Alice, Archie and a Sugar Rush

You do not find me in the happiest of places.

I stare at my diary for the week, and my heart is filled with dread and horror at the utter nonsense I have to get through this week.  Presentations, disciplinaries (three of them!!) and generally stuff I really resent wasting my life on.  The desire for sunshine is immense right now, but alas not quite as immense as the gaping hole where my bank balance should be, so on I trundle, countdown-less.

The weekend shot by in record time it seems, and I find myself back at my desk again, tired and unrefreshed.  Last night however I did watch a superb film, which I caught by accident.  In the Loop was brilliant, witty, frenetic, and seemed to be over in about ten minutes.  A sure sign of a good film.  The character played by Peter Capaldi was pure genius, and is surely how everyone wants to behave at work, just for one day!!

Sunday also saw me escort Rebecca to her friend’s house to visit their new puppy Archie.  He’s a Bichon Frise (small white fluffy dog), and has cornered the market in cuteness.  Rebecca in turn adopted her puppy eyes in a desperate attempt to get one of her own.  Not a chance!!  We tried the puppy thing a few years ago, with a lovely Basset Hound called Truman, but heartbreakingly we had to rehome him as we just didn’t have the time he needed, as we both worked full time at the time.

I am never going through that again!!  In no way did I get emotional at the time, and “get something in my eye” as I handed him over.

In what is sounding like an action packed weekend we also went to see Alice in Wonderland at our local cinema.  What a kerfuffle!  With our usual detailed advanced planning we decided to go about thirty minutes before it was due to start.  I tried in vain to book tickets on the website, and only encountered errors.  I even tried the quaint method of phoning them up, but still problems intervened.

In the end we just jumped in the car and drove there.  The queue we encountered was of WDW proportions….on New Years Eve…..for Soarin’.  Still, if I ran a cinema how could I have predicted such a large attendance on the weekend of the launch of one of the biggest films of the year!  Add to that, all the ticket collection machines were down too, so everyone had to join the queue, even if they had booked on the error ridden website!!  With this in mind it should have come as no surprise that only three staff were serving.

We resolved to queue but get tickets for the 7pm show, and adjourn to a local eatery to while away the intervening hours.  You can see how this was turning into a very expensive trip to the cinema.  Frankie and Bennys received our custom, with all the waiting staff in fancy dress to “celebrate” the launch of Alice in Wonderland.  If they knew about it, how come the cinema didn’t?  A steak ciabbatta later and we’re back at the cinema (via a swift detour to Asda to secure cheapo sweets as I needed petrol anyway), and lo, another queue to enjoy.

So after a lovely thirty minute wait we watched all the people we were queuing with earlier exit the film, and look at us in a weird way, wondering how and/or why we were in the queue for the film that they saw us queue up for earlier, with them.

Eventually we enter, and having queued we bag a good seat, and the pick n mix begins.  The film passes in a haze of fried eggs, chocolate raisins, white mice and mini eggs, and I hit a sugar induced coma just as the Jabberwocky appears.  Who said the drugs don’t work.  The film itself was better than I expected if I am honest.  I have never watched any version of an Alice film all the way through, from the animated Disney one to the cruelly low budget ones, such as a dreadful 70’s version with Fiona Fullerton.

I was pleasantly surprised to get into it (after what felt like a slow start) and actually enjoy it.  Good job, saying the whole trip cost north of £100!!  Tight, me, never!!!!

The other main theme of the weekend was Louise coming over all spring cleaner on us.  Apparently it was required that we and Emily swap bedrooms, which Louise did more or less unaided on her day off on Thursday, but the weekend meant a massive clear out of years of crud which we have accumulated nicely.  Needless to say a trip to the tip was in order, and about seven hours of pulling stuff out of wardrobes, looking at it, and then trying to push it back in again ensued.

No wonder the weekend went quickly!!  How I managed to fit in a good few hours of Call of Duty I will never know.

I also received a lovely email from a Dibber, who had spent the weekend reading my trip reports.  He was very complimentary about my ramblings which is always lovely to hear.  My ego knows no beginnings!!

This was an extraordinary email which really touched me (something in my eye again), as it outlined their own personal battles to get to Florida after Travel City went bang, and many other challenges seemed to be attracted to them.  Needless to say the troubles were overcome, they went to WDW and it changed their lives.  As the message ended with him telling me he’d just booked again, I lost all empathy and cursed the swine for being able to go this year when I can’t!!!  🙂

For clarity that was an attempt at humour.

Till the next time…..