Chitra Ramaswamy: “We have a distinct sense that we’re going to be duped”

Perhaps your ideal self has just witnessed your actual self putting a red sock in a white wash. Or leaving the flat with your skirt munched by your knickers. Or crooning the sax opener to George Michael’s Careless Whisper on the bus with your eyes closed and your hands slapping your thighs? (Come on people, we’ve all been there.)

I had such a moment last week. C and I were on holiday in London. Yes, I am aware that going on holiday to the place where you’re from is a bit depressing. Last year we tried to sex it up by calling it staycationing. This year, it feels a bit more like, erm, nocationing.

We decided to make the most of it anyway and find an apartment instead of staying with Ma Ramaswamy, who still says every morning when I get out of bed: “You’re up early dear,” to which I scream: “I’m 32! I have a job! I’ve been getting up at 8am for a decade!” The universal law of families states that if a child stays the night with a parent, she must revert to the age of 16. This means sleeping in, overeating and whining for a hot water bottle at 10pm. Even when you’re 32.

This time I was after a more grown-up holiday, in a place of our own. Something small, centrally located and decked out with 1950s G-Plan furniture and fresh flowers. Oh, and did I mention cheap? It had to be really, really cheap.

Three days of surfing and swearing later ... C and I are on a ten-second lunch break at work, making a rash decision. I’ve found a flat online, on one of these crashpadder-type websites where you go and stay in someone’s house with all their stuff. (I don’t know where the owners go; probably to their parents’.) It’s quite far out in the wilds of north London, with limited transport links. But, hey, we’ve survived Edinburgh trams. We can deal with anything. Anyway, we don't have time for this. We book it.

Fast forward a week and we’re outside Earl’s Court station with all our luggage, waiting to meet a stranger called D to pick up the keys. We have to pay a sizeable deposit in cash and show copies of our passports to prove our identities. We are to meet in a greasy bakery outside the station. Basically, it’s like the plot of a Guy Ritchie film. We have the distinct sense that we’re about to be duped. I can feel an identity theft coming on like a headache. It’s at this point that my ideal self floats above my actual self and screams: “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!”

Soon enough, D turns up and turns out to be a very nice, very unsuspicious-looking Bulgarian woman. We exchange documents, part with cash and acquire a set of keys. C and I also exchange a lot of dear-God-let-this-be-OK looks. Afterwards, C is philosophical and utters the immortal line: “S*** happens, and s*** may have just happened to us.” Guy Ritchie, if you’re reading this, hands off that one.

It turns out that this time s*** didn’t happen to us. We arrived at the flat, the keys turned in the lock, it was lovely, and we had a great week. Unbelievably, even my ideal self enjoyed it. And she is notoriously hard to please. n