Have you had a holiday yet?

I have, and if your lucky enough to live in the UK - you have a minimum of 4 weeks vacation, and some workers more.

I just took a holiday from 25 June to 8 July and drove from my home in West London to the Channel Tunnel, where my car boarded a train for half-an-hour.

Arriving in Calais, France, I drove three ladies to Paris, and failing to get a hotel room, drove to Lourdes, stopping occasionally in the services on the motorway. Arriving in Lourdes in the afternoon we instilled ourselves in the Ibis hotel, taking the last hotel rooms. We stayed there two nights and the girls, all Catholic relished the Church and grotto, whilst I stood in awe as it appeared like a Walt Disney view. My wife and sister-in-law turned on the tap and out came twenty litres of water apparently holy, which was then transported around France and Spain till eventually arriving back home.

We walked through the parade of shops littered with images of Our Lady and trinkets of a tourism, to the bridge that separates Lourdes Holy from Lourdes Human. I was struck by the beggars on the bridge, one of whom was clutching a bottle of wine, totally drunk and crying out for alms, surrounded by his dogs. Another knelt with a crucifix supposedly saying the rosary again and again. Another young man begged. I asked him why not work, and he replied there was none. Surely an ebrepreneur might carry water from the grotto back to the hotels where people stayed?

Across the bridge were so many nuns, and mentally handicapped children, and priests calling the faithful.

St Bernadette said the Lady in White said "Come Over Here and Drink of the Water" and Lourdes became a town of pilgrimage and wealth.

My wife bought a luminous statue of the Lady, the Virgin Mary which I can see every night, if I care to look from the pillow.