I have recently noticed a new social demographic – Game Old Girls or Gallivanting Old Ladies.
Ladies, a decade or more after the age they first qualified for a bus pass, going off in pairs for sunshine, adventure & a rest from the husband. A good rest, where someone else makes the bed, cleans the bath, cooks & serves the food, & does the washing up.
The ones I see are clearly not surviving on the basic state pension, but nor are they what you would call affluent. They are very well organised – just one medium sized sturdy suitcase on wheels & a hand bag, dressed in neat jacket & trousers.
The first pair I noticed were accompanied on to the bus by their husbands, there solely to lift the suitcases on to the luggage rack, then a quick kiss & they were off, in one case to an impatient sigh & a Yes, yes, I’ll send you a text from the wife he had been mithering all morning with his Have you got your passport? What about your insurance?
They do it two or three times a year, never making plans in advance. They do not use the internet, except for information & ideas, but just ring the travel firm to get a good last minute deal. Previous trips have included a Nile cruise, this time it was Tenerife. With no single supplement to pay & free travel to the airport it does not really work out more expensive than a week at home - & certainly less than a week in an English hotel.
They never go for more than a week – that’s the longest the husbands can manage on their own with a freezer stocked with the meals prepared for them. One husband does not go because he just does not like flying & I got the impression that the other simply was not invited.
And since I started to notice, I have realised that they are far from unique.
