Surpriiiise!

Dry-land sailing

I once — and once only, for reasons that will become evident — surprised Mr McG with a birthday trip.

I told him to pack for three days and that the weather would be similar to home (mid-Oct, unpredictable).

He only found out our destination when we boarded. “Bristol,” he mused. “Now that’s an unusual place for a surprise!”

On arrival, I collected our hire car and we drove through horizontal rain for several hours (Mr McG thinking: we’ll arrive at some boutique hotel luxury spa thing and I’ll have a large scotch and a sumptuous dinner in front of a roaring log fire.)

Instead of which we found ourselves in the middle of a muddy farmyard in the pitch dark.

It was the very early days of online B&B and it appeared I’d booked us into the farmer’s spare room. I had to wake the owners (at 9pm) to get in, there was no food within miles, the room was cold and damp... it was not looking good.

Mr McG thought I’d taken leave of my senses and that we should get the next flight home and pretend it had never happened.

I, however, dug my heels in, having spent the past three fucking months organizing to spend the next few days in an idyllic house in an idyllic part of north Devon with idyllic friends and family. So I was buggered if I was going to allow myself to be browbeaten home even though this part was turning into a bit (a BIT) of a nightmare.

The next day, after a silent breakfast, we quit the farm and I persuaded a stony-faced Mr McG to drive to a supposed local beauty spot.

We progressed down increasingly narrow lanes with Mr McG looking increasingly thunderous, until I finally shouted: HERE! We turned into a driveway and out popped familiar faces from behind a bush.

PHEW! It all turned out massive good fun in the end...but I swore NEVER AGAIN. I forgot that he hated surprises unless he was organizing them.