have you been on one of these trips before?” he enquires.

“No. First time,” I explain. “But several people have told me it’s an easy, stress-free way of having a few days away. And reasonably priced, too,” I add.

My little business doesn’t exactly make a fortune.

“Very reasonably priced for me,” he says with a conspiratorial wink. “Not a pound have I paid!”

I look at him.

“Compensation,” he says, “for the last trip I did with this firm. A nightmare, it was; nothing went smoothly, so I sent in a firmly worded complaint.”

He’s opened his newspaper – a title I never buy, as it happens – and is now engrossed in one of the stories.

The coach sets off.

Compensation for his last nightmare holiday! Inevitably I wonder if I’ve picked the Fawlty Towers of coach tours here. Maybe this particular company is notorious, and to be avoided at all costs by those in the know.

I look round and there are quite a few empty seats.

I tell myself not to prejudge the situation. Maurice might be one of those people who complains about everything. I’ve had them in the deli. And sometimes you do give them a freebie, even though their grumbles aren’t justified, to get them off your back.

I steal another look at him and decide, yes, he looks like he could be a moaner.

I’m relaxing back into my seat, which is wonderfully comfy, with plenty of leg room, when a woman from the back of the coach comes charging down the aisle.

I have to say the hotel is excellent. Not one bit like Fawlty Towers! I’ve got a huge room with a marvellously soft bed. And was I ready for it last night! Why is just sitting on a coach so tiring?

To sort out the people wrongly on our coach, we made a detour to rendezvous with the other one. A considerable detour, I might add, which involved us in similarly considerable roadworks, delaying us even more.

I tried to read on the extended journey but couldn’t concentrate for Maurice muttering and cursing. I knew as soon as I saw the newspaper he was reading that we wouldn’t be well-matched travelling companions!

However, we’re here now and all’s well.

The weather remains sunny.

We have a nice breakfast myself – my deli has half a dozen tables for eating in – I give short shrift to the various criticisms Maurice, and now Josie, who joins us, come up with, leaving them to grumble to each other.

Today on the agenda is a trip to a stately home. Something-or-other Hall. This seems to be the antiques aspect of the tour.

On the journey I again alternate between gazing out of the window and looking at the photos of our destination in the brochure.

It is magnificent. Sky-high ceilings painted with stars and moons; sculptures of what look like figures from classical mythology; ceramics in glowing colours.

“And the furniture,” I say to Maurice, passing the brochure across to him. “Just look at that cabinet. The workmanship that’s gone into it!”

He gives the photo a quick glance.

“Forgive me, Fiona, for not getting too carried away until I actually see it. On past experience, we’ll probably get there to find the place is stuffed with sofas from Ikea!”

I give him a look.

And he is quite wrong. Again.

Though, on second thoughts, he is perhaps Several people have now joined in, but I think the ringleader is a chap in a red anorak.

“I assume the gardens are open for us to look round?” he in the anorak asks.

“Absolutely.” The staff member is keen to help. “And well worth looking round, they are. There’s the fountain and the lake, the walled kitchen garden, and the old stable block now houses several craftspeople’s studios. Most of them will be open and pleased to have visitors, I’m sure.”

Everyone seems agreeable to this – or at least, everyone I can see. I seem to have lost Maurice. We all set off to explore.

I hear an amused chortle from behind me

The gardens are attractive, no doubt, but are a bit on the manicured side for my taste. Rather formal.

So when I see a way into a section of the surrounding woodland, I’m in there.

A few others from our party, presumably of the same mindset, follow me.

Mr Red Anorak – Jeff, his name is – is among them and we fall into step and get talking.

I’m in heaven. I’ve told you how I am about trees and this is a very mixed collection, not just the common ones. I can

“Where are you going?” she yells to the driver. “You’re supposed to go via Bears Cross. That’s where my friend was told she’d be picked up. But you’ve gone way past the turn-off!”

The driver pulls in and radios back to head office. The woman’s right, except it seems nobody told him.

Beside me, Maurice raises his eyebrows and sighs.

I ignore him and continue to think positively. That explains the empty seats – there are still more people yet to get on.

And a good few do when, leaving the main road for a series of quieter ones, we eventually arrive at Bears Cross – and, no, I don’t know why it’s called that.

But it rapidly transpires that some of them shouldn’t have got on. They’re going to Wales; we aren’t.

They were told Bears Cross, though, and have paper evidence of this. The correct pick-up place for the coach they want is actually further away still.

There is another frantic radio conversation.

Maurice sighs some more. in the hotel’s pretty dining-room. Oh, except the bacon is a bit scraggy. Or so says Maurice.

I suppose with us having sat together on the coach, it’s fair enough that, both of us being alone, we’ve also been put at the same table.

Today is the trip to the art gallery that I mentioned.

“Are you coming on this one?” I ask him, my fingers crossed.

He is.

In the coach, I alternate between looking out of the window and at the brochure.

This is a beautiful part of the country, with extensive woodland. I love trees and that’s why I’m especially looking forward to going to the gallery.

There’s a load of a local painter’s work there which, even just from the reproductions in the brochure, you can see is very special. He was a forester, apparently, so maybe that’s it. He knows trees.

“He can’t be that good,” is Maurice’s response when I say this to him. “I mean, I’ve never heard of him.”

“It is nonetheless the case,” I say, “that he has a formidable reputation.”

I’m right about that. I Googled him.

Rather too right, as it turns out.

His work is widely admired, to the point that it’s all presently out on loan to a bigger, more important gallery!

“You should write to the tour people,” Maurice tells me as we walk round and look at the exhibition of local children’s artwork that is filling the space temporarily vacated, “and tell them it was specifically to see the tree paintings that you booked this holiday. I’ll help you with the letter, if you like.”

“But surely it isn’t their fault if –”

“Of course it is,” he interrupts. “They shouldn’t have shown the paintings in their brochure if they’re not here.”

“Absolutely right,” another member of our party says, a woman called Josie, nodding in agreement with Maurice. “You should complain.”

In fact, I’m OK with the kids’ display. I quite like it – children’s paintings are always charmingly optimistic, aren’t they? Flowers and smiley people.

I smile, hoping that the young artists’ lives, every one of them, turn out to be just like that.

We stop on the way back to the hotel for afternoon tea in a pleasant, well-run little café in a cute village.

Since I’m in that trade right in a way, in that we don’t, in fact, get to see any of the ceilings, sculptures, ceramics, furniture or anything else.

We’re allowed into the entrance area. But beyond that the Hall is closed.

“It was open to the public over the Easter holiday weekend itself,” a staff member explains. “Maybe that’s where the confusion has arisen. But we’re closed now till the beginning of May for refurbishment.”

I hear an amused chortle from behind me. I turn.

normally easily identify anything, but there are several here I’ve never seen before.

“Me, I’m easily pleased,” Jeff says. “I like a good old oak.”

I smile. The choice suits him. He’s rather oak-like himself. Sturdy and dependable-looking.

“Silver birches are my favourite,” I say.

He smiles.

“My wife liked them.” I note his use of the past tense and the wistful quality to both his smile and tone.

I don’t say anything, but I reckon he sees the question in my face, because he says, “She died a few years ago.”

I nod.

“That’s when I started regularly taking these little breaks,” he continues. “At first the house seemed empty and I liked to get away. Maybe needed to. It affects us all differently.”

He’s quiet a while, then adds, “What about you?”

I tell him about my art class.

“Not that, as it turned out, I saw the tree paintings at the gallery!” I laugh.

“No!” He shakes his head and smiles. “What I especially wanted to see was the ceiling in the Hall, with all the stars painted on it.”

“But here I’m looking at the real sky,” he continues, gazing up through a gap in the overhanging branches, “which has to be better. And you’re seeing real trees.”

It’s true.

We’ve come to a little clearing where there are benches and picnic tables, so we sit down at one of them.

“It is a shame about your paintings,” he says more seriously. “The holiday doesn’t seem to be as well organised as one might have hoped!”

He pulls a face.

“This is the first time I’ve booked with this particular company and it may well be the last!” he finishes.

He delves into one of the huge pockets in his anorak and takes out an Easter egg, bright in its foil wrap.

“A gift from my granddaughter,” he says, peeling back the foil.

One half he gives to me, the other he keeps. Then we share the treats inside it.

“My parents,” I say, remembering, “always begrudged buying Easter eggs. They said they were bad value. A ridiculously expensive way to buy chocolate.”

“I guess they are. But they’re nice, aren’t they?”

“Yeah,” I manage, my mouth full.

We sit there for some time.

Then we notice those who also came into the woodland starting back towards the Hall.

Time’s getting on, so we, too, make tracks.

I’ve enjoyed the afternoon and, waiting for the coach which has apparently gone to top up on fuel, it seems most of us have, as there’s a general atmosphere of good cheer.

Inevitably, though, there are also several comments along the lines of “What’s going to go wrong this time?”, but mostly everyone looks pleased enough. Including Maurice. Josie, clutching two large and elaborate cushions, all bows and appliqué, is with him.

“Would you mind swapping seats on the coach with Josie?” Maurice asks.

He points at the cushions. “Ours, being nearer the front, have more room for her purchases, you see.”

I’m not sure they do have more room. Not at all.

But I’m happy to agree, especially since Josie’s seat is next to Jeff. I seem to have rather more in common with him than I do with Maurice.

There’s a general atmosphere of good cheer

Perhaps it’s some golden rule of coach tours that whoever you sit with on the coach, you sit with for your meals, too.

Whatever, when I get down to the hotel diningroom that evening Josie is perched opposite Maurice.

Their heads are so close together I fear for the hair of one or other in the candle’s flame!

They look like conspirators and I can guess what they’re plotting. The wording for their complaint to the tour company.

Jeff calls out my name then and waves to me. I wave back as I cross to his table.

There’s another trip somewhere on our last full day, but I’m not going on it. Over our meal last night, Jeff and I decided to have another tramp through the trees today.

We catch one of the local buses outside the hotel. The other passengers on it include a dozen or so cheery sorts, obviously all together, with rucksacks and stout boots who, in response to Jeff’s question, confirm they are out for a walk.

“We do at least two a week,” one of them says.

Though we’re not as well-equipped, they encourage us to join them.

“It’s just a gentle one today so you don’t need boots.”

We accept their offer and it becomes clear as we stride out, Jeff and I laughing together, that they think we’re a couple.

I look at him in . . . well, I’m not sure what sort of way. Maybe amusement.

But why is it a funny idea, I ask myself several times over the four miles we cover. What’s so unlikely about it?

There’s a pub near the hotel, and instead of going back for our evening meal we have a snack there, at a window table.

“The longer days are really with us now,” he remarks, looking out. “You can start thinking about doing things of an evening again.”

We’ve already exchanged phone numbers and e-mail details. He actually lives only ten minutes’ drive from me.

If I’m honest, I’m hoping that, on a good number of those summer days that will soon be here, we will be “doing things of an evening again” together.

Home again! As we clamber off the coach, late again after another detour, Maurice comes up to me and shakes my hand.

“A pleasure to have met you, Fiona. I apologise if you feel I rather abandoned you.”

My face must look a bit blank because he hurries on.

“I mean, Josie taking your seat, and then in the dining-room, too.”

He glances over to where she’s talking to the driver, Dennis. I imagine she’s giving him what-for about today’s delay.

“Not a problem,” I say airily. “Don’t even think about it. Anyway, you two had your complaints to sort out.”

He now looks blank. “To send to the tour operator,” I explain.

“No, no.” He frowns. “Oh, Fiona, I am genuinely sorry if you haven’t enjoyed the trip. But from my point of view, I’ve no cause for complaint at all. Josie is just telling Dennis there how very much we’ve enjoyed it.”

Josie then comes across to us.

“Right,” Maurice says, putting his arm round her, “let’s get our luggage and a taxi.”

With that, they are gone. Jeff then appears, having already retrieved our luggage.

I put my arm round him and he doesn’t look like he’s got any complaints to make, either! n

They look like conspirators and I can guess what they’re plotting