Greetings readers, super long time no write!
I´ll begin at the beginning, with my disastrous flight back to the UK just before Christmas. I was leaving late, the day before Christmas eve, because I was supposed to be doing a Yule do with Reclaiming types but it was cancelled at the last minute. I´d warned Gingy of bad weather forecast for my flight but she insisted it would be fine (lol). When I got to the airport we were delayed by about 2 hours, not told why, and when we got on the plane the pilot told us that we´d be on our way shortly, then 10 minutes later told us we´d be stuck there for at least another half hour. When we got to London we circled over Gatwick for some time before landing in what was described as ´the limits of what we can land in´ - it was so bumpy I thought I might chuck up. Nice. We were told to disembark one at a time and run to the terminal building in sideways rain and gale force winds ´cause the plane couldn´t make it to the tunnel (I thought we were still moving but turned out it was the wind rocking the plane.) I was even more annoyed when my roaming wasn´t working on my Spanish phone and couldn´t tell Gingy where I was or even if I was coming. To rub salt into the wound we then all sat by the baggage reclaim for 45 minutes before being told that no-one was getting their bags tonight (by which time it was Christmas eve). I was relieved just to be able to get the hell out of there and in tears I ran into arrivals where a tired looking Gingy mercifully had been waiting patiently. Not fun.
So we then spent Christmas eve running round 8 different pharmacies and surgeries to get an emergency prescription of the medication I stupidly hadn´t packed in my hand luggage. It was left til boxing day to phone Easyjet, who told me to phone Gatwick, who told me to phone Easyjet customer services, who told me to phone the baggage reclaim company, who told me to phone Easyjet baggage handling, who gave me an almost identical number to phone because "Yes I´ve talked to almost everyone on your flight but sorry I can´t help you." Finally I managed to talk to someone who had half an intention of helping me who told me that if they sent my bag I might not get it til after New year, and I might as well go to the airport to pick it up myself. So just hop on the Gatwick express, right?
Wrong.
There had been a landslide on the Gatwick express line so we had a merry time with various buses to get there, before finally, four days later (after a good deal of queuing at the Easyjet customer service desk and being given yet another phone number), someone appeared with my bag. Yoohoo! Fortunately during that period Ginger´s clothes had fit me reasonably well and dear gods that girl has the patience of a saint. It turned out later that the bags had been on the plane all along and they just hadn´t been offloaded ´cause the carousel was flooded. They didn´t tell us that at the time because.....?
Because reasons, obviously.
It later turned out that other Spanish flights had been diverted to other London airports, then up North, and then even to Amsterdam, and that I must've been on one of the last flights out of Europe and I was lucky to get to Gatwick at all.
Anywho Christmas day was a much more pleasant affair than usual, with a not dysfunctional family which is definitely a first. Ginger´s parents gave me more presents than I´d ever had in my life for Christmas and they stuffed me with more roast dinners, chocolate and booze than I knew what to do with. Not complaining folks. On one day between Christmas and New Year, as usual, I went to spend a day with my dad´s family, hoping to have a lift from Ipswich but my dad and stepmum were stuck in such hideous traffic I had to brave the bus to Felixstowe (which was an hour and a half late), and boy, was that an adventure and a half. I think I could´ve walked faster. Anywho it was all smiles and nods as usual but at least I had work to talk about til I was blue in the face should they press me with endless awkward questions about my life. Of-course I got plenty of questions about why I wasn´t going to visit my mum but it was almost with glee, I found, that I was answering those. Very rarely do I get on better with my dad and my mum and my grandparents are surprisingly cool about it.
I spent the second half of the holiday ill after spending the first half chasing this damned bag (lol), and I´d wanted to get Philippa down to London for her birthday and we all just sat there coughing and spluttering lol.
Leaving of-course was horrible but guess what, we´re going to Venice for Valentine´s Day! Didn´t think I´d ever look forward to Commercialised Love Day but we´re both spending a lot of money on this I guess to make up for lost time.
So, work´s getting more boring but my free time at least is getting better; at work we´ve got to drag a bunch of kids through some English Cambridge exams that no doubt half of them will fail, and one day there was a kid who halfway through a speaking mock said, with a look of utter despair, that he just didn't want to be there. Deja vu much as it wasn't so long ago I was sitting where they were wondering why everyone and their mother was being forced to do French, and here I am inflicting the same misery (although it turns out French is equally unpopular here lol.)
On our first week back we had another of those infernal orientation meetings that goes on and on for ages and consists of nothing that can't be put into an email, and in this one we were told in Spanish that we must speak English at all times. Oh the contradiction of it all. But on Fridays I´ve started meeting up with Saucco (someone I know through Spanish Reclaiming) for a Spanish-English exchange, and on Saturdays I´ve started zumba which I´ve always enjoyed (with the added perk of watching the instructor shake her booty of-course.)
Also over Christmas I finished the Price of Man, wooo! Now I´ve ordered a proof and am waiting for it to turn up. So I´ll leave you with these two slices of happiness:
Ginger's mum gave me a Battersea dogs and cats home calendar and the kitten on the January page is called....
GINGER.
Such cute.
Very fluff.
Much orange!
Wow!
and, quote of the month:
Quote of the week is from a kid in 2° ESO, who when asked to learn something by heart, replied:
"But I have fish memory! Like Dori!"
Everybody say 'ahhhh'.
:)
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