First up: thank you all so much for the lovely comments on my last post. Blogging can seem like a bit of a thankless task sometimes (especially when people like the lovely Jellybean decide to get in touch), so the support from everyone who commented on that post was very much appreciated!
With that said, I thought it was time to lighten the mood a little, with a bit of help from Terry, who has put together this short video about our holiday in Gran Canaria. BUT! This video comes with a warning! An important warning!
IMPORTANT WARNING! READ IT!
A large part of the Maspalomas sand dunes, which we visited frequently during our holiday, is a nudist beach. Which means that this video contains nudity. NO! It’s NOT US! Terry and I remained clothed at all times on the beach, you will be pleased to know, but some people… well, some people didn’t. And some of those people may well have been caught on camera. If you’re in any way offended by this, or if you’re viewing at work, or in a public place, then, you may want to give this one a miss. It’s nothing graphic, and Terry has taken steps to preserve people’s modesty, but… you know. Naked people. They’re here. And they’re NOT SAFE FOR WORK.
I’m pretty sure no one will be reading this today, because you’ll all be off roasting chestnuts around an open fire, or doing whatever else it is winter-lovers do two days before Christmas, but let the record show that Terry and I have returned safely from what turned out to be a fabulously relaxing holiday in the Canaries, with actual sun, and heat and everything. I, of course, fearing a repeat of last year’s winter vacation, where it was so cold I had to buy almost all of Zara’s stock over there, had come prepared, with lots of sweaters, coats, boots, etc, so naturally the weather was fantastic, and I looked like a (very stripey) Nanook of the North most of the time. I DID still buy my fair share of stuff at Zara, though. Well, it’s become a tradition…
Let the record also show, however, that although we are back, this has not been achieved without some degree of trouble, namely a 17-hour delay at Las Palmas airport, due to the huge amount of snow back home, which had closed down Gatwick airport, and left our plane stranded there helplessly, poor thing. I had planned to write one of my usual long, rambly posts about this experience*, but now that I actually sit down to do it, I find it can be summed up pretty accurately with the words “Man, that sucked.”
Grumpy. Also strangely shiny. And stripey, obv. Like my own version of the 7 dwarves, basically.
This was taken at about 3am, and we’d arrived at the airport at 11am the previous day, so please excuse my appearance, and just be grateful you weren’t sitting next to me, because although I could’ve bought a selection of clothes from Calvin Klein and Burberry (Don’t worry, I didn’t. Don’t think I didn’t consider it, though.) there was nowhere selling basic stuff like toothpaste or deodorant, and because I was expecting a 4-hour flight, I hadn’t put any in my hand luggage. Yes, I have learned that lesson now, having been forced to make liberal use of the Fragile perfume tester in the duty free.
Sleepy
As you’ll have gathered from the lack of “OMG, I AM TRAPPED IN AN AIRPORT FOR 17 HOURS!” posts here over the past couple of days, we couldn’t actually use that laptop: there was wi-fi available, but it cost 10 euros (about $14) for a day pass, and although I did reach a stage where that started to seem like a good deal to me, if only so I could whine incessantly on Twitter about my “ordeal”, the sign-up page was in Spanish, Google translate didn’t seem to work on it, and although we did manage to get some of the way through the sign-up process, we were finally defeated by the apparent requirement that we provide a Spanish mobile phone number before we be granted access to the Internet. There were none of those computer terminals where you can put in coins and get a few minutes’ access. I don’t think I’ve ever been in an airport in my life that didn’t have those, so it figured that the first airport I should come across without easy internet access would be the one I was spending 17 hours in. Gah. You should all probably be thankful about this, though, otherwise this post would be longer than it is already, and would be in approximately 1,752 parts all of which would read something like, “Aaaargh! Am STILL stuck in airport! Woe! Woe! First world problems!”
Anyway, we finally got onto the plane and went to find our seats. We’d been the first people to check into the flight (our boarding cards were numbers 1 and 2, to prove this), so we were confident we’d at least have reasonably good seats. Where do you think the first two seats allocated on a flight would be, readers? Did you guess “Slap in the middle of the aircraft, and separated by an aisle, even although you’d specifically requested that this NOT happen?” Because if so, you win the house cup! We were separated by an aisle, and although this may not seem like a big deal to most of you, when you’re as frightened of flying as I am, and need to not only hold your husband’s hand, but also to burrow into his side during take-off, landing, and at regular intervals during the flight, it kind of IS a big deal. I doubt the two elderly ladies sitting next to me would’ve enjoyed having to deal with my in-flight histrionics much, either. (Not that Terry DOES enjoy it, obviously, but, you know, that’s what my parents pay him for.) And we thought our LAST travel ordeal was bad!
Luckily for everyone, the flight crew managed to find us two seats together. Actually, they managed to find us THREE empty seats together, and they managed to do this because there were LOTS AND LOTS OF EMPTY SEATS. TOGETHER. Why they’d tried to seat us apart, then, is anyone’s guess, and by that stage we were too tired to care. We were grateful to have the extra seat to spread out in, though, especially given that this was how much legroom we had:
Legroom, lack thereof
No room to swing a cat. Which was a shame, because we enjoy swinging cats:
Cat swinging
(These guys lived at our apartment complex with their five brothers and sisters. I would’ve brought them all home with me, and thus started my career as a Crazy Cat Lady (I know it’ll happen one day, so why not now?) if I possibly could have, but Terry wouldn’t let me. Gah.
Anyway. We made it home. And then, as we pulled into our street? We drove straight into a huge pile o’snow and got stuck in it for 30 minutes, finally being freed only when a neighbour (NOT Nigel) arrived to help us push/dig the car out. And THIS, my friends, is why I don’t like winter. And why every time I hear someone say “Ooh, I hope we have a white Christmas!” I want to drop to my knees and say, “Are you on crack? Please don’t wish more snow upon us, it traps us inside airports, and makes us worry that we’re going to miss Christmas altogether because if it.” Which could still happen, of course: today we’re more or less snowed in, and not planning to budge until tomorrow, when we’ll be driving to my parents’ house for Christmas. Or at least, we HOPE we are.
Needless to say, I have lots and lots of holiday stories, and even more photos, to share, but those will have to wait until after Christmas. For now, I hope you all have a good one, however you’re spending it – hopefully not in an airport!
* Um, looks like I DID write one of those long, rambly posts after all. Sorry. Happy Christmas!
You know how in the aftermath of Black Friday, I was all, “WAH! Advance posts deleted! Can’t go on holiday! Life over!”?
Mercifully, it turned out not to be true:
Those are the Maspalomas sand dunes in Gran Canaria. The two little people you can see? That’ll be me and Terry, in the two weeks right before Christmas, although we’ll hopefully be walking in the same direction as each other.
It’s not the holiday we’d been planning. Before the Week from Hell (probably known to the rest of you simply as “last week”) hit, we’d had all kinds of ambitious plans involving long-haul flights and multiple connections, and me magically turning into the kind of person who doesn’t hate flying with every atom of her being.
I know! What the hell were we thinking?
But then Heart Internet deleted all of the advance posts I’d written in preparation for this mythical holiday. And Terry’s car decided it had just taken its last ever trip – destination: the side of the motorway. Suddenly, all was lost. But not really! Because, dashing to the rescue came Erin and Fi and Sian and Gemma, and all of the other wonderful people who either sent me guest posts for The Fashion Police or otherwise helped keep me sane. Thanks to them, plus hours and hours of work on the part of Terry and I, we managed to get everything back on track. We have matchsticks propping open our eyes and my fingertips have been worn down to little stumps with all the typing, but we did it. And if anyone ever tries to tell you the Internet is a cold and heartless place, full of perverts and weirdos, I will tell you… well, actually, I’ll tell you you’re totally right about that, I mean SERIOUSLY, you should see my spam folder some days. But as well as those people, there are also some absolute GEMS, and I’m very, very lucky to know so many of them. Aww, group hug, you guys!
Ahem. Anyway…
The car is still screwed (special, mechanical term for you there) which means we’ve had to revise our expectations a little, and go for a short-haul, no frills kinda break, but at this point we’re just so grateful to be able to go anywhere AT ALL that we’re not complaining. We’ve actually been to Gran Canaria before, years ago, and enjoyed it, and as long as I don’t get the flu again, like I did on our last winter holiday, I’m sure we’ll have tons o’ fun.
Conclusion: I like this week much more than I liked last week. MUCH more.
So, taking a holiday when you’re self-employed is pretty tricky. And by that I mean, “I think I understand now why I always get ill as soon as I land“.
Not that taking a holiday is easy when you work for someone else, either, of course, but in every “proper” job I’ve had, there’s always been some poor sod who’s been forced to fill in for me while I’ve been gone, meaning that I would only have to come BACK to total and utter stress, as opposed to going AWAY filled with it, on account of I’ve had to do three weeks worth of work in advance, before I go.
Which is basically where I’m at right now.
We leave for Florida on June 18th (also Terry’s birthday, so whew, thank God I won’t have to find something as good as all those surprises for him, eh? Happy birthday, Terry, I am taking you to Florida! You are helping me pay for it! You’re welcome!) . We’re only gone for two weeks, but I’ll need packing time before I leave, unpacking time when I get back and… well, I’d quite like a few extra days to lie around the house feeling sorry for myself, too. Factor in the inevitable flu (possibly of the swine variety!) and I figure I’ll need three weeks. Which means I have to write three weeks worth of blog posts before I go. (Note: not for this blog, obviously. I will be taking the laptop with me, so I’ll be able to update this one “on the go”. It’ll be like you’re all there with me! Either that or it’ll be like I totally didn’t bother to write anything for a fortnight because I’m lazy. Finding out will be part of the fun!) If I don’t do that, I won’t get paid, and then I’ll have to go to the workhouse, wah!
All of which is a long-winded way of saying sorry for the lack of updates, recently, but I’m buried under a pile of BLOG and I can’t seem to get out.
Hey, guess what I appear to have got as an early Christmas “present”? Did you guess “another freaking cold?” Congratulations, you win the house cup! Now please shoot me…
Yep, just in case the flu I had the week before my holiday and the flu I had DURING my holiday wasn’t enough, I’ve had a mild-ish head cold since we got back. (I say mild-ish, of course, because I am a drama queen, and ALL my colds are terrible, life-threatening affairs.) Clearly, then, these repeated illnesses mean there is something very wrong with me, and I am probably going to die. Merry Christmas, everyone! Ho ho ho!
Anyway, I’m guessing no one is actually reading this, because you’ll all be off enjoying the holiday, so I thought long and hard about what to give you all as a Christmas present from me to you, and eventually I realised that the best! gift! ever! was staring me in the face: a blurry mobile phone picture of Terry with a monkey on his head! You are welcome.
And one of me (I’m the one in the stripey sweater…):
Also, speaking of stripey sweaters, I’d just like to say that the only reason I wore that one was because I thought it would, like, totally match the monkeys:
You have to think about these things, you know? And OK, it was a little bit embarrassing to have turned up wearing the same outfit as a monkey (I mean, GOD, social death!) but hey, I like to think THAT’S why they liked me so much. Not because they just recognised me as one of their own.
Anyway, clearly I have about a million photos that are exactly like these three, and equally clearly, I am going to show you every single one of them soon, and there’s no point pretending otherwise, but for now, to the main point of this post, which was to wish you all a merry Christmas – I hope you all have a great holiday, and that Santa Claus brings you all the monkeys gifts your heart desires! We’re now off to the parental home for a couple of days so you’re safe from monkey pictures from the time being – HAPPY CHRISTMAS!
P.S. – If you really can’t wait for me to get round to posting the photos of the holiday, the Flickr set can be found here, in all its glory….
Did you miss me? Did you? Did you? Actually, on second thoughts, don’t answer that…
So, we got back late last night after a three hour delay in an airport in which every second flight seemed to have been either cancelled or diverted somewhere else. The place was just one seething mass of humanity, with people crammed into every available space, tucked under chairs and swinging from the ceilings like monkeys. Somehow, though, we survived, and have returned from our holiday to a towering pile of junk mail and an even bigger one of laundry, yay!
Some holiday highlights that I may or may not bore you all with later:
1. How the flu followed me from the UK to Tenerife, forcing me to spend the first three days of my holiday shivering under a pile of blankets, beach towels and assorted items of clothing, convinced that I was doomed to die far from home, in some Spanish hospital where I did not speak the language and therefore would be powerless to prevent the battery of hellish, experimental tests and procedures they would no doubt subject me to.
2. How, instead, I made a full recovery, and felt a bit stupid for having made Terry hire a heater for our hotel room, because, hello, it wasn’t THAT cold!
3. How it WAS quite cold, though: overcast most days, requiring sweaters and jeans/trousers to be worn most of the time, sometimes in multiple layers.
4. How I hadn’t actually packed many of the aforementioned items, having allowed myself to believe that it would, in fact, be blisteringly hot at all times, and no warm clothing would be required. (A particularly stupid move on my part because I’ve been to the Canary Islands out of season before, and I KNOW the weather can be chilly).
5. How this horrendous packing job of mine (look, I had the flu at the time, I obviously wasn’t thinking straight, OK?) “forced” me to visit the Zara near our apartment no less than seven times.
6. How I also visited the Mango close to our apartment often enough that I could probably draw you a map of that store, and everything in it, in my sleep.
7. How we managed to get our hire car impounded, and had to pay 119 euros to get it back.
8. How our apartment was located directly above a KARAOKE BAR. That was LOUD. Every night. Have I ever mentioned how much I HATE noise?
9. How, on our first Saturday night there, we were woken at 5.30am by an open air rave which we at first thought was happening in our bathroom, so loud was the music, but which actually turned out to be coming from the car park opposite the apartment. And which went on until 8am, even after 10 police cars showed up and made them turn the music down slightly.
10. How we insisted on being moved to another apartment after that.
11. How the new apartment was located next to the pool, which had a bar which played loud music all the livelong day. And into the night.
12. How it also had a double bed which was dressed with sheets belonging to a single bed. If you’ve never tried that particular combination, all I can say to you is: don’t.
13. How, actually, none of these events prevented us from having a fantastic time. No, really.
14. How we went to visit MONKEYS. And the monkeys came and sat on us, and put their little hands into ours, and tried to undo the knot in my halter neck top.
15. How I enjoyed this so much that I insisted we go back to visit the monkeys a second time.
16. How I then talked obsessively about monkeys for the rest of the holiday, and am still talking about them now. God, I want a monkey.
17. How we saw dolphins in the wild, from a speedboat which we got completely to ourselves, to sail close to the biggest cliffs we’ve ever seen. Amazing.
18. How an American bald eagle flew over our heads and touched me with his feet.
19. How we went to a water park on a sunny day and were flushed down a giant plughole.
20. How we drove up Mount Teide, on a road where we were above the clouds almost the whole time.
21. How we ate a LOT.
22. How, even although I’ve made it sound like a complete catalogue of disasters, we had a truly fantastic time. And I wish I was still there. Good job Christmas is coming up to distract me…
I haven’t left the house since we got back from the Halloween party on Saturday night, other than a quick visit to Terry’s mum (who lives just around the corner) on Monday.
I have no idea how this happened. I mean, I’m going on a beach holiday next month for cryin’ out loud - the plan was to at least go to the gym every day, to prepare myself for the “eating my own body-weight” fest that will be December (holiday AND Christmas – whoops!), but somehow it got to Monday morning, the alarm went off … and I rolled over, looked at it, gave a small, piteous moan, then went back to sleep.
Then I woke up a while later, realised I had seventy gazillion blog posts to write by the end of the day, and ended up still sitting at the computer at 11pm, rubbing my eyes and wishing I had a normal job – you know, one where you don’t have to complete an entire month’s worth of work in advance, just to take a two week break. (Complicated, but that’s how it works, trust me.)
The next day? I did the same thing again. D’oh.
And so it’s gone on, to the point where I opened the blinds in the office this morning, looked out and was actually quite surprised to remember that hey, there is a WORLD out there, people! With, you know, STUFF in it. Yeah. Who knew?
Actually, the Grand Opening of the Blinds this morning was quite the event in itself. You see, up until now we’ve had mostly brilliantly sunny, but bitingly cold weather here. You’d think all this sunshine would make me happy, because I am all about the sunshine, right? Wrong. It does not make me happy. (“Fickle” is my middle name. Always remember that.) Not at this time of year, anyway, because that damn sun is so low in the sky that you walk around permanently blinded by it. And the way our house is positioned, we basically have to have the blinds shut ALL THE DAMN TIME from about October to May, because otherwise we can’t see our computer screens at all. (No, moving the screens doesn’t seem to help. Tried that.)
So, basically, what I’m trying to say here is that I’ve been sitting in a darkened room since Sunday, and actually? I’m starting to feel a little bit hysterical. So when I woke up this morning and realised it was a dull, foggy day, I actually gave a little cheer, because hey, there may be no sun, but at least I can has daylight! For the few short hours that we actually get daylight at this time of year, that is.
Did I mention I’m going on holiday soon? And that it cannot come quick enough?
Aaaand, that’s enough whining from me for one day, I think. How are you?
Well, I’ve kinda sucked at updating this blog this week, haven’t I? I’ve been busy. And OK, also lazy, but mostly busy, stock-piling blog posts like a demented thing so I can go on holiday in December and not, you know, totally lose my livelihood or anything.
Yes, this would be the winter holiday I first started talking about back in August. The one I’ve done nothing about booking yet, but which will hopefully be booked within the next couple of weeks because seriously people, I am done with winter already. And yes, I know it’s technically still “Autumn” (is it?) but it’s not like you’d notice here in the Land O’Amber, which is a cold, harsh land where any temperature below “boiling” is deemed unacceptable to me.
I. Hate. This. Time. Of. Year. Hate it. Even getting dressed becomes a problem at this time of year. I mean, take Monday, for instance. On Monday, I got up, showered, dressed, walked to my desk, sat down… and then twenty minutes later I got back up again, walked back to the bedroom, removed every single item of clothing from the wardrobe and proceeded to drape them about my person, in a bid to fight off the cold that was seeping into my bones. I had socks hanging off my ears, sweaters on my legs – you name it.
Then, half an hour later, I was back, removing all of the aforementioned items and donning my “dog walking outfit”, which consists of the kind of clothes you don’t mind getting utterly ruined by mud and squelchy horrible leaves and stuff. I looked absolutely ridiculous. Seriously, I looked like some kind down-on-her-luck Arctic explorer, and I will continue to look like this until about May next year, because I just cannot stand to be outside for the length of time it takes to walk the dog dressed in anything other than fifteen layers. I would seriously wear a balaclava if I thought no one would see me.
The problem with this, though? People do see me. At the end of our street, for instance, I encountered a young woman who looked like she was walking to work. She was wearing trousers, a fine-knit cardigan and court shoes with bare feet. No coat. No hat. No thermal long johns. As she passed me (me in my dog-walking outfit, and hardly able to move my arms because I was wearing so many layers), we both slowed down and stared openly at each other, each of us wondering if we had somehow slipped into another dimension in which the climate was totally different from the one we’d just left.
Then this morning, as Terry and I drove out of the street, on our way to the gym? We passed a young girl in jeans and a t-shirt. A T-SHIRT. WITH BARE ARMS. In OCTOBER. Aaaargh! The Others, they never cease to amaze me. And I meanwhile, am now on three outfits per day:
Gym clothes
“Normal” clothes
Dog Walking Clothes
And back to “Normal Clothes”, although sometimes with additional layers as required.
It’s exhausting just keeping up with the outfit changes, seriously. I was not meant for this climate.
And this is why I will be going on holiday this December, even if it kills me (and if the last plane journey I took is anything to go by, there’s a good chance it will…). Right now, that holiday cannot come quick enough…
