Looking Back: Garlic Bread? You know where Peter Kay gets his material from don't you!!!
Listening to people who have palled up on the plane returning from a foreign holiday, and you wonder if they might have been better staying at home.
‘Won’t it be nice to get a good cup of tea?.’
‘I can’t wait to sleep in my own bed. They don’t know what decent pillows are, do they?’
‘Hope my gardens ok? I do miss it!’’
‘Don’t know about you but it’s all been a bit foreign. Think we’ll go back to Benidorm next year!’
‘‘Yes’ can be the reply ‘you know where you are with Benidorm, don’t you?’
English breakfasts, Sunday roasts, best bitter, footie on television, other Brits. All good reasons to holiday somewhere like the UK with sun!
The weather never suits abroad. Too hot? Why didn’t they check it out before they booked’
They are amazed if you admit to liking the food in Turkey, or somewhere like Morocco! Rolling their eyes in disbelief when you mention falafel or hummus. You know where Peter Kay gets his material from. ‘Garlic bread?’
They think cleanliness might be a problem and you ask when the last time was they used a bidet! What makes people critical of other cultures once they get abroad?
Can’t they be proud to be British yet respect the customs, food and traditions of other countries. Sometimes I think they won’t try foreign food in case, heavens above, they might actually like it.
I can remember holidays when I was a child, staying in indifferent East coast boarding houses often called something like ‘Dun Roamin’ or ‘Chez Nous’.
The landlady would rule it with a rod of iron, there would only be two choices of food at evening meal, edible or not! And you were forbidden to return to the premises during the daytime, whether there was a storm, tornado or civil war!
Family rooms were pretty much the norm, and it was a good idea to take a plug with you for the sink in the communal bathroom as well as your own supply of toilet paper. If, unfortunately you were taken short you could find yourself at the back of a long queue on the corridor!
The concept of en- suite facilities would have been as futuristic as computers!