First published in 2008! I have just returned from a whiz around the Med. Yes, seven glorious days touching ashore in Greece, Italy, Turkey and Croatia. Idyllic! Well, I should point out that I touched ashore, my pants didn’t.
As I arrived in Venice, I was greeted by that stark view of a carousel turning and the last bag being collected by a Polish back packer with terrible B.O.
I wandered to the information desk for some…….information and, to give them their due, they knew exactly where my bag
was….Gatwick! British Airways had struck again!
‘We’ll get it on the next flight,’ was their helpful idea. ‘It arrives at 4.40pm.
‘My ship sails at 4.30pm!’ I pointed out.
‘Where’s your next port of call?’
‘Bari.’
‘Oh! And after that?’
‘Katacolon in Greece’
Oh! After that?’
‘Izmir in Turkey.’
Oh!. After that?’
‘Look I live in Ivybridge, would it be easier to whack it on train from Paddington and I’ll get my neighbour, ‘Cycling Dick’, to pick it up at Plymouth or better still just leave it at Gatwick and I’ll collect it in seven days time.’
That was the end of the phone call with Customer Relations.
This was a new experience for me but for those who have been through this type of thing before you will know that after loosing all your shirts, shoes, bog bag, shaver and socks, you are given a complimentary emergency kit from B.A. which comprises of a white T shirt, toothpaste and a small bar of soap. It’s rather like offering a drowning man a glass of water!
Still I stepped onto my cruise liner, The MSC Musica and was offered another emergency pack and the loan of a pair of trousers plus a bright orange shirt with the company logo. Here I must say that MSC were highly sympathetic and really helpful as they see this on nearly every cruise, in fact the week before, twenty three people arrived without cases at all! That night was black tie so I had to find the fatest waiter and beg for his second best dinner jacket!
The next day I alighted in Greece, clad in bright orange and immediately started to attract butterflies. Then came Izmir and I found that I was the focus of attention of a bunch of tourists from Tokyo as from a distance, I looked like the Japanese Imperial flag and six Aericans stuck to me as they thought I was the offical tour guide from the ship.
By Turkey it was flies! I had had enough and went up to a Turkish street trader and demanded to buy a load of shirts. It has to be the first time in living memory that anyone has ever hassled a Turkish counterfeit shirt vendor and actually asked to buy something. He really didn’t know what to do at first.
An hour or so later I was back on board with a collection of Bolo and Reg Lauren designer kit and went straight to my cabin to change. I walked in and there she was! My bag. After five days and three countries, it was a touching reunion.
That evening at dinner I wore two pairs of pants, just because I could.
The orange shirt was humanely destroyed on the dockside in Italy and I flew home to not a lot of washing.
Yours with a strange rash
Fitz
P.S. Five days in the same pair of pants isn’t a personal record.
