Saturday 30 May 2009
Phew! What a marathon!
Happy days. I've got interweb access!! As promised I have now posted a day by day update - around 35 posts in total! If you want to begin at the beginning you need to head to a posting called "Wednesday 29th April - Packing up Mums belongings". Have fun!!!!
Thursday 28th May - Great excitement, then great disappointment
Great excitement as ADSL light on the router is lit up. Unfortunately we have neither the username or password to configure it yet. Damn! Will have to wait until official switch on day which is Tuesday. Can I contain my excitement?
Made a disastrous dinner. I had bought (at his Lordships request) a lasagna from waitrose. I duly pierced the film and put it in the oven to cook. Readymade lasagna aficionados will already be sniggering! I had read the microwave instructions and then put it in the oven. I essentially boiled the lasagna! Stephen was starving and it took nearly an hour and a half to cook it by the time I’d boiled it, then taken the film off to crisp it up again. And to top it all, about halfway through cooking my stomach flipped and I didn’t want to eat it so I had to make scrambled egg for me.
Wednesday 27th May - we all love a f@rt joke!
I had to walk out of the office this afternoon as I couldn’t stop giggling. I was nearly crying after my text exchange with Stephen:
Him: Can you please get bread and nice sparkling water
Him: PS need air freshener for our bedroom
Me: No need for air freshener. Open the window and stop f@rting.
Him: You don’t understand. Need industrial strength air freshener. A few wisps of air from open window will not make a difference to the toxic cloud.
My office mates now think I’m slightly mad…well I suppose they had to find out sometime!
Stephen cancelled Tiscali this morning. They were exceedingly apologetic and had said that they didn’t understand why India hadn’t sent out a second line engineer to solve our broadband problem. Apparently this could have been resolved in a few hours weeks ago.
Him: Can you please get bread and nice sparkling water
Him: PS need air freshener for our bedroom
Me: No need for air freshener. Open the window and stop f@rting.
Him: You don’t understand. Need industrial strength air freshener. A few wisps of air from open window will not make a difference to the toxic cloud.
My office mates now think I’m slightly mad…well I suppose they had to find out sometime!
Stephen cancelled Tiscali this morning. They were exceedingly apologetic and had said that they didn’t understand why India hadn’t sent out a second line engineer to solve our broadband problem. Apparently this could have been resolved in a few hours weeks ago.
Tuesday 26th May - On the mend
Stephen is definitely on the mend. He was back to whiny today so it was a sure fire sign of improvement. I’d gone to work and Mum stayed in so he was making the most of having someone else at his beck and call. We were teasing him about his recovery from Yellow-dengue-typhoid fever…
Tiscali are struggling to get our broadband working again. They keep saying they need to sort it out with BT, and keep losing the order. They’ve failed to get it working and keep giving us new dates when it’ll be working. In fact we were told today it WAS working when it plainly wasn’t. I got home to find Stephen on the phone to BT ordering broadband from them. I finished off the call for him as he was feeling weak and trembley then called Tiscali to cancel our order. I was raging when, after 10 minutes on hold, they answered and then immediately dropped the call. I called back and found it was 5 minutes after office hours so obviously they hadn’t wanted to take another call. It pissed me off though….
Sunday 24th May - a trip to Hospital
Stephen was a little perkier in the morning and made it out of bed to watch the final Rangers game of the season and the Monaco Grand Prix. He still had a bit of a gippy tummy but wasn’t looking too bad…until about 5pm when he began to throw up pretty violently. We put him back to bed but by about 9pm I was back on the phone to the emergency doctor and by 10:15pm we were back in Worcester Royal Hospital. The doctor on duty said that his Blood Pressure and temperature was low and was going to give him an injection for the nausea and send him home with instructions to call an ambulance if he wasn’t improved in 3 hours. Stephen pleaded to stay and the doctor phoned to see if he could be admitted. We were told to go to A&E and a porter got him into a wheelchair and pushed him up. As he felt worse if he sat up we had to stretch him out over a row of seats and wait for his name to be called. I amused myself with watching the antics and injuries – the girl with the cut head who’d had a run in with another woman, the bloke with the cut foot, the mad bloke who went nuts because they’d removed his shoes. He stormed out shouting, then stormed back in, stood in classic pugilist stance and tried to pick a fight with the security guard. Then he stormed out again, then back in with 4 police officers in tow.
It took about an hour before the triage nurse saw Stephen, took his BP, temperature and blood sugar then sent us back out to sit (or lie) again whilst we waited for a doctor. She was very apologetic that he couldn’t get a bed, but there was none to be had at that moment. After about 20 minutes she called us over and put Stephen on a bed in the Minors area which they’d had to open up to accommodate everyone. By the time the doctor rocked up Stephen could barely whisper, so I went through the symptoms and timescales with him. He prescribed another course of stronger antibiotics, to be taken in addition to the ones he’s already taking and an injection to combat the nausea as Stephen was puking up the anti-nausea tablets. Stephen was pretty out of it whilst the Doc was explaining to me that these tablets were what they gave to old ladies who get C-diff and will kill all bugs including typhoid….would you like to guess what word Stephen picked up and worried about all the following day?? Yup, he had typhoid for sure…! The Doctor also decided that running some saline solution into him might not be a bad idea if we weren’t in a rush to leave. We were left alone again for a bit before they returned with the necessary equipment. It was at this moment that Stephen chose to throw up into his handily placed “bowl in a plastic bag”. The doctor left us to it whilst Stephen chucked up, then came back and inserted the needle for his IV into Stephen’s hand and gave him an injection for the nausea. It was at this point that I felt hot and dizzy and had to be helped into a nearby chair by the nurse as “the last thing we need is you full length on the floor”.
He was about halfway through the IV when he began to shiver uncontrollably and I made my way over and piled his jumper and my jacket onto him. The saline solution was ice cold, but he was at least looking human again. It was 3am before he was discharged and about 3:30am when we got back after a slow and gentle drive home. I was up again about 8am to go to the pharmacy for his prescription, then back to bed for a couple of hours before I was woken by the sound of projectile vomiting from down the hall. I actually spent most of the day lying on the bed beside him so I could get him whatever he needed (and deploy the mirror to check he was still alive!). Even in his weakened state he was quite a demanding patient…he wanted drinking straws to that he didn’t have to sit up too much, he wanted water at a certain temperature, he didn’t want blackcurrant rehydration salts as they made him feel sick…but as he was actually pretty ill I was happy to oblige.
Mum arrived back from a weekend at my brothers and made me dinner – the first proper food I’d had since Friday as mealtimes usually coincided with some crisis in Stephen’s health.
It took about an hour before the triage nurse saw Stephen, took his BP, temperature and blood sugar then sent us back out to sit (or lie) again whilst we waited for a doctor. She was very apologetic that he couldn’t get a bed, but there was none to be had at that moment. After about 20 minutes she called us over and put Stephen on a bed in the Minors area which they’d had to open up to accommodate everyone. By the time the doctor rocked up Stephen could barely whisper, so I went through the symptoms and timescales with him. He prescribed another course of stronger antibiotics, to be taken in addition to the ones he’s already taking and an injection to combat the nausea as Stephen was puking up the anti-nausea tablets. Stephen was pretty out of it whilst the Doc was explaining to me that these tablets were what they gave to old ladies who get C-diff and will kill all bugs including typhoid….would you like to guess what word Stephen picked up and worried about all the following day?? Yup, he had typhoid for sure…! The Doctor also decided that running some saline solution into him might not be a bad idea if we weren’t in a rush to leave. We were left alone again for a bit before they returned with the necessary equipment. It was at this moment that Stephen chose to throw up into his handily placed “bowl in a plastic bag”. The doctor left us to it whilst Stephen chucked up, then came back and inserted the needle for his IV into Stephen’s hand and gave him an injection for the nausea. It was at this point that I felt hot and dizzy and had to be helped into a nearby chair by the nurse as “the last thing we need is you full length on the floor”.
He was about halfway through the IV when he began to shiver uncontrollably and I made my way over and piled his jumper and my jacket onto him. The saline solution was ice cold, but he was at least looking human again. It was 3am before he was discharged and about 3:30am when we got back after a slow and gentle drive home. I was up again about 8am to go to the pharmacy for his prescription, then back to bed for a couple of hours before I was woken by the sound of projectile vomiting from down the hall. I actually spent most of the day lying on the bed beside him so I could get him whatever he needed (and deploy the mirror to check he was still alive!). Even in his weakened state he was quite a demanding patient…he wanted drinking straws to that he didn’t have to sit up too much, he wanted water at a certain temperature, he didn’t want blackcurrant rehydration salts as they made him feel sick…but as he was actually pretty ill I was happy to oblige.
Mum arrived back from a weekend at my brothers and made me dinner – the first proper food I’d had since Friday as mealtimes usually coincided with some crisis in Stephen’s health.
Saturday 23rd May - Still poorly
I woke up about 5am and fell back into a fitful sleep until 6:45am when Stephen asked for a drink and I had to get up. I suspect that the reason my sleep had been fitful was because he was poking me in the back at regular intervals until I woke up! He was really feeling pretty grot so spent most of the day in bed. It got so bad that at about 7pm I called the out of hours number for the Doctors surgery. It goes to one of those central numbers, so an American lady took the details, then a nurse called back a short while later. She decided that we needed to speak to the Doctor, who called about 8:45. He decided that he needed to see Stephen so at 9pm I was bundling him into the car to take him to hospital. He gave Stephen a prescription for tablets to help with the nausea, so I dropped S back at home whilst I went to the pharmacy which was at the local retail park. As I was standing outside Boots waiting for them putting the prescription together I was amazed to see two middle-aged women in an Audi A4 who were doing drive-by window shopping – at 11pm!!
When I got back Stephen was looking a little better, which I put down to the fact he’d upchucked (as the American lady I’d spoken to earlier put it). It was a relief to see him looking marginally more human. I’d actually been mopping his fevered brow earlier….
Friday 22nd May - a trip to the Docs
Stephen was still feeling pretty ropey, so I called and made an appointment at the Doctors for him. The Doc gave him a course of strong antibiotics (definitely no boozing on these tablets!) and then we whipped round to the supermarket to get some things to tempt Stephen’s palate. I went in whilst S stayed in the car and of course, didn’t get the right things…despite having got what he asked for! I omitted to buy the twin delicacies of Irn Bru and Kit-kats. Apparently I should just know that that is what he wants when’s he’s ill (Glaswegian comfort food). I just can’t win!
Egypt - the photos
Guess what we found!!
Outside the Hard Rock CafeLUXOR
The Valley of the Kings
Tourist police armed to the teeth and happy to pose and earn a few bucks
The Temple of Hatshutput
The Colosus of Memnon
A Nile cruiser
Enjoying the breeze
The Temple of Karnak
The Temple of LuxorPETRA
The clockwork plane that took us to/from Jordan
An early prototype at Petra
Walking down through the canyon
Of course if you didn't want to walk you could take a buggy
The first glimpse
Truly amazing...but hardly peaceful!
There were hundreds of people, almost as many donkeys and quite a few camels!
The clockwork plane that took us to/from Jordan
An early prototype at Petra 
Walking down through the canyon
Of course if you didn't want to walk you could take a buggy
The first glimpse
Truly amazing...but hardly peaceful!
There were hundreds of people, almost as many donkeys and quite a few camels!THE HOTEL
Our humungus room
The humungus bathroom!
Some of the towel art we were treated to each day!
Looking towards the restaurants
A tiny section of the pool area
The pool was beautiful and HUGE!
A (not all inclusive) Cuban Punch
Our humungus room
The humungus bathroom!
Some of the towel art we were treated to each day!
Looking towards the restaurants
A tiny section of the pool area
The pool was beautiful and HUGE!
A (not all inclusive) Cuban PunchWednesday 20th May - Homeward bound
After having collapsed into bed without any dinner at 9pm the previous night I woke early and began packing the cases. An activity soon abandoned when Stephen woke and we headed down to breakfast and a morning at the pool. We’d arranged a 3pm check-out so figured on a leisurely day of sunbathing. Housekeeping were swabbing down the marble patio outside our room and had sprayed a lot of water down the whole length of the walkway. Of course it was inevitable that halfway to the safety of the dry area I did a slide worthy of Christiano Ronaldo aiming at goal and ended up landing heavily on my hip and elbow – what a holiday!
We got back to the room after lunch only to discover that the keys to the room didn’t work, so I had to dispatch Stephen to reception in order that we could get showered and finish the packing. And Stephen also had to go and take some photos of the hotel grounds as we hadn’t bothered until that point.
Why, oh why, despite the fact that we weren’t bringing things like sun lotion back and hadn’t bought very much, does it seem harder to get everything back into the cases on the way home? At 2:45 the rep organizing our transfer called to say he was in reception (15 minutes early) and I was still trying to get the cases zipped and Stephen into suitable clothing for the journey home.
The flight was fine – the arrival into the UK was very slow. There were two flights come in at once and the immigration hall was full. There were only 4 staff on – 2 to deal with the 10 non-UK folks and 2 to deal with the hundreds of the rest of us. I thought Stephen was being cynical when he said he thought it was a money-making exercise…until we met Mum who was in something of a panic as she’d parked in the short term car park expecting us to appear quickly and not take an hour. It cost £22 in parking. How ridiculous!!
Then to cap it all the junction connecting to the M5 was closed and we were diverted…by which I mean we were stuck in a traffic jam as they took us across country. We didn’t get home until gone 11pm.
We got back to the room after lunch only to discover that the keys to the room didn’t work, so I had to dispatch Stephen to reception in order that we could get showered and finish the packing. And Stephen also had to go and take some photos of the hotel grounds as we hadn’t bothered until that point.
Why, oh why, despite the fact that we weren’t bringing things like sun lotion back and hadn’t bought very much, does it seem harder to get everything back into the cases on the way home? At 2:45 the rep organizing our transfer called to say he was in reception (15 minutes early) and I was still trying to get the cases zipped and Stephen into suitable clothing for the journey home.
The flight was fine – the arrival into the UK was very slow. There were two flights come in at once and the immigration hall was full. There were only 4 staff on – 2 to deal with the 10 non-UK folks and 2 to deal with the hundreds of the rest of us. I thought Stephen was being cynical when he said he thought it was a money-making exercise…until we met Mum who was in something of a panic as she’d parked in the short term car park expecting us to appear quickly and not take an hour. It cost £22 in parking. How ridiculous!!
Then to cap it all the junction connecting to the M5 was closed and we were diverted…by which I mean we were stuck in a traffic jam as they took us across country. We didn’t get home until gone 11pm.
Tuesday 19th May - Poorly in Petra
We were in bed early on Monday night as we had to be up at 04:30 to get ready for our 05:20 pick up for our Petra excursion. It turned out to be Stephen’s turn for the Sharm el Sh!ts which had him running for the loo at about 3am. He swallowed enough Imodium to bung up an elephant over the next few hours and decided that he’d be fine to go to Petra.
From these auspicious beginnings the trip got better and better. The bus was 25 minutes late picking us up (I was ready to head back to bed assuming that they weren’t coming). I was smarmed over by the guard checking passports at the airport “What is your name lovely lady? Kerry? You are beautiful, lovely Kerry”. I smiled with my mouth, gave him a look with my eyes that probably said F-off and die, said thank you, took my passport and walked off as quickly as I could. It was only about 6:15 in the morning and I’d had barely 5 hours sleep thanks to Stephens nocturnal dashing about. I was not in the mood to be charmed by some bloke who’d learned to speak English at a dodgy charm school. Can you tell that I was beginning to lose patience with the whole “you are beautiful lady” thing??
As we all gathered at the gate I took stock of our fellow passengers. There were a little group of Aussies and a whole load of Russians and us. I was pretty horrified when my eyes alighted on two Russian teenagers who were there with their father. Most people were dressed pretty conservatively except for these two girls. Both were wearing little strappy tops that showed plenty of midriff and a pair of “Daisy Duke” shorts. Now, not only was this bad because we were going to a strongly Muslim country where we would be expected to dress conservatively in order not to cause offence, but this was also bad as one girl was slim and long legged and had a butt like two peaches in a hanky and the other was not. She had a butt more like two pumpkins in a pillowcase! We saw them again as they were walking out of Petra and she had a bad case of camel hoof at the front and an atomic-wedgie at the back. SUCH an attractive sight – offensive to all who saw it!!
The plane was the next object of horror. We were all bused out to the back of beyond (making jokes about driving to Jordan as we went) to get on the flight. The plane was the oldest looking thing I’ve seen to take to the air. It was a Dash 7 which looked to be held together with string and duct tape and I’m not kidding here – it had a flat tyre!!!!!! I think there were 30-odd prayers being offered as we took off, but the flying heap of junk made it safely to Aqaba where we met our bus for the long drive to Petra.
Our tour was lacking an English-speaking guide, so we had to listen to the tour in Russian. Occasional words don’t have a Russian equivalent and we’d pick out “granite” and “Sodom and Gomorrah”. I’ll need to look up some background on Jordan to see what he was on about! We stopped at a Wadi for a wee break and to buy some souvenirs and after a wait of an hour we were told to transfer to another coach which had an English-speaking guide, so we all dutifully moved and waited a further 15 minutes for all the Russians on our new coach to get back on. The Russian-speaking tour guide on our new coach was reluctant to hand over the mic to the English-speaking guide so we were basically none the wiser as to what was going on landscape-wise around about us!
We got to Petra and poured off the coach. Our guide had told us to be back at the coach by 3pm and that he would take us down and explain things on the way, but first we had a toilet break. And boy, was that an experience that I’d rather not have had! There were about 20 coaches arrived at the same time and the line for the ladies loos was pretty long by the time the Aussies and me joined it. If it hadn’t been for the fact I needed to go I would have run away screaming when I got to a cubicle. The floors were awash and the toilets didn’t flush. In fact, they didn’t appear to have water so couldn’t flush. YUK! I was excessively happy to have my antibacterial handwash with me when I was done. I really wanted to bathe in it rather than just wash my hands though. My skin was crawling. I don’t “do” rustic!!
We met back up with the guide and he set off at a fast trot on the track down to the rose-red city of Petra. I was trying to make sure that we didn’t lose sight of him, or lose sight of Stephen who was struggling somewhat. The guide wasn’t good at making sure that he had everyone together, so consequently when I rocked up (usually a few seconds after everyone else) he had started his piece and was saying “and here is beautiful carving by Nabateans peoples” – I’m not sure that I gathered much more than that from him – apart from the fact that the canyon was opened up by an earthquake and that the city had a water system. Quite what the Nabatean peoples were doing there 2000-odd years ago wasn’t fully explained (but perhaps that what the Russians were being told on the bus).
The view as you walk down the canyon and get your first glimpse of the magnificent carved façade takes your breath away. It’s huge (45m high) and beautifully ornate and glows a beautiful rosy pink in the sunshine. I had always imagined that you would walk down to it and have the place to yourself. The reality was different – just us and several hundred of our closest friends…plus camels, donkeys and a stall selling souvenirs. I’m not sure that Stephen got much from the sight. He was feeling so ill that he couldn’t lift his head up without feeling queasy. He sought shade whilst I ran around and took a few photos, then he tried to find out how we got a horse drawn buggy out to the top as he wasn’t sure that his legs would carry him the mile uphill walk back to the bus. The moral of the story is that you shouldn’t ask a donkey driver how to get a buggy…he told us the buggies only did round trips (which turned out to be a lie) and that he could get us both donkeys out to the top for $30. I declined. There was no way that I was getting on the back of a donkey and bouncing around whilst it trotted up the hill. I said I’d walk out if Stephen wanted to get a donkey but he decided to stay and walk out with me. I decided that we’d better leave plenty time in case I had to carry him out. As it was he managed on his own two feet, but we did have to swap cameras over. I ended up carrying his camera rucksack which weighs a ton…it’s a heavy camera, plus he had his flashgun and additional grip with him! I should be thankful that he didn’t feel the need to bring his tripod too… As it was I almost fell over backwards when I put it on!
We made it back to the bus with the rest of the English speakers not long behind us. One of the Aussies said she’d bumped into our guide from the original bus and we were going to meet up at lunch and go back on the coach with them which made sense. The spanner in the works came when one of the Brits turned up and told our guide that the Russian speaking guide had told his group to get back to the bus for 4pm… This was not good news. If we were to get some lunch, and meet up with our original bus we needed to leave Petra at 3pm. This showed a lack of communication between the two guides that went deeper than the microphone wars that they were conducting earlier. This could really spoil our day! If we couldn’t meet our original coach then the current coach would have to take us back to the airport…and we wouldn’t make it if they were any later getting back than 4pm. A lot of phoning went on and it was agreed that our coach would come back from lunch and pick us up. We even managed a leisurely 5 minute lunch at the hotel where we managed to slurp down a bowl of soup before we had to get back on the bus and listen to the guide droning on non-stop in Russian for 2 hours. I really wished he would shut the hell up so that we could at least snooze!
We made the flight in time and had to endure 45 minutes in the clockwork plane with no air conditioning which had been sitting on the tarmac all day in the blazing sun. We were happy to get back to the hotel! It had been worth it to see Petra (for me anyway!), but it was a really long day. We’ve decided that excursions that begin before dawn are not for us in future!
From these auspicious beginnings the trip got better and better. The bus was 25 minutes late picking us up (I was ready to head back to bed assuming that they weren’t coming). I was smarmed over by the guard checking passports at the airport “What is your name lovely lady? Kerry? You are beautiful, lovely Kerry”. I smiled with my mouth, gave him a look with my eyes that probably said F-off and die, said thank you, took my passport and walked off as quickly as I could. It was only about 6:15 in the morning and I’d had barely 5 hours sleep thanks to Stephens nocturnal dashing about. I was not in the mood to be charmed by some bloke who’d learned to speak English at a dodgy charm school. Can you tell that I was beginning to lose patience with the whole “you are beautiful lady” thing??
As we all gathered at the gate I took stock of our fellow passengers. There were a little group of Aussies and a whole load of Russians and us. I was pretty horrified when my eyes alighted on two Russian teenagers who were there with their father. Most people were dressed pretty conservatively except for these two girls. Both were wearing little strappy tops that showed plenty of midriff and a pair of “Daisy Duke” shorts. Now, not only was this bad because we were going to a strongly Muslim country where we would be expected to dress conservatively in order not to cause offence, but this was also bad as one girl was slim and long legged and had a butt like two peaches in a hanky and the other was not. She had a butt more like two pumpkins in a pillowcase! We saw them again as they were walking out of Petra and she had a bad case of camel hoof at the front and an atomic-wedgie at the back. SUCH an attractive sight – offensive to all who saw it!!
The plane was the next object of horror. We were all bused out to the back of beyond (making jokes about driving to Jordan as we went) to get on the flight. The plane was the oldest looking thing I’ve seen to take to the air. It was a Dash 7 which looked to be held together with string and duct tape and I’m not kidding here – it had a flat tyre!!!!!! I think there were 30-odd prayers being offered as we took off, but the flying heap of junk made it safely to Aqaba where we met our bus for the long drive to Petra.
Our tour was lacking an English-speaking guide, so we had to listen to the tour in Russian. Occasional words don’t have a Russian equivalent and we’d pick out “granite” and “Sodom and Gomorrah”. I’ll need to look up some background on Jordan to see what he was on about! We stopped at a Wadi for a wee break and to buy some souvenirs and after a wait of an hour we were told to transfer to another coach which had an English-speaking guide, so we all dutifully moved and waited a further 15 minutes for all the Russians on our new coach to get back on. The Russian-speaking tour guide on our new coach was reluctant to hand over the mic to the English-speaking guide so we were basically none the wiser as to what was going on landscape-wise around about us!
We got to Petra and poured off the coach. Our guide had told us to be back at the coach by 3pm and that he would take us down and explain things on the way, but first we had a toilet break. And boy, was that an experience that I’d rather not have had! There were about 20 coaches arrived at the same time and the line for the ladies loos was pretty long by the time the Aussies and me joined it. If it hadn’t been for the fact I needed to go I would have run away screaming when I got to a cubicle. The floors were awash and the toilets didn’t flush. In fact, they didn’t appear to have water so couldn’t flush. YUK! I was excessively happy to have my antibacterial handwash with me when I was done. I really wanted to bathe in it rather than just wash my hands though. My skin was crawling. I don’t “do” rustic!!
We met back up with the guide and he set off at a fast trot on the track down to the rose-red city of Petra. I was trying to make sure that we didn’t lose sight of him, or lose sight of Stephen who was struggling somewhat. The guide wasn’t good at making sure that he had everyone together, so consequently when I rocked up (usually a few seconds after everyone else) he had started his piece and was saying “and here is beautiful carving by Nabateans peoples” – I’m not sure that I gathered much more than that from him – apart from the fact that the canyon was opened up by an earthquake and that the city had a water system. Quite what the Nabatean peoples were doing there 2000-odd years ago wasn’t fully explained (but perhaps that what the Russians were being told on the bus).
The view as you walk down the canyon and get your first glimpse of the magnificent carved façade takes your breath away. It’s huge (45m high) and beautifully ornate and glows a beautiful rosy pink in the sunshine. I had always imagined that you would walk down to it and have the place to yourself. The reality was different – just us and several hundred of our closest friends…plus camels, donkeys and a stall selling souvenirs. I’m not sure that Stephen got much from the sight. He was feeling so ill that he couldn’t lift his head up without feeling queasy. He sought shade whilst I ran around and took a few photos, then he tried to find out how we got a horse drawn buggy out to the top as he wasn’t sure that his legs would carry him the mile uphill walk back to the bus. The moral of the story is that you shouldn’t ask a donkey driver how to get a buggy…he told us the buggies only did round trips (which turned out to be a lie) and that he could get us both donkeys out to the top for $30. I declined. There was no way that I was getting on the back of a donkey and bouncing around whilst it trotted up the hill. I said I’d walk out if Stephen wanted to get a donkey but he decided to stay and walk out with me. I decided that we’d better leave plenty time in case I had to carry him out. As it was he managed on his own two feet, but we did have to swap cameras over. I ended up carrying his camera rucksack which weighs a ton…it’s a heavy camera, plus he had his flashgun and additional grip with him! I should be thankful that he didn’t feel the need to bring his tripod too… As it was I almost fell over backwards when I put it on!
We made it back to the bus with the rest of the English speakers not long behind us. One of the Aussies said she’d bumped into our guide from the original bus and we were going to meet up at lunch and go back on the coach with them which made sense. The spanner in the works came when one of the Brits turned up and told our guide that the Russian speaking guide had told his group to get back to the bus for 4pm… This was not good news. If we were to get some lunch, and meet up with our original bus we needed to leave Petra at 3pm. This showed a lack of communication between the two guides that went deeper than the microphone wars that they were conducting earlier. This could really spoil our day! If we couldn’t meet our original coach then the current coach would have to take us back to the airport…and we wouldn’t make it if they were any later getting back than 4pm. A lot of phoning went on and it was agreed that our coach would come back from lunch and pick us up. We even managed a leisurely 5 minute lunch at the hotel where we managed to slurp down a bowl of soup before we had to get back on the bus and listen to the guide droning on non-stop in Russian for 2 hours. I really wished he would shut the hell up so that we could at least snooze!
We made the flight in time and had to endure 45 minutes in the clockwork plane with no air conditioning which had been sitting on the tarmac all day in the blazing sun. We were happy to get back to the hotel! It had been worth it to see Petra (for me anyway!), but it was a really long day. We’ve decided that excursions that begin before dawn are not for us in future!
Sunday 17th May - Shall we, Shan't we?
Spent the morning debating whether to cancel our Petra trip on Tuesday due to me having such a rough day in Luxor. (I have to say that Luxor was amazing, but just took its toll.) We have been assured by the rep that Petra is much cooler than Luxor so the heat shouldn’t be such a problem so we’ll go. Our glass bottomed boat trip has been cancelled though – so no seeing the little fishes and coral for us as neither of us are really into snorkeling or scuba.
We went back down to Naama Bay for dinner. S agreed that the taxi driver should drop us across the road from the strip. WHY? I was thinking as he pulled in that these people drive like they’re rushing to meet Allah, go about a million miles per hour between speed bumps and don’t stop for pedestrians!! Thankfully there was an enterprising Egyptian waiting to escort us over the road and into his shop – he literally stood in the road and stopped traffic for which I was grateful…but not enough to get suckered into his shop. We did enough of feeling compelled to buy something we didn’t want in order to leave the other night. Egyptians seem to like a joke…someone rushed up to Stephen and said “Ah…short wife, long life my friend” and scooted off in fits of laughter at his joke!
We had dinner in a busy little restaurant then headed off to the Camel bar by way of a shopping mall where I got a really nice fake Chloe Paddington leather handbag for a few quid. Stephen did the negotiating, then discovered he didn’t have enough of any one currency to pay for it so our salesman whisked him off to the nearest cash point whilst I waited in the shop with his colleague. A Russian couple came in and he leapt up to begin the sales pitch, coming back to sit down a few minutes later when they left without as much as a smile. I asked him how many languages he spoke: English and Italian (which he studied in school), German, Russian and “some Arabic” (with a smile). I apologized for all my fellow countrymen at the lack of effort that we make to learn languages. We mostly get by with Hello and Thank you and talking very loud and s.l.o.w.l.y! But it seems that we Brits are not alone in this, and always are prepared to have a joke at least which he appreciated. He didn’t have a good word to say about the attitude of the hordes of Russian visitors and he wasn’t alone in that respect! They don’t seem to be well loved in Sharm, (apparently) because they don’t seem to be interested in spending money on anything other than booze!
We seemed to be the cause of a bust up in the taxi rank when it came time to go home. It’s essential to negotiate the price up front to save any problems and we were told to pay around 30-40 Egyptian to get back to the hotel. The first driver opened negotiations at 90 and wouldn’t drop past 80. The driver behind offered to take us for 50 so we agreed and leapt in at which point the shouting and standing in front of the cab began. I don’t know why – the first driver plainly wasn’t interested in taking us – but they were upset about something! It was a little frightening I must admit.
We went back down to Naama Bay for dinner. S agreed that the taxi driver should drop us across the road from the strip. WHY? I was thinking as he pulled in that these people drive like they’re rushing to meet Allah, go about a million miles per hour between speed bumps and don’t stop for pedestrians!! Thankfully there was an enterprising Egyptian waiting to escort us over the road and into his shop – he literally stood in the road and stopped traffic for which I was grateful…but not enough to get suckered into his shop. We did enough of feeling compelled to buy something we didn’t want in order to leave the other night. Egyptians seem to like a joke…someone rushed up to Stephen and said “Ah…short wife, long life my friend” and scooted off in fits of laughter at his joke!
We had dinner in a busy little restaurant then headed off to the Camel bar by way of a shopping mall where I got a really nice fake Chloe Paddington leather handbag for a few quid. Stephen did the negotiating, then discovered he didn’t have enough of any one currency to pay for it so our salesman whisked him off to the nearest cash point whilst I waited in the shop with his colleague. A Russian couple came in and he leapt up to begin the sales pitch, coming back to sit down a few minutes later when they left without as much as a smile. I asked him how many languages he spoke: English and Italian (which he studied in school), German, Russian and “some Arabic” (with a smile). I apologized for all my fellow countrymen at the lack of effort that we make to learn languages. We mostly get by with Hello and Thank you and talking very loud and s.l.o.w.l.y! But it seems that we Brits are not alone in this, and always are prepared to have a joke at least which he appreciated. He didn’t have a good word to say about the attitude of the hordes of Russian visitors and he wasn’t alone in that respect! They don’t seem to be well loved in Sharm, (apparently) because they don’t seem to be interested in spending money on anything other than booze!
We seemed to be the cause of a bust up in the taxi rank when it came time to go home. It’s essential to negotiate the price up front to save any problems and we were told to pay around 30-40 Egyptian to get back to the hotel. The first driver opened negotiations at 90 and wouldn’t drop past 80. The driver behind offered to take us for 50 so we agreed and leapt in at which point the shouting and standing in front of the cab began. I don’t know why – the first driver plainly wasn’t interested in taking us – but they were upset about something! It was a little frightening I must admit.
Saturday 16th May - A trip to Luxor
We had aimed to be in bed at approx 9pm as our pick up for the flight to Luxor was at 04:30am and we had to be up at 03:30. We got into bed about 10ish. I was woken at 12:30 by Stephen getting a text message. Stephen slept through it (and the subsequent beeping) so I was forced to get up and switch it off. I wasn’t feeling brilliant as the food hadn’t settled and at 2am I was throwing up everything I’d eaten for a week (or so it felt). I drank water and dragged myself back to bed for a hours sleep before we had to get up.
The airport was orderly chaos, but we were shepherded about and down to departures to wait at the gate. I managed to eat a croissant and some water before the flight as my stomach was cramping. I had cramps all through the flight, but they calmed down when we got to the bus (thank goodness!).
Luxor was amazing! The traffic was chaotic…people driving the wrong way up roads – in cars, buses and on donkeys, and goats being herded down the street – altogether fascinating and very alien to me. Our first stop was the Valley of the Kings which is a searing dust bowl containing some fascinating burial chambers. We went into 3 chambers and they were seriously stunning. It was hard to imagine that these paintings had not been retouched and restored, the colours were so vivid. We had been warned not to take photos inside and it was a warning worth heeding as some bloke passed me surreptitiously snapping (you could hear the click) and seconds later a guard was hot footing it down after him and taking him outside for a chat. The bloke was denying it, but I think everyone in earshot knew what he’d been up to…a large fine would be heading his way.
Before we got to the exit our guide took us to one side and explained that we’d have to pass through a bazaar in order to get to the bus. It was like something from a Japanese game show!! We were descended upon by hordes of men trying to flog stuff to us. It really was like running the gauntlet! I found the best tactic was to smile, keep moving and keep saying no thank you. I got through pretty quickly, but Stephen got caught up and the guide had to go back and escort him the final few feet in order to get him out!! As we agreed on the bus, if they were less in your face (literally) and allowed you to look you might actually buy something, but as it was its quite irritating/intimidating and you just want to get through it as quickly as possible. Some don’t take no for an answer!
We went to an Alabaster factory which was fun – they had a little routine which they put on which was funny. They were showing us the difference between alabaster ornaments and the ones they try to flog you on the way out of the Valley of the Kings… “Its not alabaster…those are alaplaster”. We bought a bust of Nefertiti as a little souvenir – after much haggling over glasses of mint tea (which Stephen surprised me by drinking!). Afterwards we headed to the Temple of Hatshepsut. This was another interesting place – but one I failed to enjoy so much. The heat in Luxor was something else – certainly in the high 40’s C. I’d drunk a bottle of water in the Valley of the Kings, the one I’d left on the bus was almost hot enough to make tea, but I’d drunk that too…but I was still dry as a bone. Obviously throwing up had left me dehydrated before we even started on the walking about in the baking sun for hours. We got to the temple, made it up one flight of steps and I had to go find shade as I couldn’t have made it up another flight. I could barely summon up saliva! S ran around taking photos and then we headed down to the coffee shop for more water and coke as we were both flagging. The waiter offered Stephen 60 camels and a wife swap…which was a pretty good deal as S started negotiations at 2 camels! I’m guessing that Egyptian men like women with big boobs as there have been a few offers of camels so far!! I have not been called beautiful so much in a while and I have noticed the twins get a lot of attention (even when I’m the most covered up person there!) I don’t know whether I should be happy that S hasn’t traded me in for the camels or offended that he started negotiation at only 2….
After a brief stop at the Colossus of Memnon we went for a cruise down the Nile before lunch. It was lovely - a real break from the traffic and the heat!
Lunch was a low point. There wasn’t much left when we got there and the rolls etc were stale. The chafing dishes were all open too so I basically picked at a spoonful of rice, a spoonful of pasta and a spoonful of undercooked potatoes. Mmmmm delicious! My OCD tendencies were rather challenged by the toilets too… I was glad when it was time to head to the Temple of Karnak.
This place was incredible! Our Egyptologist took us round and explained the significance of the various cartouche and hieroglyphics and the history…a lot of which was sadly lost on many of us as it was 45+C, she picked the sunny spots to impart her knowledge and we were all half dead with heat exhaustion! We got some time to take photos and S was running about, handing out small bills and being rewarded with information on the best places to stand to get photos and being allowed to climb up on things!. I took a few desultory snaps (some of which were lucky) and took my water to a shady bench to wait for him…or death, whichever came first! That was about it for me! I didn’t tour the perfume factory, the papyrus factory or the Temple of Luxor. By that point I could barely stay awake, I felt like I was coming down with a cold and my chest was wheezy…all of which is not good! I had drunk about 5 litres of water and only had to wee twice the whole day. I think we were all suffering from the heat and dehydration come the late afternoon.
The flight back was interesting. For a start we taxied out to the runway at near takeoff speeds! It wasn’t until we swung round a corner did I realize that we weren’t on the actual runway! And the landing was fun! Stephen told me later that the pilot was either ex-military or used to flying Cessna’s as it wasn’t how you’d normally land a 757 – something to do with rotation and stalling speed. Anyway, he plopped it down and had to slam on the anchors hard as we were already quite far along the runway. The Russian lady next to meet was jabbering away in a concerned way when we’d peeled our faces off the seats in front! We were back at the hotel in no time. I flopped into bed and Stephen went down to dinner on his own (poor thing – but I couldn’t have made it). I was enjoying the luxury of more than a handful of hours sleep when the Luxor Lurgy hit…not pleasant and requiring of Imodium to stop it. I guess it was all a bit much for my system to handle…
The airport was orderly chaos, but we were shepherded about and down to departures to wait at the gate. I managed to eat a croissant and some water before the flight as my stomach was cramping. I had cramps all through the flight, but they calmed down when we got to the bus (thank goodness!).
Luxor was amazing! The traffic was chaotic…people driving the wrong way up roads – in cars, buses and on donkeys, and goats being herded down the street – altogether fascinating and very alien to me. Our first stop was the Valley of the Kings which is a searing dust bowl containing some fascinating burial chambers. We went into 3 chambers and they were seriously stunning. It was hard to imagine that these paintings had not been retouched and restored, the colours were so vivid. We had been warned not to take photos inside and it was a warning worth heeding as some bloke passed me surreptitiously snapping (you could hear the click) and seconds later a guard was hot footing it down after him and taking him outside for a chat. The bloke was denying it, but I think everyone in earshot knew what he’d been up to…a large fine would be heading his way.
Before we got to the exit our guide took us to one side and explained that we’d have to pass through a bazaar in order to get to the bus. It was like something from a Japanese game show!! We were descended upon by hordes of men trying to flog stuff to us. It really was like running the gauntlet! I found the best tactic was to smile, keep moving and keep saying no thank you. I got through pretty quickly, but Stephen got caught up and the guide had to go back and escort him the final few feet in order to get him out!! As we agreed on the bus, if they were less in your face (literally) and allowed you to look you might actually buy something, but as it was its quite irritating/intimidating and you just want to get through it as quickly as possible. Some don’t take no for an answer!
We went to an Alabaster factory which was fun – they had a little routine which they put on which was funny. They were showing us the difference between alabaster ornaments and the ones they try to flog you on the way out of the Valley of the Kings… “Its not alabaster…those are alaplaster”. We bought a bust of Nefertiti as a little souvenir – after much haggling over glasses of mint tea (which Stephen surprised me by drinking!). Afterwards we headed to the Temple of Hatshepsut. This was another interesting place – but one I failed to enjoy so much. The heat in Luxor was something else – certainly in the high 40’s C. I’d drunk a bottle of water in the Valley of the Kings, the one I’d left on the bus was almost hot enough to make tea, but I’d drunk that too…but I was still dry as a bone. Obviously throwing up had left me dehydrated before we even started on the walking about in the baking sun for hours. We got to the temple, made it up one flight of steps and I had to go find shade as I couldn’t have made it up another flight. I could barely summon up saliva! S ran around taking photos and then we headed down to the coffee shop for more water and coke as we were both flagging. The waiter offered Stephen 60 camels and a wife swap…which was a pretty good deal as S started negotiations at 2 camels! I’m guessing that Egyptian men like women with big boobs as there have been a few offers of camels so far!! I have not been called beautiful so much in a while and I have noticed the twins get a lot of attention (even when I’m the most covered up person there!) I don’t know whether I should be happy that S hasn’t traded me in for the camels or offended that he started negotiation at only 2….
After a brief stop at the Colossus of Memnon we went for a cruise down the Nile before lunch. It was lovely - a real break from the traffic and the heat!
Lunch was a low point. There wasn’t much left when we got there and the rolls etc were stale. The chafing dishes were all open too so I basically picked at a spoonful of rice, a spoonful of pasta and a spoonful of undercooked potatoes. Mmmmm delicious! My OCD tendencies were rather challenged by the toilets too… I was glad when it was time to head to the Temple of Karnak.
This place was incredible! Our Egyptologist took us round and explained the significance of the various cartouche and hieroglyphics and the history…a lot of which was sadly lost on many of us as it was 45+C, she picked the sunny spots to impart her knowledge and we were all half dead with heat exhaustion! We got some time to take photos and S was running about, handing out small bills and being rewarded with information on the best places to stand to get photos and being allowed to climb up on things!. I took a few desultory snaps (some of which were lucky) and took my water to a shady bench to wait for him…or death, whichever came first! That was about it for me! I didn’t tour the perfume factory, the papyrus factory or the Temple of Luxor. By that point I could barely stay awake, I felt like I was coming down with a cold and my chest was wheezy…all of which is not good! I had drunk about 5 litres of water and only had to wee twice the whole day. I think we were all suffering from the heat and dehydration come the late afternoon.
The flight back was interesting. For a start we taxied out to the runway at near takeoff speeds! It wasn’t until we swung round a corner did I realize that we weren’t on the actual runway! And the landing was fun! Stephen told me later that the pilot was either ex-military or used to flying Cessna’s as it wasn’t how you’d normally land a 757 – something to do with rotation and stalling speed. Anyway, he plopped it down and had to slam on the anchors hard as we were already quite far along the runway. The Russian lady next to meet was jabbering away in a concerned way when we’d peeled our faces off the seats in front! We were back at the hotel in no time. I flopped into bed and Stephen went down to dinner on his own (poor thing – but I couldn’t have made it). I was enjoying the luxury of more than a handful of hours sleep when the Luxor Lurgy hit…not pleasant and requiring of Imodium to stop it. I guess it was all a bit much for my system to handle…
Friday 15th May - a Pool day
Interestingly the orange juice you get yourself from the buffet at breakfast is not freshly squeezed – it tastes rather like a cross between watered down carton OJ and orange squash. Obviously it pays to keep your friendly waiter well tipped so he brings the proper stuff for you!
Another day by the pool. Mustafa kept us well supplied with Mocktails and beer as we lay and boiled. The All Inclusive plan here is a little weird…Mustafa had brought me a mocktail which was basically fruit juice, soda water and a hint of mint, which turned out not to be on the AI plan – yet its only fruit juice and water! I could have understood if it was full of booze, but its not – and fruit juice and soda water are included under AI. But as I said – a little baksheesh works wonders and he rang them through as one of the allowed mocktails.
We had dinner in the Italian restaurant which was lovely, but really rich and super filling…which turned out not to be a good thing later… Incidentally Egyptians and Scottish folks have something in common, namely a super-sweet tooth. Give us something that would induce a diabetic coma in peoples of most other nations are we’re happy!
Thursday 14th May- Naama Bay
Mahmoud (the waiter from the night before) was on again at breakfast and ran off to get us OJ when we sat down. It was delicious – freshly squeezed. He also brought Stephen a proper coffee (not Nescafe) so all was well with the morning – for him! I’d decided to have tea and it was Liptons and it was disgusting!!
After a morning of sunning we went up to meet Ahmed for our welcome meeting. He was nice, funny, told us where to go in Sharm, what to avoid, not to engage with the blokes on the streets offering things for free in order to get you into their shops, stick to the Malls…valuable advice - most of which we ignored later!! We booked up a couple of trips – one to Petra and one to Luxor. We couldn’t do Cairo as it clashed with Petra and my thinking was that you can do Cairo from Cyprus if we don’t make it back to here and Petra might not be so easy.
Then we had a lot of fun with the credit card. He swiped it and it didn’t like it. We’d already taken the precaution of telling the card company where we were going to avoid problems, so we phoned them to say – put the transaction through. Not their problem we were told – its his “floor limit” that has been exceeded. We tried again whilst we were on the phone to the bank, and got the same message. It was time to try another card – eventually we found one that worked, being rather reluctant to hand over our debit card – but it was looking like we might have to at one point as we were running out of cards that would run!!
We headed down to Naama Bay in the evening. The taxi dropped us off that the shop of his mate and told us to get his mate to call when we were ready to be collected. Of course we then had to go through the whole ritual of smelling the perfumes and haggling for the perfume (which we didn’t really want but felt obliged to buy) before we could leave. Stephen was suckered into another shop a couple of minutes later by the offer of a free papyrus drawing and this guy was determined that we were going to buy a large papyrus drawing to go with it. It took about 30 minutes and $10 to secure our release with the painting. The guy wasn’t happy as S wasn’t budging on the price. He didn’t give us the free one he’d written our names on in Arabic (before I could stop him) as S refused to give him another $5. I wasn’t happy as it was becoming a little uncomfortable. I would actually have given him the $10 for the free one just to get out the shop!
There were plenty places to eat. Everything from proper Egyptian food to KFC (Kentucky Fried Camel) was available for your delectation. We decided on the Hard Rock Café. You can rely on their burgers being the same no matter where you go! We also were treated to the (male) serving staff giving us a performance of the Electric Slide to something Arabic sounding. Everyone looked baffled, but that’s because most folks looked Briitsh and its not something that’s permeated over from the US to the UK…if they had been doing the Birdie Dance everyone might have got it!!
We had drinks in the Camel Bar watching the world wander by (in incredibly short skirts and tiny tops – whereas I packed in order not to cause offence in a Muslim country!). The taxi home was interesting. The driver drove at breakneck speed in between the speed bumps and was shouting in Arabic at the other taxi drivers (he could have been saying “see you for a coffee in 10 minutes” but Arabic is a fairly aggressive sounding language and it was a little disconcerting!) – all of this to the soundtrack of “I’m a Barbie Girl” played a full volume!!!
Wednesday 12th May - Egypt or bust
We were up at 5am for a 6am taxi pick up and a 9am flight to Sharm el Sheik. It all went smoothly for which I’m grateful – it was a fairly last minute booking and they hadn’t got us the flight tickets in time, so I’d had to get the agency we’d booked through to arrange a ticket on departure, then run into work on Tuesday in order to print the hotel voucher (or rather have someone print it for me as time was too short to allow logging on!). I’ve been used to the US where you have an e-ticket reference and that’s it. No need for paper tickets, but hey – it was a charter flight so back to the old days!
The flight was fine. We got seats together. The chap next to Stephen was only tiddly as opposed to drunk (he had the munchies big time – the bloke never stopped eating!). The film was good (it was the one we’d heard and been mildly disrupted by the première of in LA!). And it was only a 5 hour flight. Altogether a pretty good flying experience! The crew warned us just before landing that the Egyptians were worried about swine flu so would be taking everyone’s temperature. I’m not sure what they were doing with those folks that had one, but I suspect they might have been on the next flight back home!
When we got into arrivals it was pretty chaotic. There were lots of men in masks thrusting slips of paper in our hands and thermometers in our ears. There was a large queue for something and so we joined it. It turned out to be for visas, as although you don’t need one for Sharm, you do for any trips you make outside the area, so it was good to get one! We flowed through the airport quickly and were on the transfer bus about 45 minutes after landing – then had to wait 45 minutes for another flight to land to pick up another couple of passengers. Just as well we got free transfers with our hotel as the bloke who’d paid 75 quid for the 10 minute journey didn’t look too impressed!!
The hotel is lovely. We were greeted with a glass of Hibiscus tea when we checked in and the room is HUGE! We dropped down for dinner and the restaurant was pretty empty. Not so many people here – but loads of staff! We got very attentive service! Deployment of a little Baksheesh is very important – a little seems to go a long way in making things run smoothly!
The flight was fine. We got seats together. The chap next to Stephen was only tiddly as opposed to drunk (he had the munchies big time – the bloke never stopped eating!). The film was good (it was the one we’d heard and been mildly disrupted by the première of in LA!). And it was only a 5 hour flight. Altogether a pretty good flying experience! The crew warned us just before landing that the Egyptians were worried about swine flu so would be taking everyone’s temperature. I’m not sure what they were doing with those folks that had one, but I suspect they might have been on the next flight back home!
When we got into arrivals it was pretty chaotic. There were lots of men in masks thrusting slips of paper in our hands and thermometers in our ears. There was a large queue for something and so we joined it. It turned out to be for visas, as although you don’t need one for Sharm, you do for any trips you make outside the area, so it was good to get one! We flowed through the airport quickly and were on the transfer bus about 45 minutes after landing – then had to wait 45 minutes for another flight to land to pick up another couple of passengers. Just as well we got free transfers with our hotel as the bloke who’d paid 75 quid for the 10 minute journey didn’t look too impressed!!
The hotel is lovely. We were greeted with a glass of Hibiscus tea when we checked in and the room is HUGE! We dropped down for dinner and the restaurant was pretty empty. Not so many people here – but loads of staff! We got very attentive service! Deployment of a little Baksheesh is very important – a little seems to go a long way in making things run smoothly!
Chick, chick, chick, chick, chicken
We popped into Waitrose tonight to pick up a couple of bits and pieces for dinner. Stephen fancied sticking some chicken on the Wurlitzer, sorry I mean BBQ. We got through the checkout and I checked the receipt. It had been a little pricy, but we had bought wine. It turned out that the wine wasn’t the pricy bit though. Stephen had picked up Organic Free Range chicken breasts and they cost £10.40. I couldn’t believe it! I had to dig out the packet of chicken to make sure that they hadn’t made a mistake, but no…it really was £10.40…and it wasn’t even gold plated! I have now made sure that he knows that if he had wandered 3ft to the right he would have found the non-organic affordable chicken. It was very delicious and tender though (nothing to do with the cooking!) so perhaps it was worth it.
Tuesday 12th May - We have phones…but no internet
BT have finally done as they promised. The girl was correct – she didn’t lie to me. The only problem now is that the internet still isn’t working. Its something to do with the physical changes that BT made to the switch when they fiddled with the numbers which means that we don’t seem to have adsl connected to the account/line any more. I’m sure it’s more complicated and technical than that – but basically the dooberrywhatsit isn’t talking to the thingumygig. Stephen has phoned the broadband service provider who has told him it’s a BT issue…he’s now on the phone to BT pretending(?) to be Mr Angry. They told him it was a Tiscali problem, who told him it was a BT problem, who told him it was a Tiscali problem…and so he shuttled back and forth until BT told him to give it 24 hours for the systems to update. Tiscali said they might have to order broadband which would take another 10-15 working days. This presents a problem as we’re on a flight to Egypt at 9am tomorrow and Tiscali won’t speak to anyone but the account holder in order to put requests in action…. How much longer are we going to be cut off from the world? Compared to this fiasco, setting up US utilities was a piece of cake!!
Instrument of Torture
As I was getting ready for holiday I deployed the instrument on torture, otherwise known as an epilator, on my legs. I have a reasonably high pain threshold, but there were times when this brought tears to my eyes - and I wasn’t going anywhere NEAR really painful territory!! Forget waterboarding, this would get suspects talking in record time!! My ankles seemed particularly sensitive and when I got down to my little Hobbit toes there was audible howling along with a fair few naughty words…!
How Much????
We popped over to the shops to get sun lotion and other essentials for our holiday and, despite taking advantage of all the buy one get one free offers I was still £80. Totally shocking! It was £14.50 ($21) for a bottle of sun lotion which would be $10 in the US. What a rip off!
Monday 11th May - Woof, woof, woofer
Hurrah! We’ve put our last room back together! The last of the “what the hell shall we do with these” packages are in the garage, and we’re down to a few small piles of things to sort out – mostly cables, which is Stephen’s domain. I made him put all the 4-way surge protectors in a box in one place (rather than scattered about all the rooms) and found we could stock Homebase – yet we bought 2 more a couple of weeks ago. Now he needs to make sense of the thousands of other computer and camera cables that we have knocking about...
He’s currently calibrating the surround sound system. He started with the subwoofer and I was struggling not to giggle…first he had to wedge himself down the back of the TV so all I could see was his butt waving in the air, then he set the calibration running and the great rumbling began. No, thankfully no immediate evacuation of the room was required; this was the subwoofer doing its thing. And my god what a thing it did! It began with a super low rumbling that vibrated through the room and the chair I was sitting in (“again, again!”) and moved up through the frequencies like a Barry White hearing test. He’s now doing the rest of the speakers which sounds like someone playing space invaders.
He’s currently calibrating the surround sound system. He started with the subwoofer and I was struggling not to giggle…first he had to wedge himself down the back of the TV so all I could see was his butt waving in the air, then he set the calibration running and the great rumbling began. No, thankfully no immediate evacuation of the room was required; this was the subwoofer doing its thing. And my god what a thing it did! It began with a super low rumbling that vibrated through the room and the chair I was sitting in (“again, again!”) and moved up through the frequencies like a Barry White hearing test. He’s now doing the rest of the speakers which sounds like someone playing space invaders.
Sunday 10th May - DIY Disaster
We spent another day sorting out the house. I got Stephen to get the drill charged up as there were blinds and curtains to hang. The blinds were a doddle but the curtains were a complete nightmare! He took down the existing track and I loaded the new (US bought) curtains onto the (US bought) drapery rod… and then we found that the rod wouldn’t happily stay on the supporting hooks when you tried to move the curtains. We bickered throughout the entire operation, and then decided that it wasn’t going to work at all and put the original curtains and track back up!!
Mum made Gran’s recipe “Pot Roast and gravy you can slice” for dinner. It was very tasty and like stepping back in time! It’s probably been 20 years since I last had it – which seemed to be the length of time it took to make it!
Mum made Gran’s recipe “Pot Roast and gravy you can slice” for dinner. It was very tasty and like stepping back in time! It’s probably been 20 years since I last had it – which seemed to be the length of time it took to make it!
Saturday 9th May - The super glam Worcester Motor Show
We spent a few hours tidying up the house. It probably still looks a mess, but it’s a million times better than it was a week ago! We’re nearly there…but we’ve been saying that encouragingly since last Saturday!
I’d read that there was a motor show going on in Worcester high street, so we grabbed our cameras and headed in. I think I was expecting something a little more exciting than a bunch of cars parked in the street…and not sexy, exciting cars either (with the exception of the Morgan). There were ordinary, mundane family cars with balloons tied to them…not a supercar in sight. I had a quick run around a couple of shops searching for a cardigan. I have bought a patterned, flared out skirt and I thought a black cardi might be just the ticket to go with it – a bit Kirsty Allsopp. I tried the quirky shop, I tried the more mainstream shop and I finally tried M&S, all to no avail. I did see one cardigan in M&S, but it wasn’t in my size and I couldn’t find any more of them despite quartering the store.
Stephen and I found a very nice little caf̩ in Reindeer Court and stopped for coffee and a cake. It was the most heavenly sponge roulade filled with fine slices of fresh strawberries and covered with whipped cream. It was beautifully light and utterly delicious Рbut maybe just as well we shared. One each would have been just too piggy.
When we got home I told mum that I’d seen a cardigan but it was the wrong size so I was whisked off to M&S in Malvern to see if they had it or could order it. As it turned out they could do neither, but there was another cardigan that was just lovely so I got that instead. It gives me another option for the wedding outfit anyway – Stephen still thinks my first outfit looks too wedding-y and still sniggers when he looks at the fascinator….
I’d read that there was a motor show going on in Worcester high street, so we grabbed our cameras and headed in. I think I was expecting something a little more exciting than a bunch of cars parked in the street…and not sexy, exciting cars either (with the exception of the Morgan). There were ordinary, mundane family cars with balloons tied to them…not a supercar in sight. I had a quick run around a couple of shops searching for a cardigan. I have bought a patterned, flared out skirt and I thought a black cardi might be just the ticket to go with it – a bit Kirsty Allsopp. I tried the quirky shop, I tried the more mainstream shop and I finally tried M&S, all to no avail. I did see one cardigan in M&S, but it wasn’t in my size and I couldn’t find any more of them despite quartering the store.
Stephen and I found a very nice little caf̩ in Reindeer Court and stopped for coffee and a cake. It was the most heavenly sponge roulade filled with fine slices of fresh strawberries and covered with whipped cream. It was beautifully light and utterly delicious Рbut maybe just as well we shared. One each would have been just too piggy.
When we got home I told mum that I’d seen a cardigan but it was the wrong size so I was whisked off to M&S in Malvern to see if they had it or could order it. As it turned out they could do neither, but there was another cardigan that was just lovely so I got that instead. It gives me another option for the wedding outfit anyway – Stephen still thinks my first outfit looks too wedding-y and still sniggers when he looks at the fascinator….
Friday 8th May - We’re all going on a Sum-mer Hol-i-day
...well Spring holiday, but it didn't scan as well!
Another busy day in work (about 11 hours!), made worse by the fact I was trying to finish up to go on holiday. Yes! Another holiday! We are off work for 2 weeks now. We have a few days at home tidying the house up, and then a week in Sharm el Sheik in Egypt. We popped a bottle of Prosecco to celebrate the beginning of our holiday (we can’t be too profligate in these credit crunched times, so no champagne!), had dinner and flopped.
Another busy day in work (about 11 hours!), made worse by the fact I was trying to finish up to go on holiday. Yes! Another holiday! We are off work for 2 weeks now. We have a few days at home tidying the house up, and then a week in Sharm el Sheik in Egypt. We popped a bottle of Prosecco to celebrate the beginning of our holiday (we can’t be too profligate in these credit crunched times, so no champagne!), had dinner and flopped.
Thursday 7th May - Whadda you mean it’ll be Tuesday???
I phoned BT first thing in the morning. It probably wasn’t a really clever idea to do that as I was simply fuming for the whole day. When I spoke to them they said “I won’t lie to you. I’ll tell you the truth. We can give you your phone number, but it will not happen until 12th May. It wasn’t available before”. So…all previous people had lied. It was going to take another 6 days to get my phone number back, making it 11 days in total. They hadn’t taken note of all my requests to keep the number. It was time to express my displeasure! I didn’t shout and I didn’t swear, but I did let the poor girl have both barrels. I then got off the phone and put the finishing touches to a 3 page letter of complaint I’d started the evening before. Publish and be damned. Let’s tell all about the incompetence…
I tell you, if you ever want to bring the world to its knees, then shut down the interweb! We are barely surviving without it…
I tell you, if you ever want to bring the world to its knees, then shut down the interweb! We are barely surviving without it…
Wednesday 6th May - Sooo Tired….
I phoned BT today and was told “so sorry. Ours system is down. Please call back tomorrow” before they hung up on me. I was not happy at all…
It was a stupidly busy day – we were in at 8am and left the office at about 6:30pm and I barely stopped to breathe the whole day. I was knackered when I got home - only fit to flop onto the sofa and disengage my brain watching dross on the TV.
It was a stupidly busy day – we were in at 8am and left the office at about 6:30pm and I barely stopped to breathe the whole day. I was knackered when I got home - only fit to flop onto the sofa and disengage my brain watching dross on the TV.
Tuesday 5th May - Phone home – if only I could!
Stephen was heading to Farnborough, so I cadged a lift with Julie to work. It’s so handy having a neighbor who works in the same place…it’s a long walk and I’d never make it in the heels!!!!
I got home to discover that BT have still not changed the home number back to its original and I spent 10 minutes listening to someone telling me I was in a queue and their agents were all busy. I was not in the mood to listen to more, so I gave up. I only hope for their sake that they do it tomorrow. I feel a strongly worded letter of complaint to BT coming on. I am not impressed at all by this fiasco! Especially as we still don’t have internet! I have pretty much cracked the severe caffeine withdrawal symptoms, but the same cannot be said about the internet withdrawal! I had no idea how many times a day I use it to look things up!
I got home to discover that BT have still not changed the home number back to its original and I spent 10 minutes listening to someone telling me I was in a queue and their agents were all busy. I was not in the mood to listen to more, so I gave up. I only hope for their sake that they do it tomorrow. I feel a strongly worded letter of complaint to BT coming on. I am not impressed at all by this fiasco! Especially as we still don’t have internet! I have pretty much cracked the severe caffeine withdrawal symptoms, but the same cannot be said about the internet withdrawal! I had no idea how many times a day I use it to look things up!
Monday 4th May - Typical Bank Holiday weather
We were up really early again on Monday – even though it was a Bank Holiday! By 9am I had defrosted the freezer (the steamer was worth its price for this alone!), hung out a washing to dry, put another washing into the machine, made and eaten a bacon sarnie for breakfast and moved piles of books from one room to another. The weather wasn’t playing though. I was heading out the door to hang out my next load of washing when it started to bucket down with rain. Noooo!! This left me with loads of washing and no way to dry it. I need a tumble drier!!
Stephen ran away to work for a while, whilst I went through the pain of clearing out large portions of my wardrobe as it wasn’t really fitting into the space (it expanded a lot when I was away!). There are now a couple of very full bags of clothes ready to be dispatched to the local charity shops. I also had a couple of bin bags of clothes hangers spare. I swear these things breed! I am always finding stacks of them in the back of the closet!! When he got back we headed to Ledbury to buy a couple of new side tables for the sitting room. It took a while to find the shop. We tried every business park in the town and it turned out to be the last one (and the one we usually go to!) that this place was at. Typical! The chap who helped us out to the car with the tables had spent 10 years in the US building houses so we were all commiserating about having to leave, but I will say this…people I have met who have lived there are imbued with a certain zest for life and can-do attitude…although perhaps that’s why they go in the first place!
I also bought vacuum storage bags for putting our mountain of bedding into. These are cool! Once you’ve wrestled the duvets and blankets into the bag (which was not easy I can tell you!), you seal the top and suck the air out with your vacuum. I got 4 jumbo bags - all of which are now stored under mum’s bed. I just hope that the seals don’t go all at once or she’ll be lying there as the bed is suddenly propelled skywards and pinned to the ceiling as 10 pillows and 2 duvets expand back to full size!! It’s a shame these bags don’t work for books…!
Stephen ran away to work for a while, whilst I went through the pain of clearing out large portions of my wardrobe as it wasn’t really fitting into the space (it expanded a lot when I was away!). There are now a couple of very full bags of clothes ready to be dispatched to the local charity shops. I also had a couple of bin bags of clothes hangers spare. I swear these things breed! I am always finding stacks of them in the back of the closet!! When he got back we headed to Ledbury to buy a couple of new side tables for the sitting room. It took a while to find the shop. We tried every business park in the town and it turned out to be the last one (and the one we usually go to!) that this place was at. Typical! The chap who helped us out to the car with the tables had spent 10 years in the US building houses so we were all commiserating about having to leave, but I will say this…people I have met who have lived there are imbued with a certain zest for life and can-do attitude…although perhaps that’s why they go in the first place!
I also bought vacuum storage bags for putting our mountain of bedding into. These are cool! Once you’ve wrestled the duvets and blankets into the bag (which was not easy I can tell you!), you seal the top and suck the air out with your vacuum. I got 4 jumbo bags - all of which are now stored under mum’s bed. I just hope that the seals don’t go all at once or she’ll be lying there as the bed is suddenly propelled skywards and pinned to the ceiling as 10 pillows and 2 duvets expand back to full size!! It’s a shame these bags don’t work for books…!
Sunday 3rd May - Oh, me legs are killing me
We were both hobbling about like arthritic octogenarians on Sunday. All the bending, kneeling and standing has totally done for both our backs and our legs. It took a long while to regain mobility and loosen up. Not that that stopped us doing yet more tidying away and throwing out. We pulled rooms apart and put them back together as slowly the house begins to come together.
Guy sold a lot of our stuff at the car boot sale. Including some artwork by “an up and coming local artist” – me! I’m not giving up my day job though. It went for 25p!!!! And to think people used to stop by my red and gold-leaf painting and say “you have some lovely art”…perhaps I didn’t pick the right market to debut my work for sale!
Richard, Justine and their kids came round for the inaugural BBQ on Sunday. We had a lot of fun playing boules. I was rubbish, but my team-mate Millie was pretty good and definitely the saving grace of our team!
Guy sold a lot of our stuff at the car boot sale. Including some artwork by “an up and coming local artist” – me! I’m not giving up my day job though. It went for 25p!!!! And to think people used to stop by my red and gold-leaf painting and say “you have some lovely art”…perhaps I didn’t pick the right market to debut my work for sale!
Richard, Justine and their kids came round for the inaugural BBQ on Sunday. We had a lot of fun playing boules. I was rubbish, but my team-mate Millie was pretty good and definitely the saving grace of our team!
Saturday 2nd May - OMG! OMG! OMG! So many boxes….
We were up at 6:30am – refreshed after our first night in our own bed in a month, and in our old bedroom in 2 years. There were still lots of boxes to unpack! We were whirlwinds of activity. Of course it’s not as simple as just putting things away. We’re actually having to move things from room to room in order to make best use of the storage we have, which means that things got a whole lot worse before they got any better. By the end of the day we had made inroads and most of the boxes were open and unpacked and I was busy wrapping things up and putting them in boxes. We had left behind a lot of stuff and all the things like mismatched glasses were wrapped ready for car booting . (Our neighbor goes to a car boot every Sunday and offered to flog our bits and pieces for us.)
Stephen also got the new BBQ assembled on Saturday morning. He toiled for, oh…minutes, before having the brainwave of asking the 16 year old next door if he fancied making a tenner. We left him and the box of bits in the garage getting acquainted whilst we did a quick run to the recycling centre with a trunk full of packing paper, then onto Homebase for the laundry list of bits and pieces. When we got back the 16 year old was still there manfully working out which bit connected to where, so I went back to carting stuff about the house and Stephen gave him a hand to put the last few sprockets and flanges onto the big propane beastie.
Stephen then turned his hand to getting the TV we’d brought back with us to work. There was a lot of cursing and swearing going on so I gathered it wasn’t going too well and kept out of the way. It was about 30 minutes later I passed the dining room where the TV was sitting and stopped dead in my tracks. Sniff. Sniff. Sniffsniffsniff. “STEPHEN!!!!” A distant mumble came floating down from upstairs. “What the hell is that terrible smell?????” He literally flew down the stairs as I began searching for the bit of kit that about to burst into flames judging by the smell of burning wiring. Having switched it all off, allowed it to cool and opened the doors and windows to get rid of the smell, Stephen switched something back on and it tripped the electrics, again and again. This could be a 42inch paperweight we’ve brought back!!
We were very tired and weary and I wasn’t in the mood for cooking so we decided to treat ourselves to our first Anupam curry since our return. It was my first in 2 years and my God it was GREAT! Chicken Jalfrezi…MmmMmm! We went to the Royal Oak for a rink afterwards. It was really quiet compared to the pre-smoking ban/credit crunch levels, but we enjoyed a pint and had a chat with the locals. We were completely exhausted - totally bone weary - when we got back so we collapsed into bed in a tangle like a couple of sleeping puppies. I woke about 3 in the morning as Stephen was snoring. It was a little gentle snore but because he was snoring directly into my ear from a distance of about an inch it sounded like a Masserrati gunning its engine!
Stephen also got the new BBQ assembled on Saturday morning. He toiled for, oh…minutes, before having the brainwave of asking the 16 year old next door if he fancied making a tenner. We left him and the box of bits in the garage getting acquainted whilst we did a quick run to the recycling centre with a trunk full of packing paper, then onto Homebase for the laundry list of bits and pieces. When we got back the 16 year old was still there manfully working out which bit connected to where, so I went back to carting stuff about the house and Stephen gave him a hand to put the last few sprockets and flanges onto the big propane beastie.
Stephen then turned his hand to getting the TV we’d brought back with us to work. There was a lot of cursing and swearing going on so I gathered it wasn’t going too well and kept out of the way. It was about 30 minutes later I passed the dining room where the TV was sitting and stopped dead in my tracks. Sniff. Sniff. Sniffsniffsniff. “STEPHEN!!!!” A distant mumble came floating down from upstairs. “What the hell is that terrible smell?????” He literally flew down the stairs as I began searching for the bit of kit that about to burst into flames judging by the smell of burning wiring. Having switched it all off, allowed it to cool and opened the doors and windows to get rid of the smell, Stephen switched something back on and it tripped the electrics, again and again. This could be a 42inch paperweight we’ve brought back!!
We were very tired and weary and I wasn’t in the mood for cooking so we decided to treat ourselves to our first Anupam curry since our return. It was my first in 2 years and my God it was GREAT! Chicken Jalfrezi…MmmMmm! We went to the Royal Oak for a rink afterwards. It was really quiet compared to the pre-smoking ban/credit crunch levels, but we enjoyed a pint and had a chat with the locals. We were completely exhausted - totally bone weary - when we got back so we collapsed into bed in a tangle like a couple of sleeping puppies. I woke about 3 in the morning as Stephen was snoring. It was a little gentle snore but because he was snoring directly into my ear from a distance of about an inch it sounded like a Masserrati gunning its engine!
Photos of our boxes coming home
Backing the monster container into the street
If we'd know that there was going to be this much room availablewe'd have brought back more!!!
So much packaging! The paper contents of one box...
Lots of boxes!
The shoe rack - before...
...and after! Not SO many shoes really!Friday 1st May - Our worldly goods arrive
Friday dawned bright, clear, sunny and warm. So much for the forecast! Thank god! There is nothing guaranteed to ruin cream carpets more than 4 blokes tramping through the house when it’s pouring with rain. A rental van pulled up around 08:45 with our team of guys in it. The ISO container was scheduled to arrive at 09:30, and bang on target it did. The removal guys had had to get the man from the cottage on the corner to move his fleet of cars and, whilst he did that the lorry had to pull in on the main road. We were totally creating traffic chaos!! It only got worse when the driver had to do a 3 point turn and reverse it into the Close. Did I mention that this was a 40ft container?? FORTY FOOT!!! I knew we’d brought a fair amount of stuff back with us, but I didn’t think it was anything near enough to warrant a 40ft container! I was beginning contemplate getting the bricks and mortar out and building a quick extension to put everything in! Thankfully, when they cut the bolt and opened it up it was nearly empty. Our worldly goods made a smallish pile at the far end of the container. There was enough space for a car or LOADS more shoes in there. Damn – I could have bought so much more….
Stephen disappeared to work and left me and the guys to it. They were a great bunch – very professional and they got the hang of where things were to go pretty instantly (i.e. only had to tell them once that Xmas decs went to the garage). We agreed that they would unpack the living room, master bedroom, and kitchen and rebuild the futon (as the US packers had broken it down to its component parts). The rest of the stuff was going into the appropriate rooms for me to deal with later as I wasn’t sure how the hell I was going to fit it all in or where it was going to go…
We hit two snags…One was when they couldn’t find the bolts for the futon. There was not the standard “bits box” which has all the screws and “bits” clearly labeled and in one place… they found them in a box, but there was a lot of moaning and cries of “we wouldn’t do it this way”! The potentially bigger problem came a short while after when they couldn’t find the bolts to put our bed together! They couldn’t find them – they had been though every box that was labeled Bedroom and nothing. I was having a real “oh fooooooook” moment! We’d lost the screws that hold the base slats onto the frame on the way out (they didn’t make it into the bits box!)…but the bolts that hold the frame together were a more serious matter! We’d just about given up hope when one of the guys had the brilliant idea of checking the mattress which was still wrapped up and BINGO! Bolts! Cue even more complaining about the lack of a bits box or even any marking on the mattress wrapping to indicate they were in there!
I unpacked the kitchen boxes whilst they got on with everything else. It was astounding how much paper was used to wrap things…and how much better it fitted in the box when it was wrapped around something! I swear I could barely get it all back into the empty box when I’d taken out all the dishes and glasses etc. They assured me they recycle the paper…I dread to think how many innocent trees gave up their lives in order to keep my plates in one piece! Oh, and my kitchen roll made it in one piece…carefully wrapped!
The driver turned out to be a bit of an artistic soul and was in raptures when he brought the tray of mugs in and saw the abstract I have in the kitchen. We chatted away for ages about his work and different techniques we’d used (I shared my polyfilla secret and he shared that he sometimes uses spray bottles to apply watercolour). An interesting guy!
The guys finished up around 12:45 and at around 1pm Stephen showed back up again, swanned around for ½ hour and headed back to work to “let me get on with it”. I was totally raging when he didn’t show up again until about 6pm! I had worked like a Trojan all afternoon unpacking boxes and putting things away/moving things around and I was totally knackered and really narky… I had hoped he’d make an effort to get home early and give me a hand, but I think he decided to hide until it was safe!!
My mood was not improved by BT. You remember the saga of trying to sort out me taking back over the line and my number? Well I got a letter saying that I’d have a temporary number, but I’d be informed of my permanent number when they made the switch on the 1st May. Needless to say I didn’t get a call, and hadn’t realized they’d switched it until Stephen got home and said he’d been trying to call. I phoned BT to ask them to give me my old number (this was the 3rd or 4th time I’d explained this to them). I was told it wasn’t a problem – but they couldn’t do it until Tuesday. “If you’d called us 2 days ago it would have been done today”. AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH! If it had said that in the F’ing letter I would have! As it was I’d told 3 or 4 different people that I wanted to keep the number and they’d told me it would be okay. And I HATE their automated menu. I went through their “If you want to check your order” menu and at the end, instead of having an option of “if you still want to speak to someone about your order press…” it just said “here’s what you have ordered. Please hang up”. The phone nearly went through the window at that point. Plus, as they’ve changed our number our broadband has stopped working…. Easy fix (we thought!) – just phone Tiscali and ask them to change the account to the new number for a few days….wrong! It takes them 7-10 days to change the account over, so we didn’t bother. And we’re probably going to be internet-less for another week whilst we try and tie the number to the broadband again. AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
Stephen disappeared to work and left me and the guys to it. They were a great bunch – very professional and they got the hang of where things were to go pretty instantly (i.e. only had to tell them once that Xmas decs went to the garage). We agreed that they would unpack the living room, master bedroom, and kitchen and rebuild the futon (as the US packers had broken it down to its component parts). The rest of the stuff was going into the appropriate rooms for me to deal with later as I wasn’t sure how the hell I was going to fit it all in or where it was going to go…
We hit two snags…One was when they couldn’t find the bolts for the futon. There was not the standard “bits box” which has all the screws and “bits” clearly labeled and in one place… they found them in a box, but there was a lot of moaning and cries of “we wouldn’t do it this way”! The potentially bigger problem came a short while after when they couldn’t find the bolts to put our bed together! They couldn’t find them – they had been though every box that was labeled Bedroom and nothing. I was having a real “oh fooooooook” moment! We’d lost the screws that hold the base slats onto the frame on the way out (they didn’t make it into the bits box!)…but the bolts that hold the frame together were a more serious matter! We’d just about given up hope when one of the guys had the brilliant idea of checking the mattress which was still wrapped up and BINGO! Bolts! Cue even more complaining about the lack of a bits box or even any marking on the mattress wrapping to indicate they were in there!
I unpacked the kitchen boxes whilst they got on with everything else. It was astounding how much paper was used to wrap things…and how much better it fitted in the box when it was wrapped around something! I swear I could barely get it all back into the empty box when I’d taken out all the dishes and glasses etc. They assured me they recycle the paper…I dread to think how many innocent trees gave up their lives in order to keep my plates in one piece! Oh, and my kitchen roll made it in one piece…carefully wrapped!
The driver turned out to be a bit of an artistic soul and was in raptures when he brought the tray of mugs in and saw the abstract I have in the kitchen. We chatted away for ages about his work and different techniques we’d used (I shared my polyfilla secret and he shared that he sometimes uses spray bottles to apply watercolour). An interesting guy!
The guys finished up around 12:45 and at around 1pm Stephen showed back up again, swanned around for ½ hour and headed back to work to “let me get on with it”. I was totally raging when he didn’t show up again until about 6pm! I had worked like a Trojan all afternoon unpacking boxes and putting things away/moving things around and I was totally knackered and really narky… I had hoped he’d make an effort to get home early and give me a hand, but I think he decided to hide until it was safe!!
My mood was not improved by BT. You remember the saga of trying to sort out me taking back over the line and my number? Well I got a letter saying that I’d have a temporary number, but I’d be informed of my permanent number when they made the switch on the 1st May. Needless to say I didn’t get a call, and hadn’t realized they’d switched it until Stephen got home and said he’d been trying to call. I phoned BT to ask them to give me my old number (this was the 3rd or 4th time I’d explained this to them). I was told it wasn’t a problem – but they couldn’t do it until Tuesday. “If you’d called us 2 days ago it would have been done today”. AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH! If it had said that in the F’ing letter I would have! As it was I’d told 3 or 4 different people that I wanted to keep the number and they’d told me it would be okay. And I HATE their automated menu. I went through their “If you want to check your order” menu and at the end, instead of having an option of “if you still want to speak to someone about your order press…” it just said “here’s what you have ordered. Please hang up”. The phone nearly went through the window at that point. Plus, as they’ve changed our number our broadband has stopped working…. Easy fix (we thought!) – just phone Tiscali and ask them to change the account to the new number for a few days….wrong! It takes them 7-10 days to change the account over, so we didn’t bother. And we’re probably going to be internet-less for another week whilst we try and tie the number to the broadband again. AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
Thursday 30th April - Mum’s belongings go to storage
Typical! Just when you want a dry day, it absolutely tips it down!! I worked from home on Thursday just to be around when the guys were moving Mum’s things out the house. They were a nice couple of chaps and pretty efficient. Mum was having a mild case of headless chicken, so I did the inventory whilst they got on with moving the furniture and Mum made endless cups of tea. It didn’t take them more than a couple of hours to move the whole lot out, then Mum and I whisked round to M&S and Argos to grab a sandwich and a steamer unit respectively. Then it was back to the house to drop me off before Mum headed off to Edinburgh to see Eve.
I took the chance to clear out the food cupboards whilst Mum was away. OMG! There were jars of spices in there which I had left behind 2 years ago, and which were years out of date! I threw out loads of stuff. Mum will no doubt be horrified…
The steamer unit is great! I had a quick go at the grouting on the kitchen floor which had got a little dark and grubby looking and it brought it up as good as new. As it was forecast to rain again on Friday I didn’t bother to do too much as I figured it was just going to get filthy again with my removal men coming in and out.
We were suffering from a severe lack of furniture on Thursday night. In the sitting room we had one chair and a couple of tables…I claimed the chair…until Stephen came home and sat in it…and wouldn’t move! Something about his bad back…all I can say is that I’m too kind for my own good! My own aching back counted for nothing and I suffered – but not in silence!!
I took the chance to clear out the food cupboards whilst Mum was away. OMG! There were jars of spices in there which I had left behind 2 years ago, and which were years out of date! I threw out loads of stuff. Mum will no doubt be horrified…
The steamer unit is great! I had a quick go at the grouting on the kitchen floor which had got a little dark and grubby looking and it brought it up as good as new. As it was forecast to rain again on Friday I didn’t bother to do too much as I figured it was just going to get filthy again with my removal men coming in and out.
We were suffering from a severe lack of furniture on Thursday night. In the sitting room we had one chair and a couple of tables…I claimed the chair…until Stephen came home and sat in it…and wouldn’t move! Something about his bad back…all I can say is that I’m too kind for my own good! My own aching back counted for nothing and I suffered – but not in silence!!
Wednesday 29th April - Packing up Mum’s belongings
I took Wednesday off in order to help Mum finish up the last of her packing before her stuff was moved into storage on Thursday. She had been working really hard and had got loads of stuff into boxes, but there was still quite a lot to do! It pretty much took both of us all day to get it all packed. I was filthy from the newsprint and pretty footsore by the end of the day!
Back online
YEEHAW!!!! The interweb is finally working!!!!!!! I'm so happy I could cry!!!
Okay, time for you to stand by for the mammoth posting. Its been a whole MONTH since I was last able to access the internet at home and a lot has gone on since then...
Okay, time for you to stand by for the mammoth posting. Its been a whole MONTH since I was last able to access the internet at home and a lot has gone on since then...
Wednesday 27 May 2009
Still no internet....
27 days without internet at home. AAARRRRGGHHHHHHHHH! I cannae cope much longer!! We have now switched internet provider as ours appeared to be hopelessly incompetent! I hope to be back online next Tuesday...
I have been writing the blog off-line and have a mammoth posting ready to go on. Be prepared to take a day off work in order to get through it!!
I have been writing the blog off-line and have a mammoth posting ready to go on. Be prepared to take a day off work in order to get through it!!
Thursday 7 May 2009
Computer says no....
Thanks to the incompetence of my phone provider I currently have no internet at home. I've been writing the blog off-line so expect a mammoth posting when I've got a connection - but that won't be for a few days!!
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