Remember everything mean I’ve ever said about my boss?
I take it all back.
Last year I tagged along to the Austrian Grand Prix with him – which had more to do with me having lived in Austria for two years, speaking the lingo (lol) and sharing the drive (yes, we drove, from Cardiff to Graz).
I’m not a petrol-head by any stretch of the imagination and spent most of the race in Austria tugging on the boss’s arm, asking, ‘where’s the loos?’, ‘why’s that car crashed?’, ‘when does it get to the exciting bit?’ and ‘can we go home now?’.
This year is different. He was toying with various Grand Prix locations, weighing up the prices. He worked out it was only a couple of hundred quid more to have me go along with him, than for him to go as a single traveller. Knowing that I was adept at travelling and scanning a guide book in the blink of an eye, he has asked me to accompany him to his Grand Prix of choice this year.
Singapore.
Sing-a-blooming-pore. Ah. No way. Absolutely no way. 31 degrees in September? I really don’t think so.
I said to him, ‘that’s soooo sweet of you, you know, to organise this ‘works do’. I mean, most boss’s are happy with a Christmas party at the local Carvery. Erm, have you thought about Belgium? Very clement, I hear.’
‘D’uh, we drove through Belgium on the way back from Austria last year. I’m striking out, being more adventurous. Just like you advised me to do?’.
‘Er, boss, when I said ‘adventurous’, I meant, perhaps going to Sainsbury’s for your ready-meals rather than Tesco’s?’
‘Yeah, well, I like Singapore Fried noodles, so it was pretty much a safe bet’.
‘Ah’.
‘Listen. You in? Or you out? I’m paying?’
‘Well, when you put it that way, erm, yup, it sounds, erm, pretty amazing’ (googles Dengue Fever quickly).
So the upshot is, I’m going to Singapore in September. I’ve rationalised it in my mind by thinking, ‘it’s experience, I could maybe write the next great novel out here, I might have the experience of my life’. If the heat doesn’t get me first.
I had a chat with the boss about what I should wear – always a touchy subject, being a fat-ish person.
‘Doesn’t matter – they’re all here to see the race, wear what you like’.
‘Like, I know, but a hint about the kind of hotel we would be staying in would be helpful?’
I should have known.
‘Raffles. Singapore’.
All my worst nightmare have come true. That epic, five-star hotel in Singapore? The hotel that invented Singapore Slings? The hotel that gives you a butler, just because they can? Gah. Really? I am neither rich nor thin. Will they accept me as a fat interloper?
Deep breaths.