What my Dear Old Dad loved most about holidays was the Cuba Libres, of course, swimming in the sea (he was from Glasgow). And…
Not having to answer the phone.
Remember those days when work couldn’t reach you.
Variously I’ve been contacted…
At the very moment I was putting my Dad in the nursing home for the first time.
And when I was in the changing room of Dundrum Shopping Centre.
Both times I grant you I wasn’t exactly on holiday but I’m sure they could have sorted out their own rota.
You get the point!
But I was called (why do I always answer? Eh,) in the queue for Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts.
In Universal Orlando, Aaawlando… Orlando, the rollercoaster capital, the rollercoaster capital www.universalorlando.com and www.attractiontickets.com.
It was only the Church wanting to know if I was free, as scheduled, to say that day’s readings.
‘Hold on to your hats, everyone, this is St Paaaaaul’s First Letter to the Coriiiiiinthians.’
And then there was the time at the end of my Via Francigena Small roads lead to Rome and www.viafrancigena.com.
When I was having a quiet word with the Lord in a side-chapel in St Paul’s Basilica, the Scary One texted me to ask why…
I was going through so much phone credit.
And then there were the calls when I was in America… from estate agents back in Ireland.
Asking why the wrong house picture had gone on the property page in the previous days paper.
And by a boss giving out about why I couldn’t get him a better deal on a hotel in New York while giving out about why I was away.
In Amsterdam www.iamsterdam.com where we were staying in the hotel George and Amal frequent when they are in the city.
George Clooney and Amal’s Amsterdam hotel and Pictures of Amsterdam.
Was I bovvered? Yes, but the caviar and Champagne helped.
Yes, I know that you can put an out of office message on your email.
But it’s fiddly if you’re a technophobe like me, I would forget, and I’d always be in a rush to get out of the office.
Like much else in the world, and you’ll feel the same way when you get to my advanced age, life was simpler way back then.
When a simple postcard would do.
I remember one particular one from Munich https://www.oktoberfest.de/en of a particularly flabby old woman which naturally went back to my old Mum.
And you always bluffed what you’d really been up to…
Museums instead of beer halls, and cathedrals rather than party girls.
In very exceptional circumstances you might need to (you’d rarely, if ever want to), phone home.
Like when myself and the besotted Miss F got engaged in Malta.
Where I returned 20 ofd years later… Malta easer and www.visitmalta.com.
Of course, I’d like to say my Mum and Dad were ecstatic, but I guess I was their baby…
WISH YOU WERE HERE
