Father, look down on us, your humble, obedient Tourist servants, who are doomed to travel this earth, taking photographs, writing postcards, buying souvenirs and walking around in drip-dry underwear.

We beseech you to see that our plane is not hi-jacked, our luggage not lost and our overweight baggage and illegal imports un-noticed.

Lead us to good, inexpensive restaurants where the wine is included in the price of the meal and the staff speak our language. Give us wisdom to tip correctly in foreign currencies we do not understand. Grant us the strength to visit museums, palaces arid cathedrals and, if we perchance skip an historic monument to seek a cup of tea, have mercy on us for our flesh is weak.

Protect our wives from bargains they do not need or cannot afford. Lead them not into temptation they know not what they do.

Keep our husbands from looking at foreign women and comparing them with us. Do not forgive them their trespasses, for they know exactly what they do.

And finally, when our journeying is over, grant us the favour of finding someone who will look at our movies and photographs and listen to our prattle, so that our travels as tourists will not have been in vain.

Amen

Margaret M Tite