Beaches, Banana Hammocks & Budgie Smugglers

Debbie Travis  0:01  
Hi. I'm Debbie Travis,

Tommy Smythe  0:02  
and I'm Tommy Smythe,

Debbie Travis  0:03  
and this is, trust me, I'm a decorator.

Tommy Smythe  0:07  
Hi, from Toronto, Debbie. How's Italy?

Debbie Travis  0:11  
Italy? Tuscany is hot, and I have to say, crazy. So I'm sitting in my barn right next to a full bar because I'm at the end of my tether. It is summer holidays here, and it brings you to your knees. It brings you to your knees, but I'll explain in a minute. So tell me how's your summer because you just got off a plane from Chicago.

Tommy Smythe  0:32  
So I was near Chicago, actually in and out of Chicago by air, but I was actually in a little town called Saugatuck, which

Debbie Travis  0:39  
is disgusting. Just

Tommy Smythe  0:43  
so you know how Lake Michigan looks like a big Willy? I don't, but yeah, and so way down at the tip of the Willie is Chicago on the west side. And if you go directly opposite on the east side of that lake is Saugatuck, and it's a resort town that's quite old. It's kind of fed by all the different cities that are in close proximity, Chicago, Indianapolis, Grand Rapids, and then you have Detroit, very close by. So in the great days of motoring in the summer months, Saugatuck became quite popular because it has these incredibly beautiful, wide beaches, gorgeous natural sand beaches, right on the one of the Great Lakes. Yeah. So it's quite beautiful. It's quite historic other

Debbie Travis  1:29  
old houses and stuff where people used to go in the old days, like beautiful, big

Tommy Smythe  1:33  
houses that remind you of the film Big Chill, you know. And many of them have been turned into very charming little inns. And then, of course, it also has this reputation as being basically like the province town of the Midwest. Okay, so it's also a gay destination. So I went with the golden gays, my group of friends who travel together the old gays. And there's this wonderful place on the outskirts of Saugatuck called the dunes, which has drag shows and a Freddie Mercury impersonator, and drinks until three in the morning and dancing. And it was really, actually quite an enjoyable, really fun time. And it's a mixed crowd. Of course, all the straight people come in from town as well because it's the most fun and just to watch, yeah. So it's a wonderful mixture of people just enjoying their summer holidays. And it's, you know, late nights, twirling on the dance floor, followed by leisurely mornings with beautiful brunches in town and everybody's hangover, and it's bloody marys and all of that. So it was a really, really lovely

Debbie Travis  2:31  
weekend. Actually, Wow, fantastic. Just a long weekend.

Tommy Smythe  2:34  
It was just a long weekend. We went down on the Friday and came home late last night, which was Monday, and it's very easy from Toronto actually fly in and out from the island airport right into Chicago midway, and then it's like a two hour drive from there. So it's, um, it's a long journey in total, but it's a nice journey because you sort of do a little bit of air travel, a little bit of driving, and the driving is reminiscent of those, you know, great, sort of analog olden days of motor traveling, you know, in the summer months with family or friends, to get from one destination to another and enjoy things like beautiful sand beaches and lovely did you

Debbie Travis  3:10  
enjoy those drives, though? I mean, those I

Tommy Smythe  3:12  
just I do. I actually do, yeah. I mean, it depends on how long the drive is. I can't really go past about three hours after that, I become a little bit squirrely, yeah,

Debbie Travis  3:22  
well, I just remember it. You know, cars filled with children and screaming parents and, you know, summer holidays have come, the hell of the drive. Well, here we have the National Italian holiday, which is called Ferre gusto, and it is the favorite word of every Italian, because every Italian heads for the beach. Basically, it starts next week. It starts on the 15th and but you know, then they need a week before to kind of the whole country shuts down. The design world knows, because there's no tile, no ceramics, no flooring, if

Tommy Smythe  4:00  
you order something in August, nobody gets to it until September. Try

Debbie Travis  4:04  
December. It's from the 15th of August until the end of August. But that's actually not true, because they have to have a week to prep,

Tommy Smythe  4:12  
you know, clear their desk, and then a week to get back to normal, then a week to get

Debbie Travis  4:16  
back to minimum. You know, it's like five weeks, yeah, and it's, really is a cultural thing here. I wrote about it in the new book about kind of what goes on there. Actually, you know what? I've got a bit, Oh, are we going to get a little story time? I'll give you a little bit of storytelling because I really love this subject. I basically start this chapter saying, Go home. Do not, do not try and go to Italy or even France at this time of year, unless you want to go in the middle of nowhere villages where they've all left. Well,

Tommy Smythe  4:49  
I've been in Paris in August, and it is a, unbearably hot and humid, and B, completely empty of people. Like there's nobody there. Yeah, everybody goes to the beach. Everybody, like a post apocalyptic film where everyone's, you know, completely gone. It's amazing. It's actually lovely.

Debbie Travis  5:07  
Oh, it can be very nice if you go, you know, somewhere where nobody is. But if you're, if you think you're going to have a beach holiday, and think you're going to be on some sweeping Cape Cod Beach, miles of sand, where you can hide away from people. It is not because the culture here is very, very different. So I'll just read for a second.

Tommy Smythe  5:27  
I should have brought a cup of tea down from my story time. All Italian beaches

Debbie Travis  5:31  
are public beaches, but some are more public than others. The protected national parks are stunning and usually empty, featuring endless stretches of sand with no amenities, no restaurants, burger bars or loos. But why would any fun loving Italian want to be alone on a picturesque sandy beach when they can be crammed like a tin sardine, head to toe with their neighbors, co workers, friends and family? As far as I can tell, Italians prefer to travel in packs. You know, we go away. And if you went on a gorgeous Caribbean beach somewhere, or to Thailand, and you bump into your local shopkeeper or your you know, or a colleague from work, you'd be like, Oh no, you know.

Tommy Smythe  6:09  
And the beaches are chock a block jammed with people, yeah. So

Debbie Travis  6:13  
this is what I wrote. So most of the public beaches are managed by beach clubs, hundreds of them, if not 1000s, feel free to walk along the water's edge, but never attempt to park yourself on one of the tightly packed Sun lounges that lie under rows of multi colored parasols. They may be empty, but beware, they have been reserved by families for generations. If you aren't a member of a beach club, you will be offered costly lounges to rent, usually beside the toilets and overflowing garbage bins. A trip to the Maldives can be less expensive if you've ever visited the popular Cinque Terre or the Ligurian Riviera, five brightly colored fishing villages, precariously nestled between cliffs and Mediterranean Sea. You'll know there is the odd slice of sand around, but there's no real beaches here. The imperative is the same in terms of bodies per square inch, but the holiday makers have to turn into contortionists, cramming themselves into giant boulders that line the shore. They spread their towels and soak up the sun until light lemons they head off en masse to ear splittingly Noisy quayside restaurants for three hour long lunches. This level of madness can be found along the shores of the entire peninsula of Italy during the extreme heat of August. Mind you, good natured Italians are not the only ones heading to the coast. The roads are bumper to bumper with camper vans, flocks of motorbikes, family sedans and convertibles with number plates from across Europe and Britain, an exodus of increasingly distraught dads, hysterical mothers and whingeing kids caught in an internal traffic jam, engines overheat, tempers. I then there are rules. So when you get to these beaches, all adults in sea and on sand must wear bottoms, except on designated nudist beaches, babies and toddlers can run around naked, topless, no problem. Oh, except in restaurants where tops and bottoms are mandatory. Pensioners must wear the skimp Pierce of bathing suits. An average bloke may prefer board shorts or boxer style swimwear. But on Italian beaches, you will see many overly tanned men, wrinkled as prunes, parading in time, grape smugglers, nut huts, budgie smugglers, Scrope totes or truffle duffels. These are a few of the evocative names for the thongs and speedos you'll see popular on European, European beaches. So Leslie, you know it's like, I'm

Tommy Smythe  8:28  
so impressed by your extensive vocabulary of descriptives of Speedos. Oh,

Debbie Travis  8:34  
my God. And you know who said they were ever went out of fashion because they haven't here? But it's, it is just a different culture of craziness, and then so you have these kind of rules. Of course, nobody sticks to them, but we have rules here because August, end of July, August is when our family turn up and friends. Oh, my God, so two weeks ago, every single room was so we had over 18 people here. And what I didn't tell you, Tommy, the only little hole in my heart was everybody was here, Jackie's kids, the babies, my eldest,

Tommy Smythe  9:16  
both Max's. All the babies, Max. Max

Debbie Travis  9:19  
couldn't come. He was working. Oh, so I had this little hole in my heart because my youngest couldn't come. But this is what happened. I go to the garden because I've done nothing but cook for everybody, and I get a lettuce, and as I'm carrying the lettuce from the vegetable garden to the house, I feel a little prick, not hands that just came out, I feel this little, little sting, so I get into the kitchen, and by the time I'm in the kitchen, I've got like, three or four stings all over my hands. I throw this lettuce into the sink, spray it with water, and wasps all come out of it. Because we've had no water, no rain for like, eight weeks. So the wasps, I guess, are trying to get the moisture out of the lettuce. The kitchen is full of wasps, so everybody's in the kitchen, smashing wasps, catching them, throwing them out and everything. And I run outside with an ice cube on. Luckily, they were quite baby wasps, so it wasn't so bad. But bad. So I'm outside the kitchen door, squeezing some ice cubes, and I hear huge screaming, this time, huge screaming. So I'm like, oh, what now? Why can I take any more? I go in the kitchen and Max and Andy are standing there.

Tommy Smythe  10:38  
No they surprised you surprised me. So

Debbie Travis  10:41  
how everybody kept this quiet? I don't know. So my youngest and his beautiful, wonderful wife was standing in the kitchen, and has a center driver, because I would have known if he'd gone to Rome to pick them up, and they just arrived, so they weren't screaming all the friends in the kitchen, you know, standing there in bikinis and baby food and all this stuff going on. They were screaming because, yeah, so now we had the Fauci bang, and party went up a notch, but, but, you know, you have all these friends, all these people come. Everybody's cramming in. So over the years, we have come up with with rules.

Tommy Smythe  11:17  
You have to have some house rules for sure, and delegated responsibilities and

Debbie Travis  11:21  
the cost and the cost. So here's a list of rules that I put in there. Every meal

Tommy Smythe  11:25  
in a situation like that is like catering, cooking. You're basically cooking for like a wedding party. Every single meal that's breakfast, lunch and dinner,

Debbie Travis  11:34  
yeah, and everybody something different. I mean, it's like, anyway, number one, bring a car. If somebody says to me again, I'll call an Uber. We don't even have a taxi here, and the donkey's retired. Number two, do not stay more than five days. That's out the window. They stay two weeks. Number three, please fill your rental car with booze. Do not turn up here empty handle, just bring from the airport tequila or gin or all the costly drinks I'll supply the wine and the booze. You know, do not bring your dirty laundry, because some people actually say to me, well, the hotel, we came from, the hotel in in Florence, and it was so expensive to do the laundry. So Jim, can you bring the suitcase and Debbie will do it.

Tommy Smythe  12:21  
Debbie will not do it.

Debbie Travis  12:24  
Please leave your room tidy. Ish when you leave, because what happens is people go shopping, and then they leave all like their you know, the carrier bags all over the floor and coffee cups and stuff like that,

Tommy Smythe  12:34  
and the tags they've cut off and everything. Yeah, and six, you

Debbie Travis  12:38  
know, if you decide to go for a walk. Could you please tell somebody? Because sometimes you know, you're in the middle of dinner and going, where's Jim and John? And you're like, oh, they went for a walk before breakfast. Oh, my God, we haven't seen them for 12 hours. Where are they? You know, they've been eaten by a wolf garlic. Well, actually, we do have a wolf, so we haven't seen it. But yeah, all the all the locals have seen it, so I'm a bit worried about that. But wild boar, we can, you know, they don't usually bother you. But a wolf, I don't know, do wolves eat people? I guess they do eat a border collie.

Tommy Smythe  13:15  
Absolutely, you have to be very careful, for sure. Yeah.

Debbie Travis  13:18  
So I think if people are on holiday and they've got a holiday house, or they've got, you know, like a cottage on a lake or something like that. It's really good to have. You have to make a bit of sense of humor around it, but you're definitely

Tommy Smythe  13:30  
serious. And over the years, I've done, you know, many interior projects for clients that are vacation homes, either on lakes or oceans, once on a river. And one thing that we do as a little bit of advice to clients, and we've often done this, and it's such a great tip, is if you have multiple bedrooms and different guesting and different bedrooms at different times, just like at a hotel, we put numbers on the outside of the door of each bedroom, and then we have embroidered onto the towels that are designated from the occupants of that bedroom the same number. Oh, so you know who leaves skid marks? Because I remember growing up in in on the Muskoka lakes. I remember whenever my mother had company at our cottage on the lake, she was constantly, consistently doing loads of laundry of towels, because people would just grab a towel and go in the lake, and then grab another towel and have a shower, and then grab another towel and go back in the lake again at nighttime, and then there might be skinny dipping after midnight, and there's another towel. And by morning, you've got 38 towels to wash. So we put numbers on them for clients. Bedrooms in these vacation homes, great idea. You know which towel is yours, and you're responsible for your own towel. And they all find their way back into the right room. And

Debbie Travis  14:42  
how do you put the number on? How do you put it on? Because I'm doing that, you just have

Tommy Smythe  14:46  
them embroidered. Many, many, many places will just embroider the number onto the towel. And it's so convenient for people, because then things don't get too confused. And people will start to reuse their towels because they realize, Oh, I've used up all my number two. Towels are all my number three towels. And so I need to keep, you know, an eye on things and keep it down to adult roar in terms of

Debbie Travis  15:06  
laundry. Well, we do it because we have pool towels for the retreats, as you know. And we do tell people one towel, you know, if look, if you lose your towel, or whatever, some reason, it gets filthy. But we do it because we've got a water shortage so all, we don't have exactly.

Tommy Smythe  15:21  
You have to reuse your towels. You have to encourage people to reuse them. Yeah, exactly.

Debbie Travis  15:25  
And I think when you when you kind of threaten people with that the environment, they're a little bit, you know, whatever, but you're true. You go down to the pool and people just leave everything. And I'm not talking about our paying guests, who actually better behave than family by far, you know, it's the family and stuff like that and and usually the close of the family, you know, they lay everything. You know, they're having breakfast all at different times. That's the other Oh yeah, my kids don't get up because they're up partying at night. And so, you know, they're coming down at one in the afternoon, when everybody else is having lunch, going, what's for breakfast. You know? Well,

Tommy Smythe  16:02  
it's not just your kids. That's all of Europe in the summer. I mean, everybody goes to Europe, and you eat dinner at nine o'clock instead of at six o'clock in the evening. And you then you have all night partying and dancing under the stars, and then, of course, you go to bed and sleep in really late. Yeah. So there's no such thing as breakfast in Europe in the summer, it's brunch only. Oh, my

Debbie Travis  16:21  
God, my my eldest is an amazing, amazing chef. I mean, really good. Yes, I know that. And you know, when you're very good at something, you end up doing most of the cooking because he's, oh, he's so good at it, you know, he takes his time. And so sometimes it's 1112, o'clock, that's a tactic. And I just can't eat that late anymore. I used to be able to. I think

Tommy Smythe  16:42  
that's a tactic. I think that's so that people's appetites are so extreme by the time the food is served that they absolutely love it and this

Debbie Travis  16:49  
or they're drunk and they're just asleep in their gazpacho. But you know, you're dealing so

Tommy Smythe  16:55  
beautiful Debbie like, I mean, just to be able to have your friends and family all gather in the same place and have room for everybody. I mean, that's the dream of the of the Tuscan villa. I mean, that's Villa renewal, yeah. And when you have retreat guests, it's the same vibe. You know, it's new people that you don't know very well, but they become new friends, and then you feel as though you're in someone's home at a family gathering. And it's just, it's such a lovely, lovely vibe. It's such a good thing.

Debbie Travis  17:20  
It is. And you know, everybody came in kind of relays,

Tommy Smythe  17:23  
which is nice to have to stagger arrivals. Is also a good tip to ask people to stagger arrivals. Otherwise you've got 18 toilets flushing at the same time when they get out the cars.

Debbie Travis  17:33  
And also, there were so many delays, I have to say, every single flight of people coming here in the last two weeks has been delayed and sometimes horrendously or rerouted. You know, I don't know what's any I can't even blame one airline, because it's all of them.

Tommy Smythe  17:50  
It's every airline, and it's every single time. It is the new normal in travel. People need to be aware, yeah, that you cannot plan a meeting or a dinner reservation or anything on the other end of any flight, because it will be inevitably delayed or canceled entirely, exactly. Just don't wait until the next day.

Debbie Travis  18:07  
Oh, you know what I do? On the night that most people arriving, and they were all coming in from different airports, I just got a load of lasagnas, and then you could just, I think it's so one o'clock in the morning, you know, it's like they were so reheated,

Tommy Smythe  18:20  
they were like shoe leather. The ladies who make those lasagnas that you get are so good and they're so delicious, but it's always a crowd pleaser anyway. It's never like that meal. Never feels like an ad hoc meal. It always just feels like a special occasion because they're so delicious.

Debbie Travis  18:34  
We're down to three at the moment. So of course, I'm hiding in the barn, but I think for me, the sign of a great summer or a great family gathering is no arguing. Nobody's had a fight. We're like nearly there, and nothing it did get very close. You know, I'm very lucky because I have two dishwashers, yes, right? And that's not making a joke. They are proper dishwashers on either. And how, how I ever survived without two dishwashers. I'll never know, but they are going non stop, so I'm stacking the dishwasher for the 500th time that day, and one of his name will be not mentioned, but we're related. Actually said to me, Mom, you are the worst dishwasher stacker ever.

Tommy Smythe  19:22  
Oh, those are fighting words.

Debbie Travis  19:24  
Excuse me, would you like to stack it? Maybe, if you're such a genius, you know? And I think every mother around the world or is thinking that, like, if you want to do it, you do it. But so it's the stacking and unstacking, putting stuff away, RE and, you know, you you turn around and everybody's piled all their dishes on the empty counter, and you haven't even I know, oh my god. There was

Tommy Smythe  19:46  
a meme that went around saying that in every couple, in every couple, in every household, there are two types of people stacking the dishwasher. One stacks it like a feral raccoon, and the other stacks it like a Swedish architect. Yes,

Debbie Travis  19:59  
yeah. Absolutely with, you know, all the knives. I just don't have the time, you know. And it's like, also the same with chefs. I can knock up a meal, you know, for 1800 people, you know, what time is lunch? Well, we're hungry, Mom, you know, whatever. I can just knock something up.

Tommy Smythe  20:16  
I've seen you do it. You just wrap it in the fridge and throw it together. And somebody

Debbie Travis  20:20  
else will say, you know, I'll make, you know, I'll make a risotto. And I've watched them cutting an onion. I could have grown that onion, chopped it into and it's like, yes, it looks beautiful. And it's, you know, whatever, but, but it just takes so long. And I'll do the tomatoes. Don't worry. I'll do and then they go, and they go, okay, then, you know, I'm like, You're just too slow. So I think people like that do it on purpose, so they never do anything.

Tommy Smythe  20:46  
Oh, absolutely. There's definitely a strategy of doing something poorly so that you don't get asked again. For sure. Well, I

Debbie Travis  20:54  
so I actually, by the end, after most of them have gone, I said, Do you mind if I just have an evening off? Because I'm a bit tired of talking, so I went in the barn, and for the first time, I know everybody in the world has watched this, except me. I started watching that show called down under the deck, thing about the boat, below deck, below deck. And I'm like, why am I watching this? This is my life, just cooking and cleaning and, you know, Mom, can I have more towels? Can I have this? Can I have this? You know, where they are. You can go and get them, if you like, you know. But you're constantly saying, let's keep the status quo. Because I think when you're doing things like this, you're creating memories. Course, what I do love more than anything in the world is listening to the kids talking about because we had Jackie's children here as well, children, they're not children, but, yeah, offspring, they were all talking about some of the crazy holidays we've done together and and Jackie and I were just, like, very emotional. And we're thinking, you know, yeah, they are all these holidays and rental houses that we all got, and people at their cottages, and all that you're creating memories, like you talk about your time, you know, on the lake, and that's what parents do. You you create these wonderful memories,

Tommy Smythe  22:15  
and you have like and of course, in the arc, in the in the lifetime arc of of most families, you know, your early childhood vacations are usually less fancy. And then as people get older, and they all have their own incomes, and everybody can contribute a little bit, you tend to have, you know, slightly more fancy holidays. And it's a real gamut, and you get the experience of everything. We're

Debbie Travis  22:35  
going to take a quick break, be right back.

Tommy Smythe  22:48  
I remember as a teenager, I was a I was really a bugger of a teenager, and oh, and I really put my parents through their paces. And I remember one year when it was going to be spring holidays, like spring break, they had said that they had announced that they were going to drive to Florida, which is basically like a three day drive. It's so far. And my parents sat me down in the in the family room, and they said, so we've decided to drive to Florida, and we're going to drive from Toronto to Florida, all the way. And I looked at them, and I said, if you people think that I am getting in a car with you for three days, you have got another thing coming. And my mother looked at me, and she said, Oh, darling, you're not coming. We've bought you a plane ticket. We don't want you in the car. Know whether to be elated or whether to be very offended when you're lucky.

Debbie Travis  23:39  
She didn't say we bought you a plane ticket to Iceland. You're going somewhere else.

Tommy Smythe  23:44  
You're going to Siberia. That's probably would have smart me. We used to, we

Debbie Travis  23:50  
used to drive in my days, in the old days in England, we would drive from Lancashire, like a bit north of Manchester, to Anglesey, which is an island, beautiful island, beautiful where Kate and will have that's where they went when they first got married. I think they have a house there, but lovely beaches. It does rain a lot, but you could do that drive now, probably in an hour and a half, right? It took us a week to get literally, and I'm not exaggerating, pulling a caravan stopping everywhere and and the Bedlam and the craziness of this, and I remember, well, once we we stopped late at night, it was dark, and, you know, my mom and dad arguing, putting up This tent where we all had to cram into. It's a tent they got off the back of a Weetabix box. So most of the time, you know, it was blown away in the morning, British gusts of wind. Anyway, a

Tommy Smythe  24:51  
terrible idea, a tent off the back of a Weetabix they

Debbie Travis  24:54  
put this tent up and we all just thrown in it and told to shut up and go to sleep and. So there'd be kind of six of us, I guess. And halfway through the night, it must have been the middle of the night, we hear roaring. And I was the eldest, probably as bad as you and I said, that sounds like a lion to me. And not that I'd ever heard a lion before. My mom, you know, hit me across the head and said, Oh, just be quiet. Don't be ridiculous. And then a few minutes later, there's another great, big roar. And then we heard an elephant, and my father gets out with this huge torch. And the tent was literally against the fence of a safari park, like the fence, and there were lions in the dark. All you saw their eyes, because it was dark red eyes in the thing. My mother was like, Okay, everybody get out of the tent. Now we're just gonna move it a little

Tommy Smythe  25:50  
bit. You grab a coroner. We're gonna pick it up. We're literally pressed

Debbie Travis  25:54  
against this, this fence, and it was when we woke up in the morning. We weren't that far away. And then two nights later, I don't know if it was the same trip, but you know, so we parked this tent, and we wake up in the morning and we're literally on the edge of a cliff, like if somebody's got out to go to the loo, out of the frying pan and into the fire. Oh, my God, I hate, do you know? I hate camping with everything? And I just So Hans and I went glamping. Well, that that you liked, that I liked. So we went three or four weeks ago. I've been a few times to this place, and that was like beautiful Safari tents. And it's more like the camping of four seasons or something. So it was really nice. But the last time I kind of went in a tent was a disaster, and it was when we went to Peru and we went. We did Machu Picchu,

Tommy Smythe  26:43  
oh yes, I remember you telling me about this. So

Debbie Travis  26:45  
there was us and Jackie and her husband, Steve, and my eldest. And you, you climb up and up and up. And after the first day, you basically out of civilization, and you have Sherpas and stuff like this. So what's nice is you get there and they put all the tents up, and a very small tents, and there are two in each tent. So we were all in a long line along this kind of ridge, and then above us was one shower, and there was like 5060, people, one shower and one toilet, and everybody was It was disgusting. Everybody was kind of queuing, lining up to use this toilet. But what I didn't realize, and I think Jackie's told you this story, that it was like we'd have to really set off after breakfast. So they started the one shower for everybody at around five in the morning, and it was dark. So outside the tent every morning, the Sherpas left a bowl with water in it, soapy water and nice warm water. And it was the first morning, and so I opened my tent, and there's this bowl of water. So I threw the water out. And then I thought, Oh, I'll be clever. So I managed to hook the torch, this big torch, over the inside of the frame, so it's hanging so the tent is lit. And I thought, I'm not going up there with those people in that filthy, disgusting shower. I'll wash in the tent. So you're a boy, so it's a bit different. But I brought the water in and I wash right. So they'd left this water for people, I guess maybe to splash their faces. Well, I do the whole in England we call a cat wash, you know, under the arms, between the leg, the whole thing and and then I take the dirty bowl of water and I throw it out. Next minute, Jackie's running down and she's coming into my attention. What are you doing? I said, what she said the whole cue is watching you strip off, because I got the light and it was dark outside. So account 50 people were just watching this entertainment of me under the it was

Tommy Smythe  28:51  
you, it was you nude in silhouette for all of them to see.

Debbie Travis  28:55  
Yes, exactly, exactly. And then in cat wash, we could in England, we call it a cat wash.

Tommy Smythe  29:01  
So it was, I've heard, I've heard it called pits and slits. Oh, that's disgusting,

Debbie Travis  29:05  
but yeah. But in England, your mom would give you a cat wash, because

Tommy Smythe  29:10  
no time for a full bath. Yeah,

Debbie Travis  29:13  
just like other holidays. But when Jackie and I many, many years ago, we went to Vietnam, and we walked across Vietnam to raise money for colon cancer, and we stayed. We had elephants as Sherpas, elephants carrying our stuff, and Sherpas. But then we had these little gray tents, and the first night, you know, I'm always complaining, and Jackie's the nice one, as you know, and I'm like, you know, what's going to happen? Those elephants are going to think we're a female tent, and they're going to try and jump on the tent and Shaggers and stuff. And we used to laugh in that tent because you had to keep it zipped up because of the bugs. And we were allowed one beer. Well, we were so hyper with this one beer at the end of the day, because we'd walk 25 miles a day straight to your heads, oh my god, we would laugh. And our elephant. It was changed. It had a chain on its ankle when it in the evening, but it could get towards the tent. And every morning we wake up and it be going through our big bags, because they were outside the tent looking for like, Cliff bars and underwear would be all over. And this elephant was like, it was amazing. But we were so in that situation. We were so tired that, you know, we slept, but it was, but yes, it's not, it's for me, camping is not a thing.

Tommy Smythe  30:27  
I haven't seen the inside of a tent in many, many years. But Patrick, my partner, who, you know, well, he loves the outdoors and he loves to go camping. And, you know, it's funny, because he met me much later in my life, where that was a thing of the past for me, but I'm constantly telling him, you know, when I was a teenager and a boy, I went on long canoe trips in Algonquin Park for like, two weeks at a time, where, you know, you had to bring everything that you were going to eat for the whole time and lug it through the forest and across lakes. And I was, at one time in my life, very outdoorsy and very sort of like compliant with, you know, the things that come with that, which

Debbie Travis  31:08  
is kind of, I just don't see that somehow. Well, nobody would imagine

Tommy Smythe  31:12  
the present Boy Scout version of myself would ever have been like a boy scout. But I definitely was, and I feel very much now as though that was a time in my life, and I don't, certainly don't regret it. It was beautiful seeing, you know, the natural environment in that way, like in a very clean, very undisturbing way, like we never left any trash behind. It was always it taught me to be very respectful of the natural environment. But I must say, I do love a Ritz Carlton are four seasons these days, these days, it's Claridge's or bust.

Debbie Travis  31:46  
But you know, the most successful holidays and probably the least expensive we ever had, and we still do it today. And in fact, I've been googling all morning, is in Europe? Well everywhere, really, is renting a house between a couple of families or on your own, and also doing it off season, because we're thinking of renting in Sicily in January, beginning of January. So it's not bad. It's maybe, you know, 16 to 18. What's that? 16? Lovely

Tommy Smythe  32:17  
room temperature, like beautiful for walking, and there's no tourists.

Debbie Travis  32:21  
Yeah, because if you go to Sicily now, like I said, the Italians are on holiday. But really, from April on, Sicily, for instance, is a very, very busy location now because of white lotus and, yeah, so many films,

Tommy Smythe  32:36  
huge surge in tourism because of that series. Exactly, I think

Debbie Travis  32:40  
that particular hotel is booked out for five years. Oh yeah, there's a company called which I think is amazing. It is just one of the best rental companies. They don't do every country. They do Sicily, Greece, and Crete, I think, and Puglia, and it's called the thinking traveler. And they have the most incredible, I shouldn't tell everybody, because now I'm not going to get the house I want. But literally, they're a third of the price in January as they are. So if you're not bothered about a beach holiday, just maybe walking on the beach and stuff, and you want to go and see like, where the Godfather was shot, which is sure, you know, fabulous, or go to nottto, which is beautiful as Syracuse, or taromina, where they shot White Lotus.

Tommy Smythe  33:19  
I've heard that Syracuse is very beautiful, yeah. And I

Debbie Travis  33:22  
spoke to this agent this morning from this rental agency. She said, You know, we're always amazed that people want to go July, August. I know kids are on holiday then, but so the winter holidays and, you know, people think of the Caribbean and stuff, but if you want to go at a fraction of the cost and see something amazing, I think it's worth looking into off season,

Tommy Smythe  33:43  
if you can. Well, don't be surprised if, when you get there this coming January, you run into me and several other of our listeners. I'm

Debbie Travis  33:52  
gonna go on the website now in the house I want, which looks amazing, and it's a fortune if you go in August. So it's like it's gone, because Tommy took it. But, you know, we may all go there and just rent, you know, a five bedroom house on the beach. And, I mean, there'll be a lot of restaurants will be closed. That's, that's the only thing

Tommy Smythe  34:11  
you can cook. If you've got a house rental, you can cook for yourselves. The grocery stores will be open. Of course,

Debbie Travis  34:16  
people live there. And also, there's a lot of festivals that time of year, because there's lots of saints days and things like that, especially the Sicilians, they love their festivals and all in costume and stuff. And I think you'd be hanging out with locals. So yes, a lot of places will close, you know, beachside restaurants and things like that. But if you want to go and see, you know, the sites, I think it's an amazing time to go. That's probably snow when I get there, but just my Aetna will erupt again. Aetna is erupting now, so all the flights out of Cecily are canceled today because there's just black ash over everything. But, but, yeah. So that's my tip of the day. You know, speaking

Tommy Smythe  35:03  
of Aetna, I've just been watching this fabulous series called those about to die with Anthony Hopkins and one of the fellows from Game of Thrones. Oh, it's not the Coliseum thing. It's about the Coliseum.

Debbie Travis  35:20  
So somebody said it was absolutely appalling. Oh,

Tommy Smythe  35:24  
I loved it, really. Who said it was appalling? Jackie, oh, well,

Debbie Travis  35:29  
I mean, she watched anything but, but you know what she said? She said the AI of it is, yes, it's incredible. Like, it's

Tommy Smythe  35:35  
unbelievable, yeah, the Circus Maximus looks like a real place, yeah?

Debbie Travis  35:39  
But she said the script is very weak. Like, well, the script,

Tommy Smythe  35:42  
of most things, is very weak. I mean, you know, Jackie has very high standards. She's very smart, but it's, it's a I'm a little less smart, and so I enjoyed it just because of the entertainment value. And of course, you know, it's very sexy and very, you know, exciting and terrible violence and, like, it's quite entertaining. But what I found the most fascinating about it was really the architecture and the interiors and the way that they depict Ancient Rome in all of its magnificence and glory. And when you go to the sites and you see the historic monuments in Rome, you know there's lots of renderings and drawings that they do so that you can get a hint of what it might have been like when it was first built. But this is in 3d and it's, and it's, it's just like you're there. And it's a rare thing, you know, in films, usually you see some kind of, like, cobbled together set, and they shoot it from certain, you know, angles so that it looks bigger than it is. But this is really the computer graphics are spectacular.

Debbie Travis  36:43  
Well, I mean, the history is just, there's a British historian who does loads of books. She's called Mary bird, and her books are so thick, but she you, if you get them on audio, which I have in the car, she because Rome is the beginning of society. The Romans, you know, they invented like marriage and divorce and education. And, you know, I know the Greeks did a lot, but, but really, Rome, the way we live today is all through the Romans. And she explains stuff in such a magical way. And so does Stephen Fry, he's really good at that, you know, Steve Burke, he's amazing at that. But I love those kind of books in the car, because, you know, they it doesn't matter if you miss a bit and whatever. But there are so many things in there, like, for instance, you know, the Coliseum. If you just go shopping in Rome, you have to go around the Coliseum, you know, Oh, yes. You're like, you know, on the bus, it's unavoidable, yeah. And there's the Coliseum in a good way. And I think everybody in their lifetime should go because, you know, the Coliseum was the entertainment for everybody,

Tommy Smythe  37:50  
yeah, after the Circus Maximus. It started with the Circus Maximus, and then the Coliseum was built, and it changed the game. It

Debbie Travis  37:57  
changed the game and but it also is very similar to today, where you give people an inch and then they take a yard, because you become desensitized. So first it would start with two Gladiators, you know, bang, bang, bang, having a little punch up. Well, that wasn't enough after a while. So okay, so we'll add in some lions, and then that didn't, you know, ripping these pieces wasn't enough. So let's add some hippos, and let's add, you know, more and more violence, and then people got fat because they would give free food, so people would eat, and they, you know, they were keeping everybody happy. And that's how Hannibal barbarian surprised the Romans. And eventually it was the fall of the Roman Empire. This is my history. But because people, they'd lost their fitness, they became lethargic and lazy. And of course, that's kind of what's happening today, but also in the Coliseum, what I loved is she talks about different words. So at the top, all the way around the top, were these little rooms, and they were called the faune. Yes, that's where the ladies of the night were, and that is where we get the word fornication from.

Tommy Smythe  39:03  
I knew that actually. And I love that. I love that, yeah. I mean, I speaking of these thick volumes. Has there been before we part ways today? I think we should talk about summer reads. Has there been anything you've read this summer that you've really loved

Debbie Travis  39:20  
the best book ever, ever. Oh, my God. And I gave it to Andy. My my dilly, my daughter in law while she was here. You know, it's awful when people feel that you're pushing a book on them. And I'm like, and I'm watching it as she's reading it at the pool, every time I go past her, what do you think? What do you think? What do you think? Get your mother off me. You know, she read it in like, three days, and it's called strange Sally diamond. Strange Sally diamond, unputted downable.

Tommy Smythe  39:51  
I'm gonna write this down. I think you just made that word up. Unputted downable. Unputted

Debbie Travis  39:54  
downable. And I'll tell you how it opens up, because I'm not going to ruin it. And it's set. In Ireland. And I love books set in Ireland for some reason, and

Tommy Smythe  40:03  
it's this woman, Frank McCourt books were so great, yeah.

Debbie Travis  40:07  
And also Graham Norton's books are all all his detail. He's got, I think he's got a fourth one coming out any day now, but they're always like mysteries, and they're always in Ireland. But so this book begins with this woman who, you kind of, she's from her voice, and she's a little bit, she sounds like she's on the spectrum, a bit, you know, she says exactly what she thinks. So she lives, her mother's stepmother's died, and her stepfather is old and not very well. And she's talking about, you know, she's taking he's in bed, and she's taking him soup and all this kind of stuff. Anyway, he dies. And you know this, there's a saying, oh, put me out with the bins. You heard that saying, yes,

Tommy Smythe  40:52  
yes, yeah, oh yes. It means you don't want an elaborate

Debbie Travis  40:55  
when I die, just put me out with the bins. So he used to say that to her, so she's very literal and, and so he dies of old age, and, and so she puts him out with the bins. But they live outside this village. They But it gets worse. She incinerates. They incinerate their garbage. So she puts him in the bin, and she incinerates him. So then she goes down to the post office, little Irish post office. She says, the woman in the says, oh, where's your father? I've got his I've got some mail for him. And she says, Oh, I incinerated him. She said, I'm sorry. She said, Yeah. She said, I put him in the bin. He said, Put me out with the bins, and then I incinerated him. And she said, he's dead. She said, Yes, oh yeah. She said, Yeah, right, I know. And anyway, of course, they call the Garda, which is the police in Ireland, and and so that's the opening page, you know, pages because, oh

Tommy Smythe  41:57  
yeah, that'll really hook you. That's amazing. They grab

Debbie Travis  42:00  
you, and then you find out, well, don't spoil it for our listeners. Yeah, and what happens at the end? No, then you find out why she's like she is, and this story unravels that leaves you like you. It's one of those books you have to keep turning it over, going, bloody hell. You know it's, well, fun time going,

Tommy Smythe  42:18  
right, I really am going right out to get it for my birthday this year, my mother gave me a gift certificate to a bookstore, and I've just finished my summer read that I really enjoyed, so I'm ready for my next one. It's only the beginning of August. What did you read? What did you read? I read this really wonderful memoir by Griffin Dunn, who's a film producer and actor from Hollywood, whose father was Dominic Dunn. Dominic Dunn was famous for writing Vanity Fair. Right he wrote for Vanity Fair. Was a columnist there for many, many years under Tina Brown, brought on by Tina Brown, and then continuing with Graydon Carter. He also wrote the two Mrs. Grenvilles, which was a massive best seller, and he himself was a film producer for many, many years before that. So it's about Griffin's life. Growing up in this family, his sister was also quite famously murdered by an ex boyfriend, and was the catalyst for many of the stalking laws in America, and was a big crusade for his family. And of course, his aunt and uncle were John Gregory Dunn and Joan Didion. Yes, he really grew up around some extraordinary people. His very best friend was Carrie Fisher, also an incredibly accomplished writer and actress and interesting character and humorist. So it's a really funny and poignant and tragic and triumphant, beautiful memoir from start to finish with beautiful writing. I mean, he comes from a family of writers, and so you kind of expect a lot going into it, but does he ever deliver on his style of prose, like he's just a beautiful writer. What's

Debbie Travis  43:52  
the name of it?

Tommy Smythe  43:53  
It's called the Friday afternoon club by Griffin Dunn, and I absolutely loved it. You know, it's a little bit gossipy in that wonderful way where you kind of like, are learning little things, little tidbits that you didn't know about luminous figures in, you know, America. But also it's just a poignant story of a family that endures tragedy and ups and downs financially and all kinds of different things that are just that just make them real as characters. So I loved it. It was, What did you say, unputed downable. It was unputed downable. Well, the other one next podcast title, it's just about books, and it's called unputed downable with Debbie Travis.

Debbie Travis  44:32  
So another one that I read a few months ago, which they're now turning into a movie or a television show, is because it reminded me of that is the Thursday night murder club. Oh, yes, and it's written by this, yeah, I can't remember his name, but he's an actor and broadcaster and everything in the UK. And it's a wonderful story, because it's a generational thing, and it's about like an old people's home, but a really lovely one, you know. And they've got everything there, and it's somewhere in rural England, and they've converted a stately home, and there's a woman there who's XMI five, ah, and they're all these different people who are guests, you know, their final years there, but there's a murder and the police botch. They're just no good at fine. So this group of old people in their kind

Tommy Smythe  45:20  
of 80s. What a great premise. It is. So

Debbie Travis  45:23  
good international best seller, and now he's done about three of them, and it's this group of old people who become detectives, you know, the police. They drive the police insane, but they've got all the quirks of 80 year olds, you know. And well,

Tommy Smythe  45:39  
you forget the name of it, but we should tell our listeners that we'll put it in the notes with the podcast, because we'll find out.

Debbie Travis  45:45  
Thursday night murder club, again, unputted animal. But on that note, I think our next podcast, or next Q, I

Tommy Smythe  45:52  
think we should tease our next podcast. The Fabulous tease, yes,

Debbie Travis  45:56  
we are going to be talking to Francis Mays because she's on a book tour at the moment across America with her new book called The Great marriage, and it's getting rave reviews already. So we've both been given upfront copies

Tommy Smythe  46:12  
before the physical book is published, as you know, because you've written so many books, but I'm very excited about reading it from you know, in its entirety. Of course, as soon as I can get my hands on a physical copy, I'm going to order it, actually today, very available on pre order right now. And I'm sure that some bookstores probably have a few advanced copies, if you look

Debbie Travis  46:29  
around. And did you know this is her first book that is not set at any point in Italy. So all her books, I think she's in, about 40 books, have all been some kind of

Tommy Smythe  46:39  
because it started with Under the Tuscan Sun, exactly, and then snowballed from there, of course. So now she's gone to a different locale, and I think that's very exciting. We'll talk about it on the podcast. Of course, we

Debbie Travis  46:49  
will Anyway, on that happy, happy note, go back to your wonderful summer.

Tommy Smythe  46:53  
Enjoy the rest of your summer, everyone. Yeah, before we all have to go back to school and back to work and back to the grind, but until then, I know you join me, Debbie, in wishing everybody who's listening a very, very happy summer. We hope you get to a beach, and if you don't just enjoy it in the backyard or on your balcony or wherever you can get it in the local parks, it's a beautiful thing to be able to enjoy. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  47:15  
see you soon.

Tommy Smythe  47:17  
Tara, if

Debbie Travis  47:18  
you're enjoying this podcast, please rate us, send in a review and make sure you're subscribed on Apple podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts. You.