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grin.
    I didn’t see her again for nearly two months. Which is ridiculous when you think that little more than a pane of glass separated us every morning – her travel agency was on my route to work and I used to get off the bus a stop early so I could walk past and daydream about the special offers in the window – typically to a Greek island. It didn’t matter which one – anything was preferable to going into the office for me at that point. The magazine I was working for had cut the travel section altogether in favour of more weight-loss before and afters – you too can shed seven stone with just three life-threatening surgeries and a lifetime’s supply of watercress soup!
    And then this one day I’d actually stopped to take a snap of an ad for a beachside studio in this little fishing village, thinking the sunshine and simplicity could be just what Andrew and I needed to fall in love again, and there was this face on the other side of the glass sticking up a bargain deal for Sharm El Sheikh.
    Our eyes widened in recognition, she beckoned me inside and offered me a seat and the opportunity to be late for work.
    I took both.
    ‘They’re still together, you know?’ She updated me on the newlyweds as she handed me a cup of real leaf tea.
    ‘Wow. No one thought they’d see the end of the honeymoon, let alone three whole months!’
    ‘I know, just goes to show … ’
    ‘You never know.’
    ‘You never do,’ she giggled.
    ‘Are you still with … Eric was it?’
    ‘Nope!’
    ‘You did it?’ I cheered.
    ‘Well, let’s just say it’s done.’
    ‘Oh. I’m so pleased for you, however it happened! I mean, obviously it’s upsetting, I’m sure but—’
    ‘It’s the right thing.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘What about you?’
    ‘Still with Andrew.’ I nodded. ‘He’s not all bad, really. We’ve got this situation that is making things a bit tense. Well, a lot tense. I think we just need to get to the acceptance stage and then we’ll be fine.’
    And then my mobile buzzed a message from my boss and I had to leave so we decided to continue our chat over lunch.
    But there was always so much more to say, so we ended up meeting almost every day, talking about man stuff at first and then our mutual adoration of all things travel. That’s when we got the idea for Va-Va-Vacation! It was one of those, ‘What I’d really like to do is … ’ conversations that leads to, ‘Well, why don’t you?’ And then, ‘Why don’t we? ’
    At first we thought it would be more of a fun sideline than a full-time job, and it was certainly extremely helpful that we both had an alternative source of income for those initial months, setting up and working through exactly what we were hoping to achieve.
    Things really started coming together when we got Danielle on board. You are nothing these days without a sharp, savvy website design, and she’s just brilliant at triggering that ‘I want to be there !’ response. So many travel websites are too text-heavy on their Home page, I feel. Images transport you in an instant, which is why we decided to invest heavily in photography – our own unique take rather than the generic stock shots you see used over and over. We wanted everything to feel fresh – the look, our approach, the design of our itineraries. For us it’s all about: how do you want to feel when you get there?
    Exhilarated? Serene? Amazed? Carefree? Pampered? Sophisticated? Cultured? Earthy? Sexy? All of the above?
    We can make that happen!
    I’m all about the sensory experience – the sound of Spanish castanets, the sight of a whale tail breaching in Alaska, the taste of real Italian spaghetti sauce, the feel of Kashmirian cashmere, the smell of the durian fruit of Thailand – so pungently foul that you are forbidden to bring it into the posher hotels.
    Laurie, on the other hand, loves the logistics – putting together flights and transfers like a puzzle, all to minimise your time in transit (not just airport