We Have a Castle

We Have a Castle

We Hertfordshire folk do like to get away from it all sometimes. We – my wife and I – do love to watch those television dramas. You know the ones, the ones brought to you by that cruise ship company. Every commercial break is annoyingly dominated by their adverts showing a handsome couple, just like us, dining or looking smugly at the panoramic view from a rather luxurious looking cruise ship. No one else seems to be on board, so the service must be excellent. We finally capitulated after months of being brain washed and signed up for a cruise, up, or it might have been down, the Danube.

To our surprise, the ship was fully booked, and even more to our surprise the dominant nationality was American. Out of 300 passengers, there were only half a dozen Brits and a similar number of Canadians. There were Americans as far as the eye could see, and the ear could range; accents ranging from Texas, California, the Deep South and New York City.

Needless to say we Brits were in high demand at the dinner and luncheon tables. Americans seem very loud and self opinionated to us shy little Brits, but above all, they were very friendly, and very interested in learning more about our little country.  And after a day or so we pumped up the volume, tuned in and shared their table-top conversations. They all seemed to have very lavish retirement funds and compared to the average Briton, were opulent to the extent of spending much of their lives cruising the world, or flitting from their summer and winter homes. We couldn’t compete, if indeed it was a competition. Tales of their condos in Miami, beach houses in San Francisco and apartments in New York could only be riposted by informing them that we lived in a pretty little town called Hertford ( ‘H. E. R. T’) just twenty or so miles from London – and we had a castle.

That was the trump card, the attention was on us, and we were fawned over by our dining companions for the remainder of the meal. Even the captain’s table was mentioned. Our new friends were all keen pay us a visit one day. Only later did the penny – or dime – drop. They assumed that we lived in Hertford Castle. How could they possibly compete with that!