If you only had a month before your girlfriend got deported*, what would you do? Take her out to a marshland on the edge of Birmingham which may (not) have been the inspiration for events in Tolkein’s Lords of the Ring? Me too!
Not so exciting as I hoped, perhaps. In fact, it’s just a bunch of trees and shit.
How about a lovely market town just outside Birmingham, then? I’ve heard it has a pretty bridge, a pre-Tudor castle and excellent boutique shopping!
Ok, so the shopping is mainly Iceland and Claire’s and the castle’s closed. There is a swan though! And pretty roadworks!
Bit of damp quid that one. But if I’ve learnt anything at all about Singapore (and I’ve not, really. I’ve mainly learnt about the endemic corruption, the excellent food, and the sexual relationship enjoyed by the country’s Glorious Leader and our own handbag lady) it’s that in Singapore they don’t have ice on their puddles. And if you want to treat your Singaporean girlfriend to a trip she won’t forget – if you want to make memories special enough to span a 6000-mile gap – you could do a lot worse than finding some undisturbed ice on some puddles and letting nature take its course.
* This may be a slight exaggeration, but ‘deportation’ sounds edgier than ‘visa conditions’.
