Holiday topics

Toastmaster topics master this week asked us to speak about holidays, e.g.

• "What is the best holiday you have ever had?"  
• "Do you prefer to holiday on the beach, or have a more active holiday like cycling?  Explain"
• "Would you holiday in the UK or go overseas?    Why"

One of us had to speak to, "Have you ever had a disaster on holiday", which should elicit a humorous litany of woes, but had she asked me to speak, it would have upset the room. The most disastrous holiday I ever had ended at a quarter to one on 23 August 1996. When the disaster happened, the holiday ended. Another of the topic questions was, "would you take out holiday insurance?" That August we had insurance as usual, but only for the usual four out of the five of our party, and I had to pay out a couple of hundred pounds to get one of us home!  Do I need to assure you that now I always have insurance?

The last topic was open to the room, "has anyone gone abroad on Xmas day?".  Yes - and that was probably one of my most memorable holiday, if only because it was the first one I had away from my parents and family when I was 22.  Booked in summer, whilst suffering from a party-induced hangover, my housemate and I flew to an Austrian skiing resort, Mayerhofen.  Housemate got all the gear, onesie ski-suit, gloves, hat, and I, not knowing if I'd like it, wore my English weather water-proofs.  Housemate put on her skis for the first time in our first class, faced up the hill, stood up, and slid backwards, thus promptly falling over.  She went back to the hotel where she spent the rest of the week, kindly donating me her fantastic onesie, a  garment I wore there and then, and for many years after both skiing and later on winter gliding fields.  I discovered I loved skiing and had some aptitude for it. I spent Christmas lunch alone on the top of a mountain, outside an Austrian ski restaurant, eating my sandwich and enjoying the cold crisp wonderful Alpine air - a good Christmas holiday.