The Landlady: Up the Slippery Slope

The Small Daughter and I are holidaying in The Seychelles. We are trying our best to do this luxury destination ‘on a budget’. We would not have had to do it ‘on a budget’ had we not gone via Dubai, where we spent six hours at a stretch in Mall of the Emirates. Mall of the Emirates makes Churchill Square look like a hot dog stall in a pub car park. We spanked my credit card so severly that I’ve made the Daughter promise to rent me her room during the foreign student season this year, so that I am able to make the money back. Bribery is easy when you’re waving your shrivelled credit card in a budding teenager’s idea of shopping heaven. We started off trying on £1,000 Moschino dresses and taking selfies in the fitting room. We then each developed an ‘elevator face’, which would involve us contorting our faces into alarming grimaces when alone in various lifts and fitting rooms. I only hope they do not have CCTV in Mall Of The Emirates, as we may well be sectioned on the way home (and have to pay for it, as my travel insurance does not cover ‘unnecessary bursts of madness’).

“My travel insurance does not cover unnecessary bursts of madness”

We are now in The Seychelles where, trust me, it probably costs money to fart. Taxis are eye-wateringly expensive, especially when you’ve become accustomed to the tiny Dubai cab fares. We took the bus from the airport, which cost 25p, but was the most cramped and unpleasant bus journey I have ever experienced. ‘How Am I Driving? – call 25444078’ read a sign near the driver. How on earth he was driving when he should clearly have been in a lunatic asylum, I have no idea, although unlike all the Seychellian people I still thanked him when we got (shakily) off the bus.

The bus fare from the airport to Victoria (11km) was 50p for the two of us. The cab fare from Victoria to Beau Vallon (4km) cost £15! The cab driver, who cursed in French all the way there (How am I driving when someone should have punched me in the face already?) then claimed that he wanted more money because he didn’t know where the guest house was, and hadn’t brought his glasses so he couldn’t read the address. In desperation, I had to punch the guest house number into his mobile phone, which he also charged me for.

The guest house is up the steepest hill I have ever had to walk up. You would have to see it to believe me, but trust me, only a lunatic would walk it every day. I have to cheer up the Small Daughter as we approach The Mahoosive Hill each evening, and tonight I told her that if she climbed the hill every day she would probably live to be 100. ‘Yes, but you’d probably wish you were dead because you had to climb this hill every day’, she replied. Fair point.