A week is a long time…..

You may recall my post from the 8th of March….

“You do not find me in the happiest of places.”

“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.”

“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!!!  “

Well, the phrase out of the blue doesn’t quite cover the events of the week which followed this.

Having almost stopped looking forlornly at flights in the vague hope of finding one for less than a tenner, I see a meeting request appear amongst all the other dross in my diary for Monday afternoon.

“Bonus Briefing” was the title.  Now, having worked here for ten years, this is an annual event where we hear phrases like “close but no cigar” a lot, so my expectations were low, indeed, I turned up five minutes late.

Ten short minutes later, and after hammering out a few calculations on the calculator (well on what else would you hammer them out?) I am sort of dumbstruck really.  A quick wander across to my friendly HR person, and the amount I have calculated is indeed correct.  Hand shaking, I text Louise, pinching myself (it isn’t easy to do both at the same time).

My mind is already half way through a plan of course, but I fear Louise will reply with boring nonsense like…

“Oh good, we can do (insert nonsense task) to the house”

or

“We can marginally improve our failing battle against impending bankruptcy”

But no dear reader, she did not reply in that manner.  Allow me to quote….

“What are you wasting time texting me for….get the flights booked”

Joy unabounds, and I break the internet with the ferocity of my flight search (all in my own time of course, never when I should be working).

To spare you the many hours of intense searching, around about 12 hours later I am sat on my couch at home, with a smoking VISA, the proud owner of flights, a hire car, and a beaming smile.

Details you say?  OK.

We are flying with Thomas Cook on the 20th of August from Manchester.  Now these are not ordinary Thomas Cook flights (the oft discussed 29″ seat pitch, no telly, and the meal is a rotting apple if you are lucky), oh no this is the ifinitely more expensive normal flight with a whopping 33″ seat pitch, and a seat back telly…..EACH!!

I also discovered the joy of Quidco, so made back a whopping £8 into the bargain.  The car, also via a Quidco link, earns me multiple pounds back from Alamo.  We fly into Sanford, which is where we have flown to more often than not, so this is fine and dandy with us.

I am currently in negotiation (and prayers) with my lovely DVC friends, to see if they are using their points this year.  I won’t find out till next week, and this is in no way highly frustrating.  I am in the hellish limbo of not knowing whether I need to find a villa (if one is still free for our dates in the whole of Florida!), or to book perhaps some on site stuff via the Disney UK site and get free dining and stuff.  Until I know, I will be pretty unbearable.

Anyways, I am not complaining as until Monday my 40th would have been spent at our local Frankie and Bennys no doubt, so DVC, cardboard box…makes no odds really.

The usual maze of tickets still baffles me but I have several spreadsheets on the go, each involving complex macros, taking into account the phases of the moon, high tides and average temperatures for our dates, so I can secure the best value tickets for our activities.  I shall book those once accomodation is secured.

This planning lark is hard work, and at some point I will do my day job again!!

So there we are, the Gods have smiled upon us, the trip is booked, and my significant birthday will be spent where it was always destined to.

I consider myself a lucky chap, well, a bit more lucky than I was a week ago, but I probably didn’t realise I was then, and I should!!!

Till the next time….