October 2021

Lady P - October 2021

Greetings and salutations my ravishing readers!

I am honoured and thrilled to be the travel correspondent for the global phenomenon that is emmaheaven.com. My name is Lady Perdita Fitzwilliam Tudor-Croft, Perdy to friends, Ditsy D to family and Dirty Dita to my unsavoury exes, but you can all call me Lady P.

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My darling ravishing readers, it’s been a month of tears and tantrums, and when I finally pulled myself together, well, let’s just say that the Dita you all love and know so well was back in the room. With a bang!!!

It’s been a mixed bag with moments of despair, bewilderment and sadness, to downright bloody madness and apoplectic rage.

So let me take you back to where it all started…

One was relaxing at a tres swish spa break that those darling gals at EH HQ had arranged prior to my big return to work. One had been thoroughly scrubbed, rubbed and detoxified and was now cheerily putting the toxins back in via any alcohol close to hand; suffice to say, the cocktail list had already been exhausted, as had the scrumptious barman (who insisted on being called a mixologist - is that really still a ‘thing’?) after experimenting with my daily, over the top requests!

After a succession of cocktails that really ought to come with a government health warning, it was safe to say that one was more than a little tipsy throughout one’s stay...

It was whilst one was browsing the Daily Mail’s ‘sidebar of shame’ that one came across an article which well and truly took the wind out of one’s sails, provoking a full on panic attack requiring the old paper bag to breathe into, encouraging, soothing, calming words, and a much needed ‘there there’ pat on the back, until such time one’s breathing returned to normal, and the tears streaming down one’s face finally dried up, so one could continue reading the latest goss...

What had got my undergarments into such a twist you might ask? Well my darlings, it seems that when a certain pint-sized Tom Cruise was wining and dining moi in Venice all those months ago, he also had his co-star waiting eagerly in the wings, ready to be taken to Oblivion and back. He may be a Legend darlings, however he was no longer one of A Few Good Men in Dita’s little black book!

Now call me an old-fashioned prude, but Dita NEVER shares her man/lover with anyone, A-list actress or not!

There was only one thing to do and that was to drown one's sorrows with the help of an eager mixologist and his unerring ability to take me to places no other cocktail has ever taken one before. Quite literally and metaphorically one was transported to a whole new spiritual plane in EVERY sense. And I mean EVERY!

So please forgive me for being a tad ‘distracted’ when an email came through from EH HQ with one’s next assignment. One was barely focusing and just about managed to make out the word ‘island’. This brought a smile to one’s face and another damn good reason to keep on celebrating my return as the top travel correspondent on a global magazine.

As discombobulated as I was, even I knew it couldn’t possibly be an assignment to ‘Love Island’ as filming for that had already wrapped, and it is, dare I say/whisper it, not quite one’s class darlings…

Thus it was with echoes of the rapturous welcome one had had at the recent Bond premiere, that I couldn’t help but have some fanciful flights of fantasy that the ‘island’ might be somewhere glamorous and exotic, as befits James Bond and this globe-trotting bon viveur! And so to bed I tottered, with sweet dreams beckoning...

lady p octoberAlas, such thoughts and dreams saw my tentative tears of potential joy, my darlings, rapidly turn to dejection and tantrums…

Once I’d ‘rejuvenated my senses’ the following morning and re-read the email from Heaven HQ, one was shocked, nay horrified, to discover the island they were sending me to was not a Bond-worthy, sun-soaked island in some far flung location. NOPE. It was Barry Island in South Wales no less!!

Now I know staycations are all the rage but let’s be honest here, NOBODY would rather stay in the UK if they could jet off to somewhere exotic, and most importantly HOT, with cocktails on hand and a surfeit of Adonises sauntering along the seashore in search of a good time!

What followed was a most unladylike screaming tantrum that would perforate the hardiest of eardrums, and language that was most unbefitting to somebody of my social standing…however, in one’s defence, one was a tad emotional and tender around the temples after a tipple or two too far...

I decided to vent my frustration to the faithful gal pal group on WhatsApp, and in a rather intense heart-to-heart, one blurted out a desire to threaten industrial action by going on strike until EH HQ came to their senses and reinstated foreign travel pronto. Yes. That would show them…or so I thought, until one very astute gal pal sagely reminded us that there were gazillions of younger, hotter, more accommodating, ambitious females hovering in the wings, just waiting to steal our crowns and thrones.

Now I must admit that this nugget of wisdom stopped me dead in my tracks, and I breathed a humongous sigh of relief that I hadn’t already sent an email stating one’s tantrum-induced intentions…crisis averted, and one humble Dita was ready to embrace Barry and all that he - sorry - it, had to offer; moreso after another reliably informed chum let slip that the gorgeous actor Tom Hardy had been spotted in its environs recently while filming in Wales…

Call it karma, fate or whatever you want, but getting some romantic revenge on Tom Cruise by getting ‘involved’ with another younger, equally handsome Tom would be a step in the right direction to healing one’s bruised ego. And he is rather a dish…oh boy can he inject his Venom into me anyday. Call me foolhardy for wanting some tomfoolery with Mr Hardy…

Anyway, I digress...

Dita had managed to turn her frown upside down, and ventured west, with a renewed spring in her step, emboldened with a playlist by the Walrus of Love himself, Barry White, to get into the mood.

One arrived at the Isle of Barry and mercifully the weather was quite a shocker…the sun was blazing down from a cloudless sky, as one started off one’s explorations with a ‘Gavin & Stacey’ tour, which coincidentally happens to be a guilty pleasure of mine. Don’t judge me darlings!

Our tour guide Dai whisked us off to the street where Stacey lives, the slot machines where Nessa ‘works’, and the Dave Coaches drop-off point where Stacey jumped into Gavin’s arms while accidentally activating her rape alarm. Don’t ask!

For those who are not familiar with popular British TV and/or Welsh culture, Gavin & Stacey is a comedy filmed in Barry in South Wales; it’s about a Welsh lass who meets an Essex lad and they get married. Written by James Corden and Ruth Jones one has to say it has the feel good factor and warms the cockles of one’s heart!

I am so smitten with it, watching it endlessly like the true romantic that I am, that one has become quite Welsh-like - I even asked Mummy for a cwtch the other day, and she looked at me like I was utterly bonkers, until I explained what cwtch meant: to be hugged, with the enveloping arms creating a safe place; to this she responded by squeezing me even tighter. Gosh this cwtch stuff could prove to be quite a useful technique in trying to snag a handsome chap, under the guise of wanting to be ‘warmed up’ during these cooler autumnal months…Every cloud eh?!

Anyway, I digress…

Back to the tour, and to the rather tantalisingly named ‘ Barry Island Pleasure Park’. As we drew closer, I was tempted to contact the powers that be about false advertising and cruelly leading a gal on, but just as I was about to call up their contact details to register my concerns, I spotted two of my childhood favourites - the dodgems and the ferris wheel! It would be most indiscreet and uncharacteristic of me to say when I last yelped and screamed quite so enthusiastically, but let’s just say it would have definitely pre-dated one’s Venice sojourn...

I gave some of the more dangerous and scary rides a wide berth, after all, one had scoffed a hearty supper of fish ‘n’ chips on the beach front and been drinking the odd tipple or three, so I didn't want to see any of that ‘reappear’, which would have been beyond mortifying darlings. Or to paraphrase a certain Nessa, ‘what’s re-occurring’...?

At the risk of sounding supercilious, I have to confess that I did rather enjoy my visit, immersing oneself in Welsh culture…does a TV show tour count as Welsh culture? Also taking in the beautiful coastline, devouring the local cuisine and tremendous range of alcohol on offer courtesy of the many breweries and distilleries in the vicinity. The seaweed infused gin was a particular highlight! Let’s say the Welsh certainly know how to brew, distill, drink AND party for that matter… they really do keep a warm welcome in the hillside! Must be all that cwtching!

Anyway my ravishing readers, one is now off to perfect my cwtching skills so I bid you goodbye, or should that be ‘hwyl fawr’? With such an excellent grasp of the language, surely that alone would qualify me as a future ambassador, if not Princess of Wales, non? Too bad a certain ginger one seems to be on the naughty step indefinitely, otherwise I could have asked him to put in a good word for me. Looks like I’ll have to set my sights considerably higher, and schmooze up the future consorts...

Toodle pip cariad…

lady p signature

xx

***Note to Team Heaven HQ***

What an unexpected delight this trip turned out to be. Thank you darlings for opening my eyes to such delights, and on these shores too!

And while we’re talking all things ‘Barry’...in other news, this ‘Fanilow’ saw that THE most wonderful, legendary Barry Manilow is scheduled to perform in Cardiff next summer. Hint, hint…It could indeed be magic if you could sort out a little meet and greet for me and a few gal pals - we’ve never been quite the same since an extended ‘hen holiday’ in Rio with endless partying on the Copacabana Beach, fuelled by the most perfect caipirinhas, ever! Remind me to tell ALL, next time I see you.

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