When you are miles away from home in a place you have never visited before you are out of your comfort zone. You meet or notice new people like Giovanni or like Mark and Rachel from Runcorn in Cheshire. They were lovely people and they were on holiday with their daughters aged eighteen and twenty one.
Like us they had not flown abroad since 2019 - before the pandemic. We got talking with them after dinner one night and it went like this...
RACHEL And so what does your son do down in London?
ME Well he's involved in the food industry. He's a vegan chef and he's published a few recipe books with his mate.
RACHEL What's his name?
ME He's called Ian. Have you ever heard of BOSH!?
RACHEL BOSH!? Yeah course I've heard of them. I've got all of their books. So are you guys the parents of the BOSH! boys?
ME Well we're the parents of one of the BOSH! boys - not both of them . We're Ian's parents.
RACHEL Oh my god. I can't believe it!
⦿
We also met two moaning minnies called John and Stella from South London. They had come to Sicily for three weeks to celebrate Stella's seventy first birthday. Nothing was right for them, from the food to their room and from the staff to the swimming pools. Now bearing in mind that I will be seventy this year and therefore just a year younger than Stella, I asked if they had visited the Greco-Roman amphitheatre in Syracuse...
STELLA When you get to our age, you have seen plenty of old ruins and after a while they are all the same so we didn't bother visiting the archaeological site in Syracuse.
Later with regard to Mount Etna...
STELLA We have visited Vesuvius and we found the trip up Mount Etna quite boring. We have also been to see the volcano on Tenerife. The only volcanoes I would like to see now are in Iceland.
ME Oh I've been to Iceland and I have seen volcanic activity there. I was there back in 1991.
STELLA & JOHN (They are not interested and ask no follow-up questions before returning to their endless grumbles). And the rep is useless. We told her we wanted a transfer to a different hotel. They call this four star? I wouldn't even give it a two star. We just can't wait to get home.
After that encounter, Shirley and I studiously avoided Stella and John. That kind of negativity can be infectious and we ourselves had no significant complaints about the hotel and the services we received. After all, we had done our homework and we knew exactly what to expect.
Of course while at our Sicilian resort hotel, we spent a good amount of time observing Italian holiday makers - mostly from the north of the country - Milan, Bologna, Genoa etc.. On the whole, they seemed like a happy bunch with few histrionics and the children were generally well-behaved. We met an Italian couple who now live and work in Northampton, England. Their little daughter Lydia was fifteen months old and very sweet
How fun to have a famous son to surprise Rachel with! Stella and John should have stayed home. Those kind of Negative Nellies give me a pain in the you-know-where.
ReplyDeleteArse?... I can't imagine Stella and John going anywhere without moaning.
DeleteI can remember being amazed at your connection to BOSH! when I first learned of it here. It's a small world. You and Ian are each famous in your own right.
ReplyDeleteWe remain so proud of what he has done. There'll be a new book out this summer.
DeleteSome people are never satisfied no matter how good things are. Yes, ditch them in a hurry.
ReplyDeleteStella especially is very skilled in grumbling. I felt a little sorry for John. He just went along with her moaning.
DeleteThe Good and the Bad of travel; good that you avoided Mr. and Mrs. Sourpuss.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny how different people's assessments of the same thing can be so very different.
DeleteIt is like rather Trip Advisor reviews, where one person's description can be 'a hovel not fit for humans, with rude staff' and another for the same 'for the price we paid, the accommodation is more that satisfactory, with friendly and helpful staff'.
ReplyDeleteSome people really must do things with a bad outcome right at the front of their minds, and seem to make that happen.
People like Stella seem to enjoy judging and moaning. Maybe it makes them feel superior somehow.
DeleteStella and John sound like they put the FU in FUN.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter now has her own cooking blog and it seems quite strange at times seeing her cooking and eating, especially considering how picky she was as a child. It does give me a good feeling to know that she's doing what she enjoys, as I'm sure do with Ian.
I would like to see your daughter's blog. I will have to do some detective work to find it.
DeleteYou can find her here. Please don't post this though as she doesn't like my blogging and doesn't want to be connected to it. Nor do I want her to find her way back to my blog. Last time she did that she wouldn't talk to me for months. She can be prickly.
Deletehttps://www.rachelhalldorson.com/
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DeleteI would be avoiding Stella and John too, perhaps they should just stay home from now on. I am glad you met the enthusiastic Rachel though.
ReplyDeleteRachel was a lovely woman. If I could have had two wives I might have picked her to join us. Mark might not have been happy about that.
DeleteSadly there always seems to be at least one couple like Stella and John. What on earth made them choose to spend three weeks on Sicily if they don't like antiquities or volcanoes? Apart from moaning to anyone who'd listen, what did they do with themselves? They probably go home and boast about what a fantastic time they had!
ReplyDeleteNice to know that there are Bosh! fans out there!
They spent a lot of time under an awning near one of the pools. The pool was probably too warm and the awning probably had some bird shit on it.
DeleteThe Stellas and Johns of the world give English tourists such a bad name. Here they are known as Whingeing Poms. It is not a term of endearment.
ReplyDeleteI have heard that term before and I do not like it. There's an element of racism there.
DeleteI wonder whether English immigrants did complain about Australia's
Deleteheat and flies and thus earned, unfairly, the epithet whingeing ?
When I visited my sister in Cheltenham she showed me a drama on
her ipad about an English family trying to adapt to an Oz work camp.
I saw the first episode which was enough to give me the rest.
YouTube trailers of new movies are all I need; I would rather read.
I think it would have been the Scottish immigrants who were doing the lion's share of the moaning.
DeleteAye, sum Glasgow immigrants will be showing up at ur local, Yorky.
DeleteYule be buyin the craft beers an the veggy burgers, big man.
I do feel sorry for Stella and John. What a waste of time, money and energy - spending three weeks in a place they are not really interested in, and that they do not make the least effort to like, by the sounds of it. They should have just celebrated Stella's birthday at their nearest chippie. But then they would probably have had cause to complain about the batter being too thick, the fish too dry and the chips too hot. Or something like that.
ReplyDeleteYou are fast becoming celebrities by association! Did Rachel ask for a selfie?
No she didn't but for a moment she was happily starstruck - her daughters too. They are both vegetarian like their mum.
DeleteHa ha, sorry, I had to comment. Stella and John make me think of Jeanette and Dougie in the movie Shirley Valentine, whinging about how "it's not Majorca is it"! Some people just shouldn't travel. Pre-covid my last trip was to Sri Lanka where I met Miserable Pete who hated dark skinned people and rice - beats me why he bothered going to Sri Lanka then! And I chose to celebrate my 60th birthday in Sicily and absolutely loved it, especially Syracuse!
ReplyDeletePerhaps Miserable Pete thought that Sri Lanka was off the coast of Sweden and that the people ate chips and herring. Syracuse - a nice place to celebrate your 60th Treaders but a lot can change in twenty years!
DeleteI suppose that's the difference between "going on holiday" and travelling. The latter implies at least some interest in your destination.
ReplyDeleteThat's an astute point.
DeleteStella and John make great characters and subjects for writing. I was once on a day excursion in the Algarve and there was a northern English young lady who could talk for England, Scotland and Wales. She entertained everyone with her opinions and comments
ReplyDeleteI would have felt like saying, "Put a sock in it love!"
DeleteSo, you didn't ask Stella and John what they think about BOSH! ?
ReplyDeleteThey'd have said it's not normal to be vegan.
DeleteThere are so many different types of travelers, aren't there? I am always interested in observing the people around me when we go to different places. One wonders why some people go at all as nothing seems to please them. Others can be absolutely delighted at everything. And of course everything in between.
ReplyDeleteYou make a good point. People who constantly talk things up can be as irritating as the moaner lisas.
DeleteIt sounds like Stella and John should have stayed in London and gone to their local Italian restaurant instead and spared everyone in Sicily their moaning
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't want a pint of Stella!
Delete(Get it?)
You were right to get away from the negative couple. I wonder why they are so miserable.
ReplyDeleteWhen you moan constantly it's as if you think that you have a superior view of things. Maybe that's it.
Delete"Moaning minnies" -- what a great expression. I don't mind moaning minnies if they're humorous about it. If they're just dolorous, I'll do like you and steer clear.
ReplyDeleteIan's fame has spread far and wide!
I have known the expression "moaning minnies" all my life. I don't know how it arose.
DeleteOne of the funny things that happen to us as we age is going from "Oh is he your dad? He's cool!" to "OMG, are you Ian's dad? We think he and Bosh are really cool!"
ReplyDeleteThe wheel turns.
Delete