Maggie could now feel embarrassed tears of her own springing up because this was yet another rubbish day on her rubbish holiday in this rubbish place.
To recap: Maggie had gone on holiday by mistake. Well, no, that wasn’t right. She’d meant to go on holiday, it’s just that the holiday she’d planned for herself, Bonnie and Rory was so very different from the one they were having.

Maggie had wanted sunshine, freedom, babies roaming the beach, a holiday that was exotic, tie-dyed and a little bit grungy. She’d left husband Martin at home and flown with her children to Agadir in Morocco. She’d been thinking huts, nomads, dunes, walking barefoot with an anklet in the sea.

But Agadir turned out to be noisy, grubby and unwelcoming. Even the shopping was deeply disappointing.

She’d expected to come home with clever tribal scarves which could double as sarongs, picnic tablecloths or window hangings, maybe some groovy linen towels or rassoul mud and pure olive oil with rosewater soap.

But all she could find for sale at the bad jumble sale type stalls was bright red t-shirts with Agadir embossed on the front, dodgy leather sandals, bikinis which had no acquaintance with fashion, or a designer, or even elastic…weird liqueur miniatures, fishing nets and string bags.

Clearly she needed a guide, but not one of those tight-trousered, open-shirted romeos who ran up to her every few minutes on the street saying: ‘Missie, you want tour of Agadir? I know very good place buy carpet. Very cheap.’

What she really needed was a girl guide, a woman to show her round here, tell her where she could go with children and take her on a little shopping tour for gold stencilled tea glasses, not ‘I love Morocco’ mugs.

But the women bundled up in black linen hurried past on the street, not exactly as approachable as the men: ‘Hey! Missie! Hello there!’