As this might be the last winter I have in the northern hemisphere, I wanted to go to one of the European Christmas Markets. I usually travel as a single on coach tours and opt for the `single share option` sharing with another woman who has made the same choice. It saves on the single supplement (don`t get me started) and I usually have a really fun person to share with.

The Christmas Markets tours didn`t offer that option, and I wanted to share it with someone I knew I`d have fun with so I asked my friend Linda to come with me.

I travelled up to Lincoln by train, taking lulu-the-laptop with me to do some writing and a bit of surfing on the train. I must say that having wi-fi on trains is a wonderful thing. A few hours later Linda met me at Newark railway station.

After a supper of fish and chips and a nap, her husband, Dave, drove us to Lincoln station where the bus was only 15 minutes late and we were on our way at 3.30am. Yes, that`s right - the middle of the night.

At Peterborough services we changed driver and the new guy drove on the cats’ eyes all the way to Dover making sleep impossible and causing us some concern about his driving and level of wakefulness.

After the bus interchange at Dover we met our crew – Tony the driver and Rhonda the Tour Manager. They were both wearing festive Christmas hats and the windows of the coach all had tinsel with teddy bears and Christmas parcels tied to it.

On the ferry Linda and I made straight for the restaurant and had a full English breakfast and a cup of tea before spending the rest of the crossing trying the perfumes and lipsticks in the Duty Free shop. There was a gingery-red lipstick I particularly liked (YSL ultra flame) but £13.60 is more than I pay for lipsticks. I also liked the L’Oreal Scarlet Crème (461) at £6.80. I tried various perfumes, running out of bits of arm on which to try them and making good use of my handy wipes. I found some at half price and tried four or five then took my arms to Linda to sniff. She liked only one – and that was one I always used to wear – Anais Anais.  

To be continued