Some people wake up after a heavy night on the tiles unable to remember what they did the evening before. Not me though, no, no, no. In my kooky world I send letters to people and completely forget that I’d even written them, let alone what I’d written. That’s normal to me.

Take this recent letter for example sent to none other than the Amsterdam Tourist Board shortly after returning back to the UK post city break in the Dutch capital.

Dear Sir or Madam,

At any given time there are three things you need to know about me: 1) I do not have any fingerprints, 2) it is not a proper cup of coffee until I have spilt it everywhere 3) I used to share a house with a mermaid.

Curious? I would be.

It is a funny old situation when one chooses to travel alone. In this day and age you would have thought ‘fem power’ would have made it perfectly acceptable to exclaim to the world “I am a single female and happy to travel in my own company!” Instead of getting the weird looks I did at 08:00 at Kings Cross station. But then again I used to think it was normal to request a cake that just fallen to the floor if it meant I got a 50% discount (turns out there is this thing called ‘Food Standards’ that prevents that sort of thing happening, sigh).

I am probably setting myself out on the wrong foot, so let me backtrack a little. Less than a month ago I decided I was done with Brexit but also desperate to explore somewhere before the border gates went onto lockdown. Having also visited Bruges the November before I made the decision to hop onto the Eurostar once more and enjoy a four-day retreat in the Dutch capital. There was no strong reasoning behind the location, it was close to hand and I heard you guys had some awesome cultural shizz going on over there. I booked my tickets and excitedly looked forward to my arrival in the centre of Amsterdam.

I do not know how but five minutes after arriving I think I got high. In hindsight this does not surprise me much, given the only thing I have ever attempted to smoke was a cigarette in the beer garden of a nightclub in 2015 and that ended disastrously. At the time however I did not know what to make of all the smokers and the loud British people (by the way I am sorry all our men are loud, if I could stop them I would), so that by the time I found my hotel I was quite exhausted and wondering what on earth I had signed myself up for. Ever been to Bruges in Belgium? Amsterdam is probably the complete opposite as cities go (I would advise not pairing your tourist offices).

However, that being said over the course of my time in Amsterdam I had such a wonderful stay and the weather was glorious. I took great smugness as showing off my sun tan to my English friends on my return, especially when I heard they had experienced a lot of rain in my absence (in the UK it is common courtesy to discuss and compare the weather at length – true fact). I went to so many places and almost on every occasion the locals made me feel incredibly welcomed and wanted, despite being I suppose out of sorts with the groups of drunk men, loved up couples and stoned gap year students. I went to far too many places to list in this letter however I have created several light-hearted videos for my blog page, My Housemate’s a Mermaid, which I would encourage you to watch (I would attach them here, but unfortunately technology has not quite caught up yet to let me print off videos – still waiting for Apple and Google to pitch that idea to investors).

Yours Faithfully,

Alice E. Bennett

Now I’d completely forgotten I’d sent that on 23/04/19 until last week my inbox lit up with the following message.

Dear Alice,

Thank you for your letter. I read it with great pleasure, as it is a rare phenomenon these days. That is probably why it only reached me yesterday. It was, however, a bit of a disappointment that when I get the odd physical letter, it is not hand written 😉

What you ask or offer is not entirely clear to me, but I have watched your travel vlog. I enjoyed it, but it’s a too personal perspective for us to share. But I invite you to follow our social media channels and share what you feel like sharing with us. Who knows we’ll be a match in the future.

Thanks for your letter, keep up the writing and blogging and enjoy it. And of course we hope to see you in our beautiful city in the future. Just give me a heads up – preferably hand written with a fountain pen on parchment paper – and I’ll make sure we’ll have a little welcome gift ready for you in our store.

Regards/Vriendelijke groet,

Bas Timmermans, Editor in Chief Online

So there you go, one step closer to becoming a global brand and coincidentally one step closer to visiting Amsterdam again just for a mystery gift.