Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Meanwhile, sustained by a glass of a local brew called
Banyuls
, I got stuck into mak-
ing the family phone calls. All completed and just as I was gracefully accepting a second
glass of the interestingly fortified aperitif, my phone rang.
“ItsWill here!” thundered the voice, so loudly that the speaker vibrated. “Have you en-
dured a terrible day at the hands of the opposing amateurs?”
“Well, actually no, Will, it was fine thanks. The house was satisfactory but we did find
that it was too windy in the area,” I replied.
“Dreadful, simply
too
awful, I really can't tell you what a
frightful
mistake you would
have made buying there. It's like a wind tunnel. Never stops and of course the people who
live there are quite mad you know. The very
thought
of putting down feathered game would
be preposterous - just wouldn't work. They'd end up in Spain.
Hah!
By the way,” he added
rather coyly, “
do
show me the particulars when we meet. I'd be intrigued to see them.”
I submissively agreed and ended by praising his choice of stop-over, assuring him that
we'd be reinvigorated and ready to view the second of his
domaines
the following day. Ter-
minating the call I turned to Jack who, like everyone else in the bar had heard every word.
He raised his eyebrows.
“That bloke's becoming very predictable,” he said. “It's like listening to Bertie Woost-
er. What-ho! I'm
really
not looking forward to meeting him. Come on, let's go and eat.”
After an excellent dinner we slept peacefully in our vast bed and were awoken early
the next morning by a discreet knock on our door. Momentarily confused it then came to
me. Of course! Just before going to bed we'd ordered room service, mainly because we
could, but also because we'd decided it would mean we could do things at a leisurely pace.
Unfortunately we hadn't considered the dogs when making that decision and Biff,
upon hearing the knock, hurled himself at the door with great commitment. He was swiftly
followed by Sam who had no idea why he was doing it (being so deaf) but had obviously
decided that Biff was too small to deal with whatever monster lay beyond. Regrettably all
this excitement caused poor Biff to explode and in his yo-yo-like efforts to tear the door
knob off the door, he started peeing everywhere.
“Oh for God's
sake
, get that damn dog under control!” shouted Jack, simultaneously
swatting the dogs and chucking a fluffy hotel bathrobe in my direction.
“Look there's no need to panic. You're just making things worse. You know Biff can't
help it,” I yelled above the din.
“Bloody animal's a menace. Needs a
nappy
.”
At which point there was a slightly more urgent knock at the door. I grabbed the lead
and attempted to lasso Biff.
“I'll take Biff outside,” I cried. “Sam can come too. He won't go far. There's too much
going on in here. For goodness sake don't let whoever it is stand in all that wee!”
I still hadn't managed to secure the lead around Biff's neck when Jack opened the
door. He wheeled back around with a stricken expression on his face.
