The Landlady recaps on recent trips

It is 2013 and I feel somewhat detached from this column, as I haven’t written it for over 5 weeks and it has become something of a stranger to me. The past 6 weeks have included my return from Norfolk, a trip to Budapest, Christmas and New Year – with their associated hangovers, hard work and seemingly endless partying, plus, a foray to Gambia with The New Boyfriend.

“trying to make the driver drink Vodka from the bottle while speaking to him in Arabic”

Budapest – with my friend Miss T at the end of November – was a triumph, although we almost were banned from getting on the plane because we shouted at the officials when they claimed that we’d have to put our carefully packed hand-luggage in the hold because there wasn’t enough cabin space on the plane. Admittedly, we were rather more animated than usual, in a Patsy and Edina-type manner, as we’d had a couple of tiny drinks in the bar at Gatwick. I was told off for shouting too much by Miss T, then, having taken my seat at the rear of the plane in a more subdued manner, had to telephone Miss T to tell her to stop shouting at the official at the front of the plane. The whole affair became even more cringe-worthy when, in a cab on the way to central Budapest, I was trying to make the driver drink Vodka from the bottle while speaking to him in Arabic. Fortunately, the rest of the trip passed without too much of a hitch…

The 1st of December dawned and, as usual, I bought advent calendars for all of my children, even though two of them are in their 20’s. It seems that I am not alone in indulging my offspring, as a customer at The Supermarket told me that she still buys one for her daughter. Aged 64. On the 3rd of December, I fancied a bit of chocolate and, noticing that The Big Daughter had only eaten the first day of Christmas, I ate the 2nd. I then texted her to say ‘Just eaten your number 2. From your advent calendar, obv. Anything else would be too disgusting.’ The Big Daughter reported back that my text had been hilarious after two glasses of wine. Hmmmm… I’d had to drink a whole bottle in order to write it…

Mid-December hailed our Gambia excursion, which was amazing and would have been even more so had we not missed our outbound flights and had to pay £400 each for a one-way ticket, which was more than the original return ticket had been. Somewhat alarmingly, even though The New Boyfriend’s timekeeping is appalling at best and criminal at worse, on this occasion, the mistake was entirely my fault. Even though we had stayed at Gatwick overnight, we were so late – due to my dyslexic alarm-clock setting – that they wouldn’t allow us to board the flight. On the plus side, the £400 flight was one hour later, included a free meal and, due to a hefty tail-wind – arrived ahead of schedule… Small mercies…