VPaterson

Last updated 00:00, Thursday, 10 January 2008

OUR Christmas didn’t get off to a good start - in fact it was divorce papers at dawn before we even left on our holiday to Italy.

My husband, reading about a Liverpool footballer’s wife being traumatised when burglars entered her home while her husband was off playing in Europe, commented that the woman had been silly.

Just the week before, he said, she had shown off some item of jewellery to the papers and every burglar in Liverpool knew her husband was going to be away.

“It is so stupid to advertise what you are doing,” he said, and then laughed: “I presume you haven’t told the world we are going to Italy and leaving the house empty.”

Well, not the world exactly - only those of you who read this column. Thank you, all of you, for not attempting to break into our house while we were away.

Anyway, after an argument about whether or not I was stupid or just trusting, we set off for Oxford with my husband driving and me back seat driving, which is always a lethal combination.

We survived that journey but almost didn’t survive the next.

We were among the unfortunate thousands you see on television every holiday - we were stuck at Heathrow. Our plane to Milan was cancelled because of fog. The one thing I discovered is that Heathrow, despite being the most consistently fogged-in airport in Britain, does not cope well. My daughter and her partner stood in queues for six hours. We were flying Alitalia and they had one staff member coping with a huge crowd of disgruntled passengers. I went to find the kids a sandwich at one point and there was not a sandwich to be had - the shops had run out!

Anyway, we got to Milan at about 11pm (we should have been at our ultimate destination at two in the afternoon) and spent the night on benches at an airport that was completely closed down. There were people everywhere and only one toilet open and no coffee anywhere. Our intrepid Peppe found a staff area, however, with a machine dispensing very cheap coffee and snacks.

We not only availed ourselves of the facilities (there were no staff to stop us) but Peppe also guided most of the other waiting passengers to the machine. There would have been little left by the time staff arrived at work in the morning.

Anyway, we finally got to Barletta, Peppe’s home way down on the heel of Italy at lunchtime on Christmas Eve, 28 hours later than planned.

But we were there and we were happy - until we started to open my husband’s suitcase and discovered we had the wrong one! Somehow the bags must have been muddled during one of numerous check-ins and check-outs at Heathrow.

Every Christmas present was in the suitcase along with my much-needed insulin and all my husband’s clothes.

My husband pointed out that I had wanted to put his medication in the suitcase but he had refused because there was a chance it could go missing. He preferred to keep it in his hand luggage. That man knows NOTHING about being gracious in victory!

Anyway, despite all that, we had a wonderful holiday. But if there is one thing I learned it is that the most important people in the world are translators. I also wonder how many wars have been created by people who are too tired, too bored or just too plain mischievous to translate properly.

We were spending Christmas and New Year with Peppe’s parents who speak as much English as we do Italian - which means not much at all.

That meant we depended on the kids to translate.

When we discovered that Peppe’s mum had paid a 100 Euro deposit for our bed and breakfast, I took the money to her on New Year’s Day.

I asked Peppe to tell his mum what the money was for, and he explained to her that we felt it necessary to pay for our New Year lunch.

She was horrified and insulted, I was bewildered, and the kids fell around laughing.

Then there was the occasion when Tina tried to tell us that she would be sad to see us go. The youngest daughter, Sylvia, told me earnestly: “Mamma says that there is a saying in Italy that after three days the guests start to smell like fish.”

Despite it all, we had a wonderful holiday in Italy. The suitcase eventually turned up and we had Christmas all over again when it did. Middle daughter, Rosamaria, is a doctor and managed to get me insulin, and despite the best efforts of our daughter and the three Italian siblings we all parted friends and vowed to meet again.

And we got home without incident and with suitcases - that must be a portent for the New Year!