FOR SOME PEOPLE, the financial commitment of taking off for a few weeks is a sizeable cost.
Not only is there all the food and drinks, there’s the cost of kitting out the car and the van, fuel, repairs and, of course, making sure the wardrobe will be adequate.
For one of our traveller couples, buying a cake of soap each simply pushed the budget. That must surely have been the reason that, at a time when I happened to be taking a shower, she entered the gents’ block and called out to hubby, asking if she could have the soap so she might have a shower.
Armed with this bit of information, I arranged a little something to be presented to her on the last night of our tour, when all the participants were there for the Farewell Feed. A few innocuous awards were handed out to various tour members, and then it came time for one of the group to stand and say a few words on behalf of our little travelling circus.
After outlining the situation that had befallen the lady, and her need to trot through the men’s shower room, he presented her with a nice bar of perfumed soap. Then, unannounced, the other 35 or so trip participants came to her with the same offering, one by one. She ended up with about 40 soaps, but all the scrubbing in the world would not have washed off the bright red that covered her face by the end of the presentations!