Orf We Jolly Well Go

By this time tomorrow, while you lot are crawling out of bed and dragging yourself to the coalface for another daily grind, Her Indoors and I will be at 30,000-something feet flying south to the Canary Islands for a week of sun, sand and sauciness. I slotted in that last more in hope than confidence.

Yes, we’re clearing orf on our annual winter jaunt, and this time it’s Playa del Ingles in Gran Canaria which has the pleasure of our company.

The only drawback with foreign travel is getting there. You have to fly, and these days, I don’t like flying. It’s bad on my knees, bad on my hearing and I don’t enjoy being crammed into a pressurised cigar tube with 180 other holidaymakers with barely room to swing a cat… assuming you were allowed to take a cat on board, which you’re not.

I’m not alone in my irritation. Joe Murray suffers the same, as we can see in the following extract taken from the pages of Costa del Murder.

***

With a familiar bing-bong chime, the PA system died off, and Joe removed his watch to alter the time. “Costa del bloody Sol,” he grumbled. “What’s wrong with Bridlington?”

“At this time of year, everything,” Sheila said. “I checked, and the average temperature is twenty-four degrees.”

Joe feigned surprise. “You checked on the average temperature for Bridlington?”

“I checked on the Costa del Sol, as you well know. The average temperature for Bridlington is an overcoat and two jumpers.”

They were sat six rows from the front, Joe on the aisle, Sheila in the middle and Brenda at the window where she had already plugged in her mp3 player and opened up her Kindle e-reader.

With a glance at their friend, Sheila advised, “Just relax, Joe, we know you haven’t had a heart attack, but remember what Dr McKay said. If you don’t start to take it easy, you will have one.”

“How am I supposed to relax cooped up in a sardine tin for three hours with nothing between my feet and the ground but thirty thousand feet of nothing?” He reached into his gilet and pulled out paperback copy of Conan Doyle’s Hound of the Baskervilles. “I hate bloody flying.”

“Nothing will go wrong, Joe,” Sheila assured him.

“I didn’t say it would. I just said I hate flying.”

Poor old Joe. Poor old me. Still and all, by mid-afternoon tomorrow, my annoyance will have settled and I shall be soaking up a little ultra-violet somewhere West of Morocco.

I’m back in a week. Until then, be good. If you can’t be good, be careful. If you can’t be careful, try jogging on the spot. It’ll keep your mind occupied.