A home of our own

Last night (Thursday) we had a simple pizza for dinner watching the world go by in a nice open air Italian Restaurant on Lincoln, we were just into the second bottle of Pino Grigo pondering on where we would be living/sleeping for the next night/week when someone had a brainstorm; you’ll know straight away whose idea this was, but if you’re struggling her name begins with T and she recently retired from a well known high street bank.

We have (or more accurately our agent on our behalf has) been ringing around and working hard to find an apartment for us, and a lot of the half reasonable hotels are full, or have ramped up their rates due to the high season. I knew Theresa was scheming around something over dinner, I could tell because she was quiet - and when she’s quiet, she’s scheming or she’s asleep – and I could see she wasn’t asleep; she’d crunched a few numbers around in her head and reckoned that, with what we are paying/will have to pay in hotels/meals and parking that poxy car at $30 a night (plus tax) – we could go on another cruise for about the same price.

I didn’t need that much persuading but we only just managed to book the last cruise last minute - in time theres not a lot about, but it was worth another shot it's now two weeks later and two weeks is a long time in the travel business so they say. We boxed up the rest of the pizza, necked the Pino Grig and fired up the laptop back at the hotel. There were a few that were still available on the Internet and give or take a score or three, the books balanced. By now it's well gone 11pm so I sent a late night email to the agent with yet another plan of action . . . how about this . . .can we do this etc etc . . . . we really do owe her a bottle.

She has a good rapport with the cruise lines and I suspect that sorting this was far easier for her than trawling the Internet for apartments; she’d picked up the email at 7.30am and by the time I’d got up there was a reply, ‘I’m working on it - call me after 9.30am’ . . . and by noon we’d booked another cruise on the Carnival Liberty going out Saturday 21st – 7 days to the Eastern Caribbean - San Juan, St Thomas and St Maartin, we’ve been there before but not on this ship and shit, this beats the Miami YMCA.

So we nicked another night in the Shelborne and the current plan is for a nice bit of nosebag somewhere on Ocean Drive tonight and off to the Caribbean tomorrow. The Port of Miami (sounds posher than calling it the docks) is only a 20-minute drive away so I rather hope we’ll be on board in time to take luncheon - or worse case, afternoon tea.

Shit or bust – in for a penny and all that . . . when we come back we’re at the Hilton Hotel in Fort Lauderdale for 4 days until we fly home on 4th March

Our credit cards have taken a bit of a slapping out here and our children keep txting suggesting we should take care of ourselves and be sharing healthy salads at Burger King, can’t think why, did someone let on we may have to sell the house when we get back - to pay for parking the f***ing car in Miami.

And finally can anyone update Theresa on EastEnders American telly is crap . . .