To the Fleapit Hotel we went

Trudy and her mother arrange to go on a trip together, but right from the start it seems doomed. By Christine Manby

(Tom Ford)

With the school holidays all but over, those of us at Bella Vista PR who don’t have children could at last take our annual leave. My colleague George was straight on a flight to Mykonos. I loaded up my car for a week with my mother.

We had originally planned to take a river cruise along the Rhine, but gave up believing it would happen at some point in April, by which time holiday options in the UK were already few and far between, even with six months’ lead time. That’s why we were booked to stay in the Cumbrian hotel next door to the one that had been my father’s favourite.

I thought I’d done quite well to grab the last two single rooms, considering the competition. At least I knew Mum liked the town we would be staying in.

“Oh,” said Mum, when I told her where we were going. “We went in there once for a cream tea. Your father got bitten on the ankle.” Mum lowered her voice, as though someone might be listening. “By a flea.”

I demurred but Mum insisted – “It was definitely a flea” – so we were off to a great start. I suggested to Mum that we cancel. I could stay with her at her house and we could go out on day trips instead. But Mum was concerned that we wouldn’t get our money back on the reservation, so the Fleapit Hotel it was. Mum packed several canisters of Jungle Formula Maximum to squirt all over the carpet.

It took us longer to get to the Lakes than it took George to get to his Greek island paradise. By the time I had checked into my single room with its unfeasibly narrow bed, George was already posting pictures from beside the pool. There was no pool at my hotel, but there was a nice view in the direction of Hadrian’s Wall. If you had the right room. I did not have the right room. I had a view of Hadrian’s car park.

Having liberally sprayed Jungle Formula all over her own room, Mum came and sat in mine while the Deet worked its magic. She said she was feeling a little faint.

“I think I breathed some in.”

That’s the thing that puzzles me about anti-bug spray. If you accidentally inhale it, you feel like you might drop dead instantaneously. If you squirt some directly at a mosquito, it will continue to buzz about its business for at least another hour. I was doubtful that it would work any better on fleas.

“And Mum, there won’t be any fleas here anyway. This place was refurbished during lockdown. The carpet is new.”

“Yes, but they’ve gone dog-friendly. It only takes one.”

“I’m sure they vacuum thoroughly between each set of guests, human and canine, because of Covid.”

Actually, I wasn’t sure that was the case at all. But “because of Covid” soon became the catchphrase of the week. When I asked if I could have a towel bigger than a face cloth, when I asked if I could have a couple of coat hangers, when I asked if it might be possible to have a pot of tea, when we found there were no eggs at breakfast… The hotel manager explained that it was very difficult to accommodate all and any (to my mind, quite reasonable) requests, “because of Covid”.

The lack of eggs on the breakfast buffet on our first morning at least gave Mum an excuse to make some new friends. When I dashed up to the hot food section to be first in the queue when the eggs finally did arrive – the most junior member of staff had been sent to the local Spar – Mum engaged in conversation with the woman on the next table – Jacqui – whose husband had also made a dash for the fresh scramble. He gallantly let me take the first spoonful.

“It’s all gone downhill because of Covid,” Jacqui confirmed.

From that breakfast forward, we made a four with Jacqui and Tony, with me as designated driver on a variety of day trips to local beauty spots. Tony sat in the front. He liked to suck his teeth every time I got a little too close to the middle of the road while avoiding Hadrian’s Wall hikers. Never have I wished so hard that my car was equipped with an ejector seat.

I posted pictures of various Hadrian’s Wall viewpoints on Instagram. I even dared post a selfie, with my face turned to catch my favourite three-quarter profile and the wall snaking away into the distance behind me. Unfortunately, there were two women wearing bright orange cagoules in the background of the best shot, which rather spoiled the romantic windswept vibe I was going for. It was also a little embarrassing that I was wearing exactly the same Regatta pac-a-mac.

“Are you wearing an orange cagoule?” George commented. “That’s not a holiday you’re on, it’s community service.”

George’s own feed was full of shots of cocktails against backgrounds of white-walled houses and glittering blue water. I couldn’t even get an Aperol spritz because of Covid. “But we can do you an Irn-Bru with gin.” It was actually quite nice. I posted it on Insta, only to discover that it wasn’t the novelty I thought it was. It’s called a G and B.

On our last night, I lurked in my room with the view of the car park, claiming work, while Mum sat in the wall-view bar with Tony and Jacqui, evidently telling them my life story. When I came down to the bar on our last evening, Jacqui tipped her head to one side, smiled at me sympathetically and said: “Aaaah. Here she is.” Then she told me: “We’ve got a son, lives in London. He’s divorced too. I can’t say we were sorry.”

Evidently, their son Robert was a catch. A chip off the old block, Tony assured me. The kind of catch you throw straight back, then.

Jacqui and Tony were leaving at the same time as me and Mum the following morning. As we said our goodbyes, Jacqui said: “We’ll give Robert your phone number, Trudy. I’m sure you’ll hit it off.”

“Thanks,” I said, safe in the knowledge that they didn’t have my phone number. Except that they did. Mum was not au fait with the Data Protection Act. Or even the daughter protection act.

“I’m sorry, love,” she said. “But imagine if he turns out to be the love of your life.”

I got back to London to discover a postcard from Devon on my doormat. “Come and visit,” Glenn the former postie had scribbled on the back.