A week long sunny vacation in the tropics. Perfect. I can hardly wait. I don’t actually remember entering the competion, but then, I enter all sorts of things if they’re free. I was amazed when the email came saying I’d won and then even more amazed when the plane tickets arrived.

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Here I am, true it’s economy class and true it’s all a bit down market. Why the smelly woman next to me thinks it’s ok to bring a live chicken in a cat basket onto the plane I don’t know. I’m surprised it’s allowed. I wish she would stop eating garlic sausage. Still, plenty of free vodka.

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Anyway, here we are at the hotel. Well, more like a row of huts. Not clean either. But hey, it’s free. I didn’t know I would have to share. With three strangers. It might not be so bad but they do smell. No-one speaks English not that they say much anyway. They all came in just before dark, fell on their cots and went to sleep. A cacophony of snoring. And why is the door locked?

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Four in the morning and we were all rousted out and made to stand in a line. Now there are several big guys with cattle prods. I am now the proud owner of a shovel. I don’t like this. We’re being loaded, thirty of us to a truck. The cattle prod really hurts. I said there’d been big mistake. Apparently the mistake is all mine.