None of This Nudity and Gramophones Half the Night
It is not easy organising a holiday for fifty seven senior citizens. First, there is the small matter of making sure all fifty seven of them return alive. Then you’ve got to deal with the transport issue. A standard tour bus seats fifty six people plus the driver. It is possible, with some shopping around to source a coach capable of seating sixty which, you’d think would be perfectly adequate. But, by the time you take into consideration the walking aids, the wheelchairs, the seeing eye dog who comes everywhere with Mrs Dalton and Mrs McPeters who is, what they now call, a larger lady, though she still refers to herself as rather hefty, well, there’s really only room for forty on the bus. A second coach is required. Two coaches could seat one hundred and twelve regular passengers, (plus drivers), which seems somewhat excessive when dealing catering for fifty seven senior citizens and pushes the budget through the roof.
The costs are another bone of contention. To be very honest, it is the costs which raise most complaints. Mrs Ilsey thinks the B&B is extortionate, especially when they’re not even providing a full English. Mrs Sinclair would prefer to bring her own teabags and wishes for the saving to be deducted from her bill. Mrs Mullan picks up on the teabag debacle, she’ll bring her own Tetley too and would like to point out how unfair it is that while she takes a mere half slice of toast for breakfast and not a lick of jam or marmalade on it, Mrs McPeters wolfs down half a dozen rounds of toast, liberally spread with a range of different homemade preserves. Surely Mrs Mullan should not be charged the same price as Mrs McPeters. Mrs McPeters agrees. She can see Mrs Mullan’s point. But then Mrs McPeters does not go in for exercise of any sort and, two evenings back, stayed in when the others went out to play pitch and putt. Perhaps, she suggests, her extra toast could be taken in lieu of those costs associated with pitch and putt. Sure, it all balances out in the end.
The books do not easily balance. It is, if I’m being honest, a bloody nightmare. It’s not just the official finances I’m struggling with, it’s the fifty seven individual purses, I’ve been asked to hold on to lest they be inadvertently misplaced, or thieved or ransacked too liberally in the amusement arcade. Each and every one of the fifty seven has shuffled up to present me with an almost identical black leather number, scuffed round the edges and containing fifty to sixty pounds in fivers and a selection of photographed grandchildren. Each has asked if I wouldn’t mind minding their purse and I’ve had no option but to say “no, not at all,” and add it to the pile I am now carting round everywhere in a pull-on suitcase. Imagine the confusion each time we stop to buy an ice-cream. Fifty seven identical purses. Fifty six grey haired ladies, mostly named Margaret, all baying for raspberry ripple and poor Mr Symonds, standing forlornly, in the midst of them.
Before you start feeling any sympathy towards Mr Symonds, let me stop you there. Mr Symonds is here to find a wife. He knows the odds of meeting a single lady on a senior citizens’ holiday will be well in his favour. Even Mr Symonds could not possibly have predicted how good he’d have it on this particular trip. There is one of him and fifty six of them and it is all I can do to keep the old ladies from throwing themselves at him. I have had stern words with Mr Symonds and first Mrs Fletcher, then Mrs Carlisle, both of whom I’ve caught creeping sheepishly out of Mr Symonds room at a somewhat ungodly hour, (10:30). I’ve had to sit the whole group down and give them a talk about holiday romances; how easy it is to lose one’s head and throw caution to the wind when in an exotic spot like this. (Falmouth).
I have noticed factions developing within the group. Mr Symonds and the party girls who are rumoured to have gone skinny dipping down by the pier on our way home from the bingo excursion. Mrs Mitchell and the good living contingent who get up before breakfast to do their Everyday with Jesus Bible notes in the lounge and wouldn’t even come to the bingo on account of not gambling. Mrs Clerk, who is Mrs Mitchell sister-in-law, (both sadly widowed), would like me to send Mr Symonds home. “None of this nudity and gramophones half the night,” she announced during morning get together, “I didn’t sign up for an orgy.”
The thing is, I don’t quite know what any of them did sign up for. All fifty seven want something different out of this holiday. All fifty seven have taken me aside and told me in no uncertain terms, that it is my job to make sure they have the time of their life. I thought this would be an easy gig. I’d feed the old folk ice cream and let them knit and talk about their grandchildren and if things got a bit sticky, I’d put an Elvis movie on the DVD player and make them sing along. I thought I knew what senior citizens wanted. I couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Inspired by a line from Agatha Christie’s 1940 novel And Then There Were None