Day trip in a foreign land. Early start – just about managed to stuff enough breakfast down me in the hotel restaurant to last a few hours on the road, and stagger to the allotted location for my minibus pickup. There were already two young Dutch ladies in the van, each less than half my age and wearing easily half as many clothes, but annoyingly twice as awake and busy on their phones.
Our guide suggested I sit in the front with him. He reminded me vaguely of someone – everyone does these days.
We picked up two more ‘girls’ – Canadian this time. Similar clothing quotient – teeny tiny shorts and strappy low-cut tops, with long legs and fashionable trainers (if that’s what they’re still called these days). They piled happily, and wide awake, into the back.
Finally, the last two arrived, and our guide had clearly won the jackpot today, as it was yet another pair of young women. To ring the changes, one of these was wearing a denim mini-skirt instead of short shorts, and both sported statement mirror sunglasses.
What was I wearing? A very sensible acreage of thin trouser and a sleeveless vest. In my terms, not much. But by the end of a hot afternoon beside a beautiful lake, I was inspired to sneakily remove the lower portion of the trouser legs (yes, they were uber-sexy walking trews) and finished the day only one-third more covered-up than the youngsters. Flashing a bit of knee for the benefit of the driver/guide. He seemed to have no luck with the girls in back, poor man.
Despite our differing attire, respect is due to all of us that we had, to a woman, chosen sensible footwear and easily achieved the walking challenges set us – even up 553 unexpected steps at the final waterfall.
I finally worked out who the guide resembled whilst navigating these 553 steps. Ben Whishaw. Without the floppy hair. And, I thought, without the dimpled chin. But on return to the van, I noticed he did indeed have a slight chin dimple (surreptitious glances, careful not to stare, whilst sporting my bare knees). Now, on inspecting at home a few googled pics of Mr Whishaw, I am having a small debate with myself as to whether he has such a dimple. Well, the guide still looked like him – a bit.
The next day, we were a more mixed-age bunch on the beach trip…but sadly, despite going without the lower portions of my trousers from the off this morning, I was immediately mistaken for the 32-year-old’s mother. So much for being blonde.
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