To the chaps who look after the servers and stuff that support the Kayak website I apologise. I fear I have given your infrastructure a bit of a beating this week, not only from the laptop, but also from your excellent iPhone app. I can report that all is functioning correctly, apart from one element. No matter what bizarre combination of dates and departure and arrival airports the resultant figures displayed do not please me.
Your pull is strong!
So as you can probably guess, we are still looking for flights. The best we can seem to find are with Thomas Cook, direct to Sanford in August. They come in at £619 each but do mean that we have no seat back TVs and a seat pitch so small that you have to stand up all the way, like one of those standy up rollercoasters! The rotters are charging £419 three days later!!
Even if we do end up in Florida, the deal is that we do not do the Disney theme parks. Universal is on the cards, with a stay at the Hard Rock, but our Disney fix would be limited to Downtown Disney, and a look around a couple of resorts. I am Ok with this, as we don’t need to do the WDW parks again, after eleven years on the trot, and a bit more relaxing would be a nice change as long as the girls can cope with the inertia. In theory this shouldn’t be an issue, as when they are at home it takes a small incendiary device to get them to do anything at all. If we do a villa, with the internet, a pool and a TV then they can amuse themselves much as they do at home. Crucially, unlike at home, I won’t have to drag my sagging body out of bed at silly times, sit in traffic and drizzle for an hour to then sit in an office I don’t want to be in, doing things I don’t want to do.
Instead I could drag my sagging frame to the pool, unleash the guns on the neighbours and eat high fat nonsense, whilst occasionally dipping in the pool. Outings consisting of –
Shopping – To enhance my position of Husband/Dad of the Century
Mini Golf – Fantasia Gardens is overdue as the kids were 4 and 2 the last time I inflicted humiliating defeat upon them (it still counts)
WDW Resorts – Always a favourite past time of mine, and even the girls can put up with it, as it will probably involve “cute American boys”.
Eating – As you may know from my trip reports, we are pretty good at this, and in fact our days have often been constructed around our plans for food!
Should keep us from getting too bored, and with a few days at Universal with FOTL privileges, and then some time on a beach, it sounds like I have given this plan some thought!! As if. By the way, for the coast bit, I may be in the market for some DVC points for a bit of Vero action should anyone have any going spare?
Still, until someone is willing to carry us across the Atlantic for something less than the ridiculous sums being quoted, all this expert planning is for naught.
Away from holiday planning, the week has been fairly normal. Thankfully, it has been without medical emergency. It has been half term up here, and Louise took the chance to take Emily to look for her prom dress. One was found, and I was despatched on Saturday to pick it up. I shall refrain from any photos at this point, but fear not, at the time she actually wears it, I shall bombard you with proud Dad photos! I haven’t yet told Rebecca that due to the cost of the dress she’ll have to wear it too, and if at all possible both may get married in the bugger too!
A Paul-ished effort
Saturday evening saw us out together as a family. This took some organising. I had to book the girls well in advance, and it was nice to do the family thing. We went to the local cinema and watched Paul. Having not been to the cinema for a while, I made the most of it with both a three scoop Ben and Jerrys, and soupcon of Pick n Mix. Of course I felt sick, but as they say, no pain no gain. I can recommend Chunky Monkey, Phish Food and Cookie Dough as a combo made in heaven.
With Louise’s famous New York Cheesecake in preparation for tea, I fear my meager efforts at exercise this weekend may be in vain! We (well, Louise) has purchased a rowing machine, and I expended more sweat erecting the thing than actually using it, and I suppose there is a common issue for men of my age! All the effort in getting it up, meant that the time actually “in action” was brief. Enough? OK.
Back to the film. Paul is great. I have liked pretty much everything Simon Pegg has done, and I wasn’t disappointed at all. It is funny and entertaining, and if you can forgive the language (the girls hear worse during my DIY sessions), it is fun for all the family, unless your kids are toddlers!!
I have to go now, as preparation of the Sunday roast is down to me today. I have to say these Sunday roasts are not my favourite. The enormous effort involved in actually cooking stuff properly never lives up to the minutes it takes to eat them. In fact I may nip down to the cinema and get my triple scoop combo instead, and follow that with some cheesecake!
Let me finish with a plug. I was very flattered to be asked to contribute to a new web site called www.nottheface.co.uk this week. So I did, and my first “effort” is now up there, so please click along and have a read….not my bit necessarily, as there is much goodness there, but if you don’t read mine I will hold it against you!! If you all comment on mine too, it will make me look urbane, insightful and popular all at the same time. It won’t surprise you in terms of content and style I’m sure!!
Right, let’s be having these roasties and veg then….
It is a constant inconvenience that I live on the wrong continent. Yep, you guessed it, the annual addiction has kicked in, and both Louise and I have reached the “Goddam it, we need a holiday” point simultaneously.
I have therefore spent my week using a Kayak, and I don’t mean one of these.
Not this type....www.kayak.co.uk
It is therefore a thorn in our collective sides that there is a huge piece of water between us and our desired destination. Well I say our…I may have conceded that another trip to Disney is not on the cards, but my continent of choice is still North America. When asked why, I can only shrug my shoulders, reference the TV programmes Benidorm, and Shameless, and explain that if I wished to live in either, I am close enough to the dodgier parts of Manchester to do so.
This chunk of water is a right pain, as it takes an even bigger chunk of cash to sling shot our collective frames across it, and this, at this point seems to be a blocker. The complete lack of any budget at all is also a slight blocker, but still it doesn’t hurt to look does it? Well, I’ll tell you it bloody does hurt, as it rubs your untanned nose in it, that you have no chance of getting to your desired destination unless you either take the kids out of school (let’s not have a debate!) or simply leave them at home.
Should we be able to overcome the budgetary crisis and aviate ourselves to the US, our tentative, yet futile plans are quite loose. We are considering either a West Coast trip, or a return to Florida, but bypassing the routine of theme parks for a jaunt further south, to the beaches of the East Cost, and maybe the Keys.
Anyhow, I may as well be planning a quick trip around the moon. Both are equally likely.
In terms of the flight prices we are seeing, well the average is around £750, which when you times it by four is just north of way too much for us. I don’t know why I do it to myself, but if I nudge our dates out by a day or two, until just after the girls have to be back at school, the prices fall mockingly into our “that’s reasonable” bracket. Education is over rated I think, however, at the ages they are, there is no longer the option to take them out of school. Emily will be starting sixth form next September (Yes, I know, incredible!) and Rebecca Year 10. Back when they were at Infant and Junior School I think we did take them out for a day or two, and they managed to catch up with the colouring in OK.
Louise is less precious about the destination, and just wants some sun and relaxing. I’m up for that, but I fear we have created a monster with the girl’s expectations of a holiday, and after about four days “sun bathing” they may be climbing the walls, and be on the verge of mass murder for an internet connection.
A quick look at other cheaper, non US options shows that a private villa in somewhere like Spain would be do-able, but I think even Louise would admit that this is a definite Plan B, and one we shall keep as that until all other avenues are exhausted.
Another Saturday night has passed without the correct sequence of balls (this is merely a lottery reference!!), and so we trundle on, battering the internet, hoping that some combination of inputs may make the page throw up some numbers that start with an acceptable figure. Perhaps if we fly into Alaska and drive down?? Believe me, I have looked at flight options similar to that.
Am I hopeful that we shall find what we need? Not really. I fear the flights will price us out of a trip this time around, and as much I will absolutely grumble, I shouldn’t. We’ve had a good run, and a year off would not be reason enough to herrumph through the year, spitefully cursing the financial crisis, rising fuel costs, and my lack of lottery win.
201 people can't be wrong!!
Finally, in other better news, I passed a Twitter milestone this weekend, and hit 200 followers. I appreciate this is not Stephen Fry like, but I am pleased nonetheless. If you follow me, thank you, and if you don’t, that’s probably wise, as the next few weeks may be full of flight price induced rage.
So if anyone spots a flight from Manchester to anywhere vaguely American, sometime in late August, that starts with something less than a six, give me a shout??
What a bobbins week on the work front. I won’t bore you with the un-pleasantries, but it has been full of busy, late nights, frustration and missed deadlines. So after opening with the customary moan, let us move on to better things.
A few weeks ago, I somehow got wind of something called a Taste Card. I think it was from the Martin Lewis email, but I can’t remember to be honest. Anywho, there was a three-month free trial, and it entitled the holder to half price food in lots of restaurants. Those of you who know me, even in the slightest, would know that this combo would be a winner with me, so I signed up.
The card came last week, and it was timed quite nicely as with Valentine’s approaching, on Saturday we wanted to go out for a meal. Not wanting to break the romantic mood by seeming cheap…er than usual, I mentioned the Taste Card concept to Louise with trepidation. Louise believes that if you pay the maximum amount possible for something, it guarantees it to be the best it can possibly be. So me saying I can get us half price food for our Valentine’s jaunt was a risky strategy.
Well, it *looks* OK....
Still, as all our wealth for the next twenty years is sunk into our new bedroom, it was recognised that any saving would be welcome, and I began to scour the Taste Card website and iPhone app to see which restaurants we could go to. A lot of them don’t “do” the scheme on a Saturday so our choices were a little limited, and we ended up choosing, well I did, a place in Haslingden. This is about half an hour from us, and The Ridings restaurant was situated in the Sykeside Country House Hotel, which all sounded very promising.
With a table booked for 7.30, Louise started to get ready just that five minutes too late to avoid me pacing the hall looking at my watch getting stressed, as my aversion to being late kicked in. Leaving a house full of teenagers behind us we set off through the likes of Ramsbottom and Stubbins, which are not unlike the lands in Lord of the Rings really, and amazingly, no doubt due to my impressive Mondeo manoeuvres, we arrived in the car park at 7.30 on the nail.
The car park looked fairly empty, and at this point I was a little worried I must admit. The place itself is a stunning old mill owner’s house, with lovely old decor, and impressively, once was home to William Roache from Corrie! I don’t think he owned the mill though.
We are welcomed into the bar, and we order a drink and take a seat in a comfy couch near the fire. As we look over the menus we are presented with some horses douvres by an amazingly polite young waitress. So far so good.
View from a couch
We are soon ushered through to our table, and the real fun begins. The food arrives. Wow!
To start I ordered the Gateaux of black pudding served with crushed potatoes and leeks, drizzled with a light grain mustard sauce.
The German for gateaux is kirschtorte!!
I know it looks like a dessert but I think this is the idea, hence the name. It is black pudding top and bottom, with mash in the middle, topped off with a poached egg done to perfection. The mustard sauce is just superb too. Silence descended as we tucked in.
Louise? Oh, yes she ate too. She ordered the Mushroom and Gruyere Tartlette.
and I'm Filo fine....
This too was declared wonderful.
At this point I’m just relieved that my choice looks to be going OK.
Our main course were equally delightful, but alas, our enthusiasm meant no photos were taken. For the record we had…
Me – A chicken breast served on a black pudding potato cake.
Louise – Some deep-fried goat’s cheese thing.
This was served with lovely veg, including some deep-fried cauliflower. Marvellous.
Just to make sure two courses were not a fluke I volunteered to test out the desserts, and went for the profiteroles.
Louise didn't want a dessert, but still tasted mine....
Just wonderful, so no, the first two courses were not a fluke.
Add to all this lovely food, the fantastic service and we had a great time. So much so that as we retired to the bar for another drink, I felt almost guilty using the Taste Card as what we had just eaten was worth every penny at full price. However, with the Taste Card discount, all of that cost us £38, including three glasses of wine, a beer and a diet coke!!
We rolled home very satisfied, vowing to return very soon.
So apologies for the food review style of this week’s post, but we were blown away with the place, and for those local enough to try it, you must! For those not local, then the least you should do is get to the Taste Card website and sign up the free trial, if it is still on, or just get one.
We haven’t eaten much today to be honest, mainly as we had a long lie in, and since then we’ve been busy, me finishing off the wooden floor with my Dad. Well, to be honest I was handing him stuff whilst he did it, and Louise has been doing the big shop, and is now ironing. Rebecca has been busy though, and our reward for yet another weekend with a house like a youth hostel is a cheesecake made by her own fair hand for after tea. She is also as I type chopping stuff for our Shepherd’s Pie. Poor Shepherd!
I look forward to a better week at work, and a very yummy tea!!
Louise needs an early night I think as she looks a little peaky to me.
Often on a Monday morning, offices around the country are full of the question, “Did you have a nice weekend?”. Pardon my cynical view, but in most cases the person asking that couldn’t really give a rat’s ass, and is just expecting back the usual banal answer of “Yes, it was lovely, You?”
Nobody asked me that question this morning. Either they follow me on Twitter (and you should!), or they could tell from my smacked arse face, and exhausted haunted look that the answer was likely to be in the negative.
OK, so in the grand scheme of things, as ever, things aren’t so bad, but my finely tuned sense of persecution is currently in overdrive, with every phone call, conversation or activity seemingly being a new problem to deal with. So the weekend just gone was not restful or relaxing to be honest. However it was preceded by more worrying issues with another trip to hospital for Louise on Thursday.
She had a very bad night on Wednesday, with lots of pain and not much sleep. With Thursday being her day off, she took herself off to the emergency doctor, who quickly referred her to hospital. So, via text, I was getting updates from Louise during the morning, whilst enjoying a meeting at work, telling me that she was off to hospital.
I joined her there in the early afternoon, and we (well she) went through the usual procession of elimination techniques that we are very familiar with now. Bloods and wee tested, x-rays done, and still nobody is any the wiser. A consultant turns up, and orders a CT scan for the following day. So Louise spends another night in hospital, and my biggest challenge is ensuring the girls have clean socks for the following day at school!! A challenge to which I rose impressively.
Friday passes, a CT scan reveals nothing, and Louise is sent home at tea time, pain gone, but still totally in the dark as to what is going on. Groundhog day.
With that auspicious start, the other highlights of the weekend were –
A full day of flat pack assembly on Sunday, and this was just for two quite simple bedside cabinets. Handy Andy I ain’t. I am happy to accept that the length of time needed to complete this was down to my incompetence, but the fact that my Dad helped, and it still took ages, tells me that the instructions were bobbins. My Dad has worked in the building/roofing trade for forty years!
The utterance of every swear word known to man, and a few new ones too, on Saturday evening, when we discovered a new water feature in the kitchen. The silly amounts of rain were obviously too much for our kitchen roof, and therefore a fair amount of that rain found itself onto our kitchen floor, via our light fitting. This was a particular low ebb, I must say. I sulked quite a bit about this it has to be said. I thank Louise for her patience in this regard, and for not tripping over my bottom lip.
My Dad’s involvement in the roofing trade means that we had a man on our roof today (it’s who you know!), and I am only a little bit scared to find out what the damage is, both structurally and financially. As is often the case, anyone enquiring if we have booked our next holiday yet, may be met with a complete sense of humour failure at the moment. We are some way of simply being skint, and indeed, I aspire to just being a little short of cash, I dream of being a little tight of the green stuff. You get the idea? We are going nowhere!
Still, on the plus side, I love our new bedroom, I could spend a full day in our new shower (stop those rude thoughts!), and whilst I have plastic in my wallet, we will have food on the table! Add to all of that, the fact I can now enjoy and even discuss football, thanks to the return of the King to Liverpool, as I said right up top, in the grand scheme of things, it could all be a lot worse. Repeat until it sounds convincing!
This is no way alters the fact that I shall still no doubt sulk, swear and bemoan every new problem and crisis in my usual grisly manner. I defend my right to do so.
(Un) reality TV
Full of repressed anger and resentment at our leaky roof, we retreated to bed on Saturday night with Clive Owen. I am quite open-minded about the whole thing really, and don’t feel threatened at all. Anyway, he can’t be all that as Louise was asleep within five minutes, leaving me and Clive to it!
I of course refer to Shoot Em Up, the “classic” action flick starring Clive. Can you really be a film star when you are called Clive?
We seem to be on a roll where films are concerned at the moment, and not a good one at that. My benchmark for a film being far-fetched is, and I thought always would be Con Air…I have told you this before. Well, I may have a new standard by which to judge. This was a cracker, in all the wrong ways.
My favourite part of the film was when Clive dived from a rooftop, through a window into an apartment, escaping some baddies. Doesn’t sound so far-fetched does it? Well, if you add in the fact that he had a new-born baby tucked under one arm, this, in the first ten minutes of the film, set the tone of what was to follow. Later, as he drives towards a truck load of baddies, he shoots out his windscreen, undoes his seatbelt, so that upon impact he is thrown through the front window, through the truck’s front window, forward rolls in midair and lands in the back of the truck, and is thus able to shoot all six or seven baddies before they realise what has happened. He did not have the baby under his arm at that point though.
This standard is relentless all the way through the film, and can only be believed by witnessing it for yourself. Go on, I dare you.
So hopefully, financial ruin aside, things can only get better from here on in, and I look forward to a better week ahead. I know I have to go to work, but apart from that!!
For DIY induced swearing fans, you can look forward to the delivery of our new wardrobe in a week or two, for the full extent of vocabulary to be tested. If the bedside cabinets are anything to go by, this could be a good one. They have mirrors for doors, and spotlights and everything. It could all get very nasty.
For fans of overweight balding forty year olds, you only have until Thursday to sneak a peek of my impressive frame through our bedroom window, as our custom (translates to expensive) blinds are to be installed. The crowds outside are becoming a minor pest to the neighbours, so that is a relief all round.
I am going to wander off now, to look after the chip on my shoulder, and have a tantrum. I feel it is deserved.
It has been a while since I have commented on our viewing habits, courtesy of our Tesco DVD Rental deliveries.
This week, we were pretty happy to get two titles that looked promising. We usually like our weekend DVDs to be of a blockbuster style, nothing too challenging (subtitles are a no go), and sit back and let them entertain us.
The Unwatchables
With this in mind, Knight and Day and The Expendables seemed likely to tick all those boxes. Both had a decent star quota and had been advertised to death upon release.
They were both atrocious!!
Knight & Day was slightly better, and we did manage to get all the way through it. The Expendables however was absolutely shockingly bad. It takes a lot for me to abandon a film before the end, but I simply had to. Louise had long since fallen asleep, as we watched it on our new TV in our new bedroom (I’ll come to this shortly), and I waded through about an hour before realising that my mind was wandering, and I really could not give a toss what happened next.
The script was so cringingly crass and hackneyed I was almost predicting the next line, and the story was cheesy, predictable and had been done a million times before. The cinematography was of the type where everything is dark, so you can never really tell what is going on, and with Sly Stallone in the lead role, most of the audio was so unintelligible that you had to have the volume at max, only then to be blown away by the next explosion or gun shot.
Knight & Day was OK. Again, a premise that had been done a million times. An agent who is indestructible, amazing at fighting, shooting and stuff, with a good-looking blonde tagging along. It had all the ingredients for a decent action/romcom, but something about it just didn’t work for me. The story was weak, and of course some of the action was so far-fetched it rivalled Con Air!!
These few hours being my only break from the paint brush since Wednesday made their crapness a real bugger!! I have a right arm like Popeye’s, but not for the reasons you may think. No, I have been painting stuff for so long, my arm keeps moving whilst I sleep. I have glossed the equivalent of a football pitch. We have more wood in our house than the Playboy mansion on party night!
My estimate of the decorating taking two days, leaving me Friday to relax was so off the mark, it made Andy Gray’s views look accurate.
Anyway, I get ahead of myself. This was the week when the garage officially became our bedroom.
My brain has been wrecked with the best part of five days of intense paint fumes, so the final stages of the project have become a little hazy, but last night, for the first time we slept in our new bedroom. It all felt a bit odd to be honest, and after what seems like forever from when we kicked this off, to be finally in did not quite sink in.
I had christened th’en suite shower earlier (not like that!!), and what great pleasure I took from it (I said not like that!). Washing away days of engrained gloss and emotion, I mean emulsion, and with them the aches and pains of painting ceilings and all sorts of nooks and crannies at weird angles, felt very good.
The one slight pain point in our new bedroom is that we do not as yet have anything to cover the windows!! Our custom-made blinds are two weeks away yet, and so getting in and out of bed requires a very impressive commando roll on to the floor, where I quickly assume my dressing gown. Don’t get me wrong, if the neighbours want to see me in all my glory then they are welcome. I am only thinking of them believe me!! Our new window is so HUUGGEE that we cannot buy mere mortal window coverings, no, we have to drop a massive wad on custom made blinds.
Size isn't everything
I commando roll from here
Twinkly lights
Where the magic happens!
Anyway, in my decorating marathon, I have realised there are a set of rules for it –
1. You will never buy enough paint and have to go to the shop covered in paint with just a little bit left to do
2. No matter whether you think glossing or emulsioning first is the right thing to do, you will think you made the wrong decision when you have to cut in the latter application to the former.
3. No matter how many times you stand back to check your work, before packing everything away, it is only when you have cleaned all the brushes, put them away and had a shower that you will see that bit you missed
4. Your partner coming home from work and criticising a small element of your eight hours of painting is likely to result in divorce at best, and cold-blooded murder at worst.
5. You will find gloss under your fingernails for the next three weeks.
6. You will somehow end up with more paint on your clothes than on the walls.
Anyway, I am finally done, and all we need now is a set of wardrobes to complete the room, and this will allow us to move all our stuff downstairs. Rebecca has moved in to our old room upstairs and is loving the extra room. She is as I type painting stuff on her walls. I think it is getting a Hello Kitty treatment, but to be honest if I see another paint brush this side of Christmas I will not be responsible for my actions.
So a landmark week in the Williams household. I must say that if you fancy something else where your garage currently is, and you live near me then you should consider the chaps who did ours, Nuspace. They were excellent!
But, something that tops all these events, something that should be recorded in history. Emily is out tonight at a gig at the Apollo in Manchester. She is watching A Day to Remember. Who??
That is not the event to which I refer. No, after said gig, someone else is picking her up and bringing her home. I know!! I could not quite believe it myself. I shall still have to wait up for her, but I think I shall embarrass her by waiting in bed and then jumping up as she arrives and waving frantically at the window. I may even wave my hands too.
So it is back to work tomorrow after three days off last week, and my Inbox looks horrific. I looked at it earlier but did not have the heart to actually do anything about it. For now, I have realxing to do.
Work has been inconveniently busy and stressful this week. It isn’t enough that I turn up every (most) days whether I want to or not. It seems in exchange for the money that arrives in my bank each month, they need to me to actually do stuff. Stuff this week, seems to have been in the form of an endless conveyor belt of problems and panics, that to me don’t really sit with me to fix, but no bugger else seems to be having a go at, and so it has fallen into my lap.
This has severely restricted my ability to monitor the football transfer window via Tweetdeck, and all this having to attend, and pay attention in meetings is nothing short of just downright inconvenient.
Still without work, I would not be able to fund the runaway budget of our new bedroom. See how I did not use the word garage there? It can no longer be described as anything close to a garage, as it has electric, a window, and an ensuite that is all but ready to oblute all over. I enjoy a good oblute.
A week ago the chaps working on it were telling me that it would all come together very quickly and they expected to be done in a week. I laughed at this suggestion (not to their faces of course, they are big builder types), as it still looked like four walls and a lot of dirt. True to their word, we have been drawing up snag lists for their last day on site tomorrow. It did appear that every workman in the North West was at our house towards the end of last week, with electricians, joiners and plumbers falling over each other.
So the journey is almost complete…
Before....
Half Garage Half Bedroom
Nearly done..
Th'En Suite
This positive news is however tinged with sadness, as it inevitably follows that now, the decorating must begin. A choice between decorating and sitting on a hot poker would be a tricky choice for me, so to make sure I get on with it, yesterday we went out and ordered the carpet. We have asked for it to be fitted on Friday of next week so that I have no option but to struggle on through the horror of turps and stiff brushes. Not wanting to waste the next four weekends, I have booked three days off from work, so I can just get it done.
For those three days I can wear pants that display a spectacular builder’s arse, a T-shirt that is far too tight for wearing outside, but is fine for getting full of paint, and pretend that I am a manual worker, and not the office based, soft handed, namby pamby wuss that I really am. I shall drink strong tea with six sugars, listen to the radio all day, eat steak pudding chips and peas for lunch and then present Louise with an extortionate bill.
To get a head start the work began today, and I have –
Hoovered (or should I say Dysoned) the room, trying to suck up weeks worth of dust and stuff
Put paste all over the newly plastered walls. This was a tip from the builder, so either it will make the painting easier, or it is just something he tells idiots like me who work in an office to cheer up his working day
Glossed all the skirting boards and doors.
So with a decent effort on Wednesday and Thursday I can have it done, and then give the Xbox some hammer on Friday whilst awaiting the carpet delivery.
Speaking of delivery, finally, after a ridiculous wait for the new insurance documents, Louise got to pick up her new car on Thursday evening. Here we sit in the 21st Century, and still Tesco Insurance tell me they cannot email, or would you believe even fax the new documents to me, and I had to wait for first class post to take four days to get to us. I then scanned it in, emailed it to the garage, and picked the car up on the same day!!
Louise's convertible....the cat converts into a nuisance very easily
Thursday night was a stinker weather wise, and the final journey in the Mini was pretty horrible, and it seemed to take forever to get to the garage. Half way there, Rebecca started to feel very unwell, with a lot of stomach pain based around that regular female event. This added nicely to the pleasure of the journey, and upon arriving at the garage she was surrounded by every female member of staff in the building, offering hot drinks, seats and lots of advice. Two strong pain killers and a hot drink helped, whilst I cracked on with the signature marathon that is the purchase of a new car.
How can it be so complex? I must have signed a dozen documents, and been there the best part of an hour. Daft!
Finally, Louise was let loose on the new car, and we set off for home. After the marathon journey and signature fest, we decided to call in at Nandos near the Reebok Stadium for tea. That helped. I’m not good without food.
Upon leaving, we needed “some bits” from Asda around the corner, so Louise gave in to the girl’s pleadings to drop the roof. Now, it was a very, very cold night, and by the time Louise hit second gear, the girls were pleading with her to stop and put the top back up again!! The two minute journey resulted in frozen snot candles on them both, and a lesson learned that the top stays up until Easter at the earliest.
So here I sit, aching and sore from all my painting efforts, the girls are out a party somewhere, and Louise is starting the tea. Tomorrow, I am in that there London for a meeting I could well do without to be honest. I’m off to see a major sports brand in London, a brand that have sports bars, and I am more interested really in the fact that they are based in a Disney building, and all of the meeting rooms are themed. I’m hoping for the Lion King room personally!!
Before all that, I have to be up at some silly hour to get the train from Manchester at 7.30. The joy!! I think I’d rather be decorating.
Many of you who read this rubbish have come to do so through the common interest of Florida holidays and more specifically Walt Disney World.
For me, when it all boils down, one of THE most important factors for my enjoyment of the happiest place on earth is the customer service. Calling it that seems to be a bit of an understatement really, as it goes beyond that, and I suppose, it is their ability to make their customers feel special that sets them apart even from their similar neighbours at Universal.
What I have found though is that now I have been spoiled by this experience, you tend to find yourself having to lower your bar of expectations when you are anywhere but on Disney property. Certainly in the UK, service that makes you remember it is so infrequent, you can’t remember it!!
This week, I experienced such customer service, but first some back story.
Previous blogs here have outlined my chagrin with my mobile phone. I say my mobile phone, but they aren’t really. They are supplied by work, as you know I would be far too tight to throw around hundreds of pounds on such devices. My HTC Desire was lovely, but it fell out with my Mondeo’s bluetooth, so I had to say goodbye to that, and the only other model in the dusty cupboard was an old HTC 2 (Windows not Android alas), with a screen like an iMax, and the speed of Anne Widdicombe.
I have endured it for a few weeks now, and was beginning to really fall out with it, when all of a sudden, fortunately, someone at work left, leaving a vacant iPhone. I expressed my disgust one last time at my current handset, and outlined the upcoming availability of said iPhone. Luckily it was all agreed, and last Friday one the Helpdesk boys brought it it over to my desk.
“It just need activating with iTunes” he says.
Sounds easy thought I, and I proceeded to abandon all work for the next few hours (as it turned out) in an attempt to make it work. It didn’t so I returned to the IT folk and became lost in meetings for most of the day. On my return, it was very broken indeed, and the real prospect of being stuck with my current phone filled me with dread.
I want to take you to a Genius Bar!
“I can send it away to get fixed” he says, ” or you could just take it to an Apple store and see if the Genius Bar can fix it”.
Here’s me thinking that the IT chap’s job was to supply working kit to employees. I did run an IT department for a while with my last employer, and if only I had known I could have abdicated fixing stuff to the staff.
“Yeh, the server’s gone down, but there’s a couple of screwdrivers and a manual in that drawer. Let me know how you get on”.
Spurred on by my abhorrence for the HTC, I left work early (I wasn’t going in my own time!) and made the short journey from Salford Quays to the Trafford Centre. I Dad walked to the Apple store, and joined the disciples of shiny in the shop. The Genius Bar at the back looked nice and empty, so I approached. Before I get anywhere near my tales of iPhone woe I am told I need an appointment. Oh!
I had visions of being booked in three weeks on Wednesday, but no there was a free one in twenty minutes. So I spent that time playing with shiny things in the shop, and funnily enough googling the specific error code my iPhone kept throwing at me, 1015.
There were lots of fixes offered, but they are all aimed at people who actually know what they are doing. Folk that have Jail broke it or something, and as I only understood about one word in four, I told myself I was in the right place for sure. My appointment time rolled around, and I was greeted by my Genius, and I outlined the issue.
I was hoping he’d say, “Oh yes, error 1015, we know that one, I just have to jigger this pokery and you are all set”. Alas no, he set the iPhone up, linking it to a laptop that probably cost as much as my car, and slowly and deliberately kept me abreast of everything he was doing. Having scanned my iPhone’s serial number he assured me it was within warranty, and they would sort it out whatever the issue was.
Within about two minutes he two was confronted with 1015, and confirmed that indeed, something was wrong.
So what was his fix? Simple, he walked to a drawer, pulled out a brand new iPhone, and gave it to me!
Now as Genius goes, I’m not saying this fix needs the brain the size of a planet, but in terms of customer satisfaction it is a gem. Not only did I walk away with a shiny new product, that works, the chap even apologised to me for having to come all the way to the shop to get it fixed!!
As I walked out of the shop, I closed my eyes and imagine I would emerge onto Main Street. Instead, I joined the hoards of Mancs getting in each other’s way on their way to New Look and Schuh, but still, it took all my will not to turn my warm glow of customer satisfaction into a mass spending spree between the rear of the shop and the exit.
It wasn’t just the quick replacement of something faulty, it was the way in which it was dealt with. With courtesy, speed, and an absolute determination to make sure the customer was not put out, or disappointed in any way.
As we encounter service like this so seldom, we tend to forget what impact it can have on a brand. I am not one of the Apple addicts that I have encountered, but I like their stuff. However, if this is the way they treat their customers, I may just hand over my salary every month and cut out the middle man.
So Friday evening was spent getting to know the iPhone again, and reveling in the ease of use, plethora of apps, and all round goodiness of it. Setting stuff like email up is simple, it is intuitive to get anywhere, and I remembered why it is the standard to which all other such devices aspire. I like it! The Desire was pretty much equal, but the lack of the handsfree funtioning was it’s down fall for me.
The week just gone doesn’t have much else to report other than this. The garage is more bedroom than garage now, which is good. We have four walls, and most of them are plastered. They even started tiling the en suite this week so we must be getting somewhere close to finished now. We’re at the stage now where we need to go and look at carpets, wardrobes, paint, and we did a bit of this on Saturday. The net result of that was to be astonished at the price of the paint that goes into the Dulux Paint Pod machine!!
Can we stop time please?
Saturday evening, Rebecca went off to a “proper” party in a function room and everything. This required a dress, shoes destined to cripple her and her looking about 23. It also required us to drop off and pick up her and her friend, again!! Anyway, by half nine she was ready to come home as those shoes were causing her long-term mobility issues.
Emily’s news this week were her Mock GCSE results. They were OK, enough to get her into the sixth form college, were they to be the same in the summer, but she was a little disappointed to be honest, and hopefully now she will realise that she can’t just turn up and get the grades she is capable of.
I live in hope anyway. “I have been revising” roughly translates into, I had my books out on the bed whilst conducting seven facebook chats, and listening to my iPod.
The summer of my O levels cruelly coincided with the World Cup, so I know all about distractions for revision. I remember vividly watching some crucial match whilst trying to understand truncated spurs (Geography) and how to ask for Black Forest Gateaux in German.
There are ever more distractions now, so I’ve threatened to bin her laptop should I not see suitable evidence of learning stuff. Victorian Dad, that’s me.
What’s this? A mid week bloggage?? Fear not, it is a brief one, just to update and correct weekend bloggage, where events have now moved on a little.
It would appear that my last post, declaring the new addition to the Williams household to be a Hyundai Coupe, did not take into consideration the ever true concept of a woman having the perogative to change her mind.
After sleeping on our decision (or not in Louise’s case) in truth neither of us felt 100% right about the choice of car, and I found Louise glued to the laptop on Sunday morning, pining over photos of other types of cars, and regretting our haste in plumping for the Hyundai.
This pondering continued over Sunday and into Monday, and I can’t explain the not feeling quite right-i-ness, but it was there. It just did not feel like our car.
Absolutely not on work’s time, I googled a little to see if the sort of car Louise had been salivating over was anywhere near our budget, half hoping it would not be. Alas, but then again, happily, it did seem to be. A text and a call to Louise confirmed my suspicions that she wasn’t convinced at all on the Hyundai and her willingness to make the journey to Wigan on a horrible cold rainy night seemed to suggest she was definitely having second thoughts.
With such a car identified as available at another branch of the same dealer which we had paid our deposit too, I made the call to our sales chap for the Hyundai and explained the situation, blaming Louise for the fickle indecisive nature of our dither.
I called the other branch, and arranged to go over straight after work to take a look, reasoning to ourselves that we may still stick with our original choice, but had to get this out of our system to make sure it was the right choice. After a long, dark, wet drive to Wigan (side note: there is no simple and/or quick trip to Wigan from North Bolton), we got well and truly lost, despite Louise having lived in Wigan for some years.
We of course fell out over the course of driving around aimlessly, until we called the garage for help and were eventually “talked down” by the receptionist. “Yes, SCS is on my right…..no, I can’t see a Chinese…oh wait there it is…etc etc”
All I can say is that, we knew immediately and this new (as in different, not new) car just felt right as soon as we saw it and sat in it. Louise was very impressed by the whole foldy roof thing, (despite the fact that the bloke showing us did it wrong and it got stuck halfway on his first go) and the fact that the wing mirrors also fold in and out, all automatic like. Add to this, that it looks a little less Starsky and Hutch than the Hyundai, has much better mpg, and is several insurance groups lower too, then it makes perfect sense.
The negotiation process was a whole lot easier too, and this particular branch made the whole thing nice and simple, and we all got to the figures we were happy with very quickly. We had to really as I hadn’t had my tea and I was starving!!
As an added bonus I managed to negotiate the inclusion of a two-year warranty, and two years servicing and MOTs in the price too. Result. The idea of two years worry free motoring really appeals after paying out for a new windscreen and front tyre for the mini in recent weeks….of course these perishable items will not be covered, but if we are to have a big end fail on us then we all know how crucial that can be!!
So with both Louise and I feeling a lot better about the whole thing, in about a week’s time Louise will be taking ownership of one of these, well in fact, this very one….
You should see her with her top off!!
The fact that it ticks few of the criteria Louise laid out to the sales chappie at the weekend should be ignored of course!!
Knowing the girls (and Louise), next week you should be on the look out for a silver convertible with the roof off, inhabited by three females in bobble hats, gloves, scarfs and frozen smiles, determined to make most use of the foldy roof despite the complete absence of anything like suitable weather.
Apologies for this unusual mid-week update in blog land, and as we don’t buy cars every week, thank goodness, normal service should be resumed shortly.
It’s been a funny old week. What with it being only four days at work, but feeling like forty, and all those awkward new year greetings and hand shakes from the folks at work, make it one of my least favourite times of the year.
The snowy barren wastelands of suburbia
So last Monday night was the mother of all Sunday nights if you know what I mean. Full of all those horrid back to school feelings suffered at school, with your post bath glow on, in your freshly ironed pajamas. Oh, this is just me then? Sleep was not good, and when Louise greeted me in the morning with those immortal words…
“It’s been bloody snowing again, and the roads look like sh..” well you get the picture, I was not best pleased.
The ritual of checking the school website began, and they seemed very bullish about everyone being able to get there. They obviously don’t live on our hill. Already I could see the main road was bumper to bumper which meant that I was in for a two hour commute and the girls were walking to school, as that would be quicker than the car!
With girls off on their way, I made the very wise choice to work from home, saving myself four hours of driving, well sitting still in a car anyway.
As the snow seemed to have been localised to a mile radius of my house, work colleagues were a little dubious about my plight!! Being stuck at home saw me surrounded in the kitchen by a fridge and cupboards groaning in their own contradictions. Their was plenty of the new year, mandatory healthy stuff, but alongside it was the last of the rich decadent goo that was left over from Christmas. So I compromised and had a wholemeal bread sandwich…of After Eight mints!
So the week started badly. It trundled on as they tend to do, and was punctuated with an evening at school with Rebecca on Thursday night, for her options open evening. This is where all the teachers pitch their subjects to pupils and parents alike, hoping to entice enough pupils on their rostas to avoid having to teach remedial English in their free periods.
Rebecca seems fairly settled in her choices, with the only variable being whether to take History or Child Development!!
Friday then came along at last, and I had a full day of meetings which played havoc with my stomach. Having not been without food for longer than the time it takes to walk from the couch to the kitchen for weeks, the discipline of only eating at mealtimes was a stretch. So after a breakfast at 7.30am on Friday, I next saw food at 2pm, once all these meetings were done. I have no idea what the last half hour of the meetings were about as I was feeling faint and hallucinating that the conference call phone on the desk was a huge sandwich!!
Full again, I attacked the Inbox in the afternoon, only to get a call from Louise who was in a bit of a state.
“(Insert a few swear words here) my bloody wheel has just fallen off my car!!”
Immediately, large recovery and car repair bills appear before my eyes. After understanding that she had managed to get the car off the road, and that everyone was safe, I called our recovery people. Not that I have such people, but I have one of these special bank accounts with all these benefits that you never use. I only ever use the free travel insurance, but thankfully, the free roadside recovery came in very handy, and a man with a Green Flag and a tow truck was with Louise within half an hour.
I had spoken to recovery man whilst he was on his way, and he told me that as the wheel had come off he had set off in his special “when wheels fall off I need this truck” truck, which was significantly different from his “when wheels don’t fall off I need this truck” truck.
Imagine his delight when he arrived to find that there was no axle snapping disaster to greet him, just a flat tyre that had run off the wheel rim!! Oh how we laughed. Anyway, he took the car to the garage, they fitted a new tyre the next day, and relieved me of £77. It could all have been a lot worse!!
As you may have gathered from the above, cars are not my specialist subject. I am the furthest away from a petrol head you can imagine. So when Louise declared (not for the first time in recent months) that she was sick of her bloody car going wrong, and wanted a change, it seemed the little thing had had it’s day.
The Mini has been good fun, and was indeed my best ever Christmas surprise two years ago, when I somehow managed to trade in Louise’s old car and have the mini on the drive on xmas morning, without her suspecting a thing, but we have had a catalogue of errors with it recently, from non working heating, a coolant tank that empties within minutes, and an ugly bump all down the offside where Louise fell out with an Audi in last year’s snow.
So it was time to either bite the bullet and get all these things fixed, or throw it in and see what we could get instead.
So yesterday, we set off on that quest. I HATE buying cars. No matter how well I negotiate, and even if I left a garage with a car, and them giving me money, I would still have the nagging doubt that I had been shafted, and they are all high fiving and laughing at me in the showroom as I pull away in my rusting pile of crap.
So after a drive round and about three garages, we came to one that had something fitting Louise’s exacting technical specifications.
Fast
Black
Looks good
Sporty
Now with a budget as tight as ours, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see them offer Louise a night out with Linford Christie, (which she may have indeed been happy with) but no, they did tick all those boxes.
It was a car I would never have though of looking for, and I had been trying to steer Louise to some sort of sensible, second car run around, along the lines of a Fiesta, Focus or some such. Louise laughed in my face, and the contenders during yesterday were a Saab convertible (too old, too expensive, and shocking maintenance costs) a black Audi TT (too old, too many miles, the kids would have to walk everywhere) and now, a sporty looking Hyundai Coupe SE.
Couldn't afford a front number plate
So we had a test drive, and then the bit that always strikes me as strange kicked in, the negotiations!!
What drives me mad, is that the bloke who has been dealing with you has no power whatsoever in these negotiations. There is some all-seeing power somewhere out back who controls everything like some car related Wizard of Oz. After going through the usual hackneyed sales tactics that were invented in the early 70s, we played the game and said OK, let’s look at some figures.
He wandered off to speak to the all powerful Oz, and returned with a set of figures so silly that I very nearly got up and walked out. So then we go through the painful and slow process of whittling away at the numbers until they are somewhere close to realistic, and with the amount of time he had invested in us, he was by now keen to close a deal.
We talk of nipping next door to look at what they have to offer (it was a car showroom, don’t worry we weren’t telling him we’d be looking at kitchens!), and this resulted in the Wizard lumping some more from the numbers. I thanked them, looked at my watch and said we had to go as our daughter need to be picked up. Not strictly true, but we did have to be home soon to get the kids fed and ready for a party they were off to.
This induced panic in the showroom, and he went away again behind the curtain, and returned with a deal that was “only available today” and if we came back tomorrow would not be on the table. Of course it would, but I had no intention of wasting more petrol to find out.
Did we get a good deal? Who knows. The car may be a rusting tub of problems, but one of the things I insisted on in the price was a two-year warranty, so we should be OK. Did I get them to give me their best deal, who can ever tell, but I do know that the figure we shook hands on was 30% less than the first one put in front of me. So yes, they start high have lots of fat in their figures etc, but we shook hands anyway.
Again, I imagined wild parties and celebrations as the whole showroom celebrate hitting their annual target purely from the massively over egged price I have agreed to, but what can you do? On the plus side they are getting a mini with a running dint all down one side, a heater that doesn’t work and some sort of leak in the radiator which causes the coolant to empty quicker than Michael Barrymore’s swimming pool!
I shall let you know how the car goes once we pick it up!! If you have had one and know they are rubbish, then having put a deposit on it, I’m not sure if I want to know or not…I suppose I do.
The Garage/bedroom rumbles on as ever. It has been stuttering progress for weeks now due to snow, Christmas and builder illness, but at least we are at last water tight now. Next week should see a large surge in progress as they intend to finish boarding out and then plaster everything. This should then lead on to exciting stuff like the en suite stuff going in, and it starting to look and feel like a room at last.
I am off now to make tea for us all, which if you are interested is Chicken Fajitas. The good intentioned diet hasn’t been stuck too as rigidly as my post xmas bulge had incentivised me too, but a return to something like normal eating has seen a couple of pounds fall away all by themselves. So only about another 28 to go!!!
WordPress sent me this summary of my bloggage in 2010. Well, I found it interesting anyway…….
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.
Crunchy numbers
About 3 million people visit the Taj Mahal every year. This blog was viewed about 28,000 times in 2010. If it were the Taj Mahal, it would take about 3 days for that many people to see it.
In 2010, there were 51 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 62 posts. There were 146 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 54mb. That’s about 3 pictures per week.
The busiest day of the year was November 2nd with 328 views. The most popular post that day was About mkingdon.
Where did they come from?
The top referring sites in 2010 were thedibb.co.uk, twitter.com, mail.yahoo.com, facebook.com, and mail.live.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for mkingdon, mkingdon.com, paramore, mkingdon blog, and http://www.mkingdon.com.
Attractions in 2010
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
I don’t mean I am on the streets, caving in Currys shop window and liberating TVs. I do though find myself with a massive resistance to the corporate conditioning that seems to be happening. What do I mean?
Well, if the TV is to be obeyed, right around now I should have booked next year’s holiday, bought a new sofa from a shop consisting of any three letters you want to choose (DFS, CSL, JLS, WTF) and taken ownership of the latest fitness DVD from (insert minor celebrity name here). This isn’t quite George Orwell stuff, but the “laboratory mice” feeling is gaining momentum with me.
The mass distraction tactics of X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing are done for this year, so what will the masses do of a weekend once we are all back to our normal routines next week? Whatever it is, I can guarantee that Sunday nights will include at least one costume drama. Then we’ll have a three month build up to the Royal Wedding, as it is used to distract everyone from the endless round of cuts and disasters. How exciting!
Herrumph!!
So since we met last, the snow has finally gone, the garage has moved no further towards being a bedroom, as the builders are off enjoying the xmas break, and yes we have had the festivities.
Grand Opening
The girls were up at a very sensible hour on the day itself, which is a real benefit of having teenagers. Their main presents were, a new bass guitar for Rebecca, and a Blackberry (a phone, not fruit) for Emily.
After having the usual conversation with Louise pre xmas about not getting each other anything big, she of course ignored that, and after giving me a Two and a Half Men box set, went on to surprise me with another gift. I am once again the proud owner of a bass guitar myself, after a break of what must be fifteen years. I have been laying down some tasty licks, and awesome riffage these past few days I can tell you!! I am a little rusty it has to be said.
I got Louise the Les Miserables 25th anniversary concert DVD, as a holding present, as the real one (I ignored the conversation too) is still stuck in some overseas postal hub!! I cannot say what it is, as Louise doesn’t know what it is yet of course. It may be here for easter.
On the subject of that Les Mis DVD, it is superb. We watched all three hours of it on Boxing Day, and loved it all.
Christmas day itself saw my Mum & Dad and Louise’s Mum at ours, and everything went pretty well from a catering point of view, and indeed it was not possible for us to have eaten any more in one day. My Dad won the prize though, by accepting a turkey sandwich in the early evening when everyone else was struggling to even get liquids down!!
Even Henry got into the spirit of over eating by trying to will a chocolate out of the bowl and into his mouth!
Come to Poppa!
I am afraid to say that the tree came down the day after boxing day. A combination of central heating, and eternal dust clouds from the building work saw it come to an early demise. Wrestling the bugger out of the front room, and to its new attractive position under the front window was fun I must say. The pines were so dry and brittle that handling it required protective gloves and eye wear.
The girls got cash from many relatives, and so, trundled off into Manchester to squander it as quickly as possible. Clothes were procured, with the highlight being this little number.
Emily, Danni, Rebecca and Kirsty in their new outfits!
I was back to work on the 29th, but took the decision to work from home for those three days. None of my team were due to be in the office so I had no-one to manage as such, and anything I needed to cover could be done from home. Louise too has been back to the grind. Boob photography waits for no man it seems.
Just to be serious for a second, if any ladies reading are considering not going for their boob photo when they are summoned, I must encourage you to do so. A few weeks ago, my Mum had the letter, and it was really only the fact that Louise works in the breast unit that encouraged her to go along.
To cut a long story short, something was found, operated on, and irradicated within days just before xmas. My mum could very easily have ignored the letter, thinking it to be a hassle etc, and who knows what would have happened. Go, let them photo your boobs. You know it makes sense, and if you go to Bolton hospital, Louise may be the one to do so!!
We don’t have major plans for New Year’s Eve. A curry out somewhere, and with that done, the probability of falling asleep pre midnight is quite high. New Years Day sees us at Louise’s Mums for a meal in the afternoon, and the festivities will be rounded off with a visit to Mike and Amanda’s on Sunday night, where it seems we are being given Pheasant. This will be a first for us, but I have known for some time that Mike is a renowned Pheasant Plucker.
My hopes for next year (beyond the usual wishes for good health for all) consist of a quickly completed garage conversion, decent GCSE results for Emily, an end to Louise’s health issues, and a decent holiday come the summer. As an extra, if someone is looking to pay enormous money for someone to write them some lyrics, then that would be swell too. I wouldn’t mind having a go at that for a living. Anyway, as news of my major rock riffage spreads, I am bound to be invited on tour by some major star. Aren’t I?
Have good times, and I wish you all well for 2011, and as ever thanks for coming here to read this stuff.
Not that I watched it, but I think that Armageddon was on telly recently. This is a film which plays out a scenario of the world being threatened by a giant haemorrhoid, sorry I mean asteroid, whilst Steven Tyler screams in the background. There are many films about the end of the world, and being from Hollywood they tend to use scenarios that are ideal for the big screen. Deep Impact, if I remember correctly was an almost identical film released around the same time.
I suspect when the end of the world comes it won’t be battled by Bruce Willis, and accompanied by an aging rocker. In reality, I suspect it will present itself in a more subtle way, that may well sneak up on us all.
Perhaps that sneaking has already started, or maybe it is just Christmas proving to be too much for our over stretched infrastructure, fraught nerves and creaking overdrafts? Or is that just me?
Whether this is the end of the world, or just a slight over reaction from me (never!) things are looking a little worrying right now.
We are all painfully aware of the financial meltdown of recent years, and what could be a more telling sign of impending doom than Woolworths going bust? Surely a portent of darker times ahead? In response to that a new government have been elected, who have immediately used the “oh it was all a lot worse than we thought” line to rip up anything said pre-election, and begin to undertake all the usual actions that we saw last time they were in, but had promised not to this time around. I don’t want to make this a political thing, as I’m sure that whoever had the poisoned chalice this time around would be doing very nasty stuff to us.
Other signs that Bruce better get his vest on are more subtle than this. It is clear then, isn’t it that the eco-system is on the blink, as we have had several flakes of snow country wide, and this naturally has been more disabling in the UK than real disasters are around the globe. Earthquakes in LA, bush fires in Australia and floods in Asia get around seven seconds on the news, but if it ices over somewhere near BBC HQ, we have 24 hour rolling coverage of events for seven days.
Soon to be the centre of the world
Soon, the BBC and ITV will have large chunks of themselves in Manchester at Media City. This is just over the road from my desk/office, so I look forward to such coverage of the chaos and disaster in years to come at Salford Quays when the temperature dips below zero. Bound to happen right?
All the chaos from the snow has been heightened of course by the on rush of Christmas, and the madness that this brings. Without extreme weather (well, it is just snow but hey ho) Christmas will make most people behave strangely. We’ve all fallen victim to the last minute panic buys in the run up to the big day haven’t we? The shops will be shut for around 36 hours, but still, if we don’t get that jar of Hollandaise sauce, then the whole festive season will be a disaster.
Airports around the country are full of people wanting to be somewhere else, and it seems six inches of snow disables the entire travel network. Families sleeping in foil sheets in public buildings would surely be a scene from a “The Day After Tomorrow” sequel? The Day After, the Day After Tomorrow….this time it affects Christmas!! I copywrite that idea immediately, and expect to get a greenlight on that project sometime in the new year from Spielberg.
Then add in smaller catastrophes, like Skype not working. This, I admit, is not in itself a disaster. Indeed some of you may not even know what it is. However, the time of year again heightens the impact of this thing breaking down, when it seems to have been running fine for ever. Skype is basically an online tool for talking to people, over the internet, for nothing. Those with relatives around the country and indeed globe, will be relying on Skype to communicate with those over Christmas, mainly as the poor buggers can’t travel home as the entire travel infrastructure is broken.
So either the end of the world is nigh, or Christmas is just a bridge too far for our fragile, overly complicated world these days. (By the way, as long as A Bridge Too Far is on telly over the festive period then all is well with the world again, no matter what else happens!!)
I have a theory though. Perhaps all of this is a sign from God (or whoever you believe in) to give us a message, nay a warning. And what might that warning be?
I can’t say for sure, but I think he is saying something like….
“Armageddon really bored of the same dozen Christmas songs being played back to back for four weeks again, and I am going to keep breaking things until you abandon them or you cancel Christmas altogether”.
So this is something for Noddy Holder, Mariah Carey, Shakin Stevens, Wizard and all you other one time a year PRS cheque getting types to think about. Please, let’s retire these “classics”, even for a year or two. Why not hire the brightest and best songwriters we have, like you know, The Cheeky Girls or David Guetta to write some new ones.
If we don’t, then each year will only get worse and we only have George Michael to blame.
Don’t get me wrong, I like Christmas, I am only sulking mildly this year as I have no holidays left to take, and have to work through it, whereas in the past I take a full two weeks off. In a way, what is there not to like about it? It is a time of year when overeating is mandatory, and you get given stuff for free. Right up my street, I think you will agree, but really if I hear Noddy tell me “It’s Chrrrrriiisstttmas” one more time, I may have to track him down and undertake some sort of dirty protest on his Christmas lunch table.
Apologies for the inevitable return to Meldrew-esque ranting……I put this Humbug style post down to the horror of being in work right up until the day, the stress of living in a scene from Auf Wiedersehn Pet, and having no definitive plans for (or chance of) a summer holiday. I’ll get my coat…..
As mentioned last weekend, we had guests to stay, and we had a lovely time, in good company, with great food.
After lunch on Saturday we had a drive out to Whalley. A pootle round the shops, and an overly expensive coffee in Maureen Cooksons. This isn’t some old dear we visited, but a rare thing, an independent department store with a coffee shop where a coffee is a similar price to an item of clothing. All was well though as Steve paid!! The highlight had to be the hot chocolate shot. It was, as it sounds, sickly, overly sweet, and likely to remove a tooth or two, so it was right up my street.
There's a light that never goes out....
Steve and Di took us to a mutual friend’s house, (they live in Whalley, the mutual friends,not Steve and Di) via a local landmark. The saving grace for this house is that they do it each year for a hospice I think, so it is just about excusable.
A brief stroll later, we stopped for a drink of varying degrees of softness depending upon who was driving (that would be me), and a good chuckle at Mark’s (chap of the house) failing attempts to get his outside xmas lights to work! How ironic when around the corner, the other house don’t seem to know how to turn them off!
We returned to Bolton, and partook in a Chinese of enormous proportions as promised. This catering option is not totally driven by our lack of culinary skills, but more by Steve’s hankering for a decent Chinese takeaway. They live “in the sticks” and their nearest take out is a good twenty minute drive away.
The rest of the evening was spent chatting and playing games on the Wii and Xbox. Not Black Ops of course, not with mixed company so we resorted to Scene It instead. It isn’t important, but I won. Just saying!
Youmeatsix...no, it was just me at 11.15!!
Again, pre-empted by a series of moany tweets, Sunday night saw me happily picking the girls up from the Manchester Apollo, following a Youmeatsix gig. I ranted a little at certain parents being allergic to getting off their arse past seven o’clock to pick their kids up, and instead rely on others (always us) to do the honours. This is because we refuse to let a thirteen and fifteen year old get home from Manchester on public transport after 11pm, on a school night. Yes, I do sound 106, but I’m not bothered. That is just ridiculous.
They would rather they took this chance than not have a drink all night and go and pick up their daughter. Knowing all this they “offer” to drop them off at the train station on the outward journey. Gee, thanks.
On to the week, and as those who endure my tweetage will know, the weather conditions are having a detrimental effect on the garage conversion. I fully appreciate as ever, that the weather is both worse elsewhere, and affecting many more serious issues than us gaining a bedroom, however, I can only write of my own experiences!!
This week was all about removing the garage door, and replacing it with a window and wall. I guess now, we are right on the cusp of stopping calling it a garage, and starting to call it a bedroom. The construction of the front wall took three days rather than one, due to snow and frozen sand, but we are all but water tight now. Hopefully with the rest of the work being inside we can make good progress this next week.
I did learn this week, that the best directory of “workmen” is to be had by a relative being a member of a golf club. My Dad is, and whenever we have something that needs doing we usually give him a bell, as no doubt within the ranks of golfers there is at least one of every profession. This held true this week, as we needed an aerial sorting, quickly, for the new bedroom. It had to be done asap as we are wall mounting the TV, and so the cables had to be laid before they finished boarding the walls.
One call to my Dad, a referral to a Steve, and he was there the next day, doing his thing, for a very reasonable price.
With the project coming to a full head of steam now, it has been a bit of a shock to my system. The amount of money I have had to spend this week has been frankly quite distressing. It is all (more or less) budgeted for, but it appears that everything is required now. Bathroom stuff, tiles, TV, aerial for TV, the list is endless. Well, it isn’t really as it just ended, but you know what I mean. This outflow of cash goes against my natural instincts!
Christmas came a little early on Friday evening. With my brother going over to France to his house for the whole of Christmas and New Year, we had a family meal on Friday evening to exchange gifts. We had another Chinese, and I knew it was good as I was so full I was in considerable pain. The true sign of a good meal. As we headed for home the snow came. It was so bad that we couldn’t get the Mondeo up the hill to our house and had to park it up and walk the last few hundred yards. This was big snow, and it was to keep us housebound for all of Saturday!
Speaking of which, how can it have come to pass that I have made it to the ripe old age of 40 without ever seeing It’s a Wonderful Life? I know not, but that was the case until yesterday afternoon.
Snow chance of going out
With more snow outside than backstage at a Depeche Mode gig, we literally could do little else yesterday than settle down to watch one of the many Christmas films that Sky were dusting off. Having sat through the first half hour of Home Alone 2 earlier with Rebecca, I marshalled Louise and Emily onto the couch, cracked open a box of Quality Street and settled in. For those wondering, Rebecca was going out with a friend to get their fringes wet in the snow.
I'll never get my Mondeo up that hill in this weather!
I was, as you may have guessed delighted with it, and somewhat surprised at the way the comedy in it still works today. James Stewart is well, there aren’t words I can use to describe his performance. Classic.
Looking at Facebook later, it seemed half the western world were also tuned into the same film!
Now then, speaking of stuff on the TV, I have to comment upon something that bugs me more with every passing pre xmas day. I appreciate this is a propos of nothing, but I can make my own rules here.
What the hell is going on with these ridiculous perfume ads?? I have never come across such arty, pretentious, up it’s own arse drivel in my life.
I can only imagine the conversations around boardroom tables in advertising agencies across the land throughout August.
“So here’s my concept, we get some hairy bloke to dive off a cliff into water, and then as he gets out, he shakes his hair all sexy like, and flexes his love handles a bit. All the time he is being watched by some decent looking bint, and this will sell loads of toilet water”.
Even though diving into water would remove any smelly stuff from his flabby body, I can almost see a connection between the product “Cool Water” and him lobbing himself off a cliff into the sea.
However, my absolute favourite of this festive campaign is this nonsense….
From what I can make out this appears to be some sort of game of charades. This blonde piece is like some sort of modern-day Una Stubbs, acting out some sort of very long and complicated film. If you watch closely at one point she definitely does the sign for two syllables!! My guess is One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest!
Even ones that seem to have a very good premise, which in this case is Charlize getting her baps out, they have to go and spoil it all by having her talk French.
Nearly every perfume ad is done in French, and based on my assumption that less than 5% of the UK population can speak French (well, why would you!) this cannot be a sensible ploy. You don’t see other products sold this way. It simply wouldn’t work.
Vous ne pouvez pas obtenir plus vite qu’un installateur ajustement kwik. Let’s see how sales go off the back of that ad campaign shall we?
So to all thick rimmed spectacle wearing, pink shirted, pointy shoed, £100 cuff link wearing twonks who work in advertising, (and I have met many in the line of duty) perfume makes you smell nice. It does not make you look like that berk on the cliff or give you jumblies like Charlize Theron, so please don’t insult and offend us with this constant stream of arty nonsense.
This week I learnt something. Apparently it is not possible to mix concrete if the temperature has the audacity to fall below freezing!
The cynic in me immediately assumed that the builders were simply work shy fops, who had some objection to working all day in the midst of snow and temperatures that would see monkeys “sans globes”. I could have checked this out via google or some such device, but felt better wallowing in my bitter pit of cynicism to be honest.
As the next stage of our garage conversion is the laying of the floor, apparently this concrete lark was pretty fundamental to progress. Hence, we lost two days, and I can’t tell you how depressing it was to stare at the same desolate scene in the garage for all that time, especially after witnessing significant changes in week one.
On Thursday a builder returned, somewhat reluctantly, and progressed the project a little. His day was spent trying to break up frozen sand. Nice.
My infantile mind could not reconcile these practical problems encountered by the builders with my reality of dealing with these super low temperatures. I have been moaning all week about having to walk three feet to my car, defrost my bloody car door handles, and thinking this was a major inconvenience. I then proceeded to moan that the builders didn’t turn up for two days!! I am an arse at times. (Comments neither required or welcome).
With the house resembling one on Coronation Street at the moment, we had a debate about whether to postpone a long-planned visit this weekend from our friends Steve and Di. I work with Steve, and have done for over ten years. We worked together at my last place, and I persuaded him to make the move to the new job with me too. They have also been lovely enough to be the source of DVC points for some of our prior visits to Florida. In addition to that, they have even looked after my snotty cocker, which isn’t something anyone could do! They are officially documented as being the nicest couple on the planet.
In the end, we decided to go ahead, and they are aware they must take us as they find us. These weekends normally take the form of much eating, some drinking, a visit “out” somewhere if the weather and season permit, and then a Chinese takeaway of illegal proportions, and a chat about Disney, the Universe and everything in between.
The reason for the earlyish posting of this here blog is that I expect not have time this weekend to squeeze it in.
Our plan for this weekend is to stay nice and local, and just have a wander around the Last Drop Village, which is about five minutes from us. The other suggestion was a trip to the German markets in Manchester, but we’ll see. The coldness will be a major factor in our decision, and there you go, once again, my cynical ramblings about work shy builders is highlighted for the hypocritical nonsense that it is.
I have also promised Steve that I will show him Call of Duty Black Ops on the Xbox as he does not own it yet. I am duty bound to honour his request as he is a guest in our house! I’m sure there will be some hours spare whilst the ladies ready themselves for something at some point.
Bring me, bring me the horizon
On Wednesday this week the girls were at yet another gig. The seem to spend as much time at the MEN arena as they do at school! This time the headline act was Bullet for My Valentine, supported by Bring Me The Horizon. Usually I can appreciate much of their musical choice, but these are both far too “screamo” for my tolerance. I can’t say I could name you a song from either, but I do know that when they girls put them on in the car, I really have to bite my tongue to avoid the classic Dadism of “who the hell are these jokers?”.
So the attendance of a gig, as usual, saw me in Manchester, at 10.30 on a school night, waiting in a sea of eyeliner and angst, to pick the girls and their friends up. One of these times, their friends parents will do the honours!! Sorry, did I say that out loud?
Rebecca had done herself some serious damage headbanging, and looked worse for wear all the way home. She was immediately despatched to bed with two paracetamol and a life lesson. Emily, ever the sensible one, had “mini moshed” as she put it, in between taking 666 (a number worthy of the hard rocking devil worshippers she was watching) photos, most of which look the same, but of course are crucially different to those in the know!
Strangers to the Shower.
I got home around 11.30 after dropping off fringes all over Bolton.
Sunday sees them watching Youmeatsix at the same venue, and I can only hope some other parent will feel guilty enough to volunteer to taxi them around this time.
Emily’s mocks seem to be going OK. I ask every night how she has got on that day, and the standard answer is a shrug of the shoulders and “Meh”. Make of that what you will. She has had one mark back already for one of her Maths papers, and it was a good one, so I’m playing it cool and accepting “Meh” for now.
She’s also been filming her media studies project, and has roped in her friends to star in her production. It is inevitably a horror epic, and I look forward to seeing the full two-minute cinematic masterpiece shortly. Homework was never that much fun when I was at school. Dammit, I swore I’d never do “in my day”.
Rebecca's great great great uncle (I can't be sure I have the correct number of greats there)
Rebecca has been working on a History project this week, and she needed to do a project on a soldier who served in World War One. Luckily for Rebecca my Dad has been researching our family tree since he retired, and was able to hand her the entire contents of her project on a plate. Well it was several sheets of A4 but you know what I mean!
He has done a cracking job though, all the way back to the 1600s, and he has photos and documents of many of the family. It is also amazing that only two generations ago, having seven or eight kids seemed to be the norm! I shudder to think.
For starters how would I get them all in the car after these gigs!!
Looking at the photo of George here, puts my moans about concrete, trips to the MEN, and well, everything else I whinge about in perspective. He died aged 22, at Ypres in April of 1918.
I can’t and don’t want to imagine what he went through and saw in the three years that he served in the war.
So on that cheery note, I shall post this entry, and leave you to your weekends.
I will see you back here next week, on the other side of some beer and possibly a Chinese takeaway so large it may endanger my health. Steve has an appetite to match mine, but he just manages to control it better….well control it some would be more accurate!!
The highlight of the week was without doubt the return of Rebecca from Germany.
Team England in Germany
She had been a mixture of homesick, tearful, joyous and most things in between throughout the ten-day trip, and so we were very glad to welcome her home on Friday evening. She arrived with a case full of dirty clothes and presents from “her german’s” family. For some reason they were all ginger based, with several different variations on the theme of ginger cake. That is in no way a complaint, any gift ending with the word cake is welcome in our house.
She had of course “fallen in love” with a German boy whilst over there, and within hours of her return was missing him. Having longed to come home for half the trip, she was very soon wishing she was back over there!! This was not helped by an incident involving her phone. You may remember a few weeks ago that she got a new Nokia E5? Well, just before she left for Germany she reported issues with it, but we didn’t have time to get it sorted before her departure.
As 99% of her phone use is text based, which was working fine, she managed whilst away. On her return I phoned Orange and they diagnosed it as faulty, and impressively said a new one would be with us tomorrow. Saying that I called them at around 7.00pm, that was pretty good. So true to their word a new handset arrived the following morning, and we had to hand back the broken one. Retaining the battery, sim and memory card was however not enough to preserve all Rebecca’s contacts, and the text messages she had from Tom, the boy from Germany!
She was devastated! I felt awful, and she is now in the process of sourcing all her missing contacts, but can’t get her texts back. This was not a “Dad of the Year” moment I can tell you.
As is the way, she seems to have got over it now.
This week also saw the snow finally arrive in the North West. We have been a pocket of resistance against the seemingly unstoppable snow until the back end of the week. I wouldn’t claim to be snowed in, but even the threat of snow caused a two and a half hour journey to work on Monday (I travel twelve miles), so on Thursday with actual white stuff on the ground, I elected to work from home.
This wasn’t an option earlier in the week as the garage work has well and truly started, and this manifested itself, in the first day or so, in a complete lack of central heating, as the plumber moved the boiler to a new location. Had it stayed where it was, it would have been in our future shower!
Our poo will go through that!
Safe in the knowledge that the house would be warm, Thursday at home was productive, if not dust filled, as the first week of the job, it turned out, involved lots of digging, to put in drains and soil pipes to remove our future ablutions. So watching this also made me very, very happy to be an office drone. Tedious it may be, but at least it is warm. Watching the chaps trying to dig a trench through a concrete floor in sub-zero temperatures more than convinced me that I am in the right place. Yes they may enjoy the four days of summer more than I, but the pay off is simply not worth it.
Temperatures were so low during this work that they broke three digger machine things!
Our house, it will not surprise you is a mess. The assurances that the work would be contained within the garage were ambitious. Dust gets everywhere, and we temporarily have a washer and dryer in the middle of the kitchen until they can replumb them into their future homes.
Saturday morning, early, I was out in my finest bobble hat, digging out Louise’s mini from the snow. The need for food was probably the only possible reason that I would undertake such work willingly. The mini was the weapon of choice as it seems to cope far better with these conditions than the marauding beast that is the Mondeo.
Louise returned a little later with enough food to survive a nuclear winter, so we should be OK should we get any more snow.
So with a house with a look of Beruit we naturally went out on Saturday to get our Christmas tree! After years of falsies, we went for a real one this year. The main driver behind this decision was that the good old fake one lived in the garage, and now with that becoming a bedroom, it had no home and had to go. It was about the same age as the kids, so it was time.
So battling road conditions, and the urge to stay in the warm, Louise and I went to the local Garden Centre, and picked one out. The cavernous world of the Mondeo boot proved essential once again, as it easily swallowed up the 6ft tree, and laughed in my face, as if this would be any sort of test. I’ll be finding pine needles in there for about six months.
The decoration of said tree took hardly any time at all. The lights worked first time, and crucially, and unusually, did not take the customary three hours to unravel. I always put them away wound up nice and neat, but at some point in the intervening months some bugger finds them and ties them into un-doable knots!
Louise had been to John Lewis earlier in the week and spent an obscene amount on specific baubles, so these are all that adorn the tree. Most years we have everything plus the kitchen sink on the old false one, as it was huge. The minimal look is a winner on all counts!
The Louise update this week is that she did not return to work as planned. The doctor wanted to do some more tests, for the “other thing” she may need an operation for, and therefore suggested she stay off until those are done, and they know what they are going to do. The plan now is for a return on the 14th of December. She did however get some good news this week. She had word from work that she has now completed her NVQ Level 3 Health. With her health woes this has been a fine achievement, and hopefully once back at work, will mean progression, and of course some more cash!!
Health wise she is pretty much fully operational now, as evidenced by her shopping ability. In fact having her back in work for four days a week may be welcome to restrict the amount of time available to her to demonstrate this in retail establishments around the North West.
To complete the family round up, Emily is building up for her mocks, and should be revising. She assures us she is, and only has two days left at school this term, as the rest of the time is taken up with the mocks themselves, or study days. Unluckily for her, Louise will be at home to make sure these are not Facebook and MSN days!! Life is cruel sometimes.
So with the weather looking like this outside….
BRRRRRRR!
The plan for this afternoon is to stay indoors with the TV and the Xbox, and enjoy some lunch which will no doubt involve something of a ginger nature.
I will point out now that the above title may well be the one and only time I shall refer to my youngest daughter as anything other than Rebecca. I use it today for the sole purpose of creating a title for this post, as Rebecca sounds nothing like Pet, and frankly even Becks is a push! Friends and even teachers use Becky and/or Becks, however, I stand firm, and use her given name!
I write this with a daughter in Germany. Wednesday morning saw Louise and I waving Rebecca off, in a dirty, and mechanically suspect mini bus. The hour or so prior to this were the usual pre holiday panic of case cramming, essential checking, make up applying and hair straightening. I was not involved in the last two of those.
As Rebecca says, this is "her german".
Rebecca was quite nervous I think, as she is staying with a family she has never met before, who of course don’t speak English as their first language. As previously documented, Rebecca speaks not one word of German, so to her credit she did get several key phrases off of the internet before she left.
As usual of course, to the perpetual shame of the UK, the German family all speak good enough English to communicate so she should be OK. Rebecca’s fine as long as she wants some black forest gateaux as I have coached her well there.
She has updated us via text and a quick phone call that she arrived safe and sound, despite being left on the final train with one other boy, as the doors closed before she could get off. Thankfully, they had the sense to travel to the next stop, get off, and somehow manage to find their way onto the right train to get back. Not bad for a thirteen year old, in a foreign country I must say. Perhaps the teachers should have been last off the train? Just a suggestion!!
Earlier this week, I endured a trip to Harrow. With all due respect to Harrowians, I have had better days. The town itself was of course fine, but the journey to and from was frankly as horrific as I had expected. Travelling down only took the four hours, without interruption from anything more major than a tinkle around Watford Gap (which I must point out is absolutely nowhere near Watford!).
My habit of being early stood me in good stead to
Find a car park
Find the Costa in which my colleagues were waiting
Find the venue of the meeting
The meeting was fairly unremarkable, and took the form of a workshop for a fairly large retailer/convenience store, comprising us, two competitors, and the great and good of the retail organisation. With that sort of crowd it turned into a bit of a willy waving do between the three suppliers, and I happened to be sat next to one of them, who used the in the air punctuation mark sign with his hands so many times, that there was more of his contributions inside of virtual punctuation marks than out of them. I had a special name for him, which did not require those in the air punctuation signs, from about ten minutes in, when my tosser radar went off. It is remarkably accurate.
Finishing the meeting around 4.30pm meant that after a quick post meeting debrief with colleagues, I was back in the Mondeo at around 5pm, and trusting the sat nav to get me out of the gridlocked town centre and somewhere near a motorway as soon as possible. Once on the M1, things were nice and easy until Newport Pagnall Services, where around two minutes before I arrived, a few drivers had decided to abandon all common sense and driving ability, and come together in a carriageway closing extravaganza.
An hour I sat there, just far enough past the services slip road that I couldn’t pull off, but close enough to be able to smell the stale Ginsters and over priced chicken wraps, as my stomach growled its complaints.
The growling was quelled a little further up the motorway with an overpriced sandwich, over sized bag of crisps, and under whelming bar of Milka chocolate that I was blatantly upsold to at checkout. The remnants of said meal are still in my foot well, and may taste better now than they did at the time of consumption. That lot will be going on the expenses I can assure you!
So with all that I eventually arrived home at around 9.40pm, feeling brain and bottom dead. I’m not sure which affected me more!
Louise had her “back to work” meeting, and is indeed due to go to back to work next week. However, as it now turns out she may need another “procedure” to fix other issues (not for discussion on here by a male!!) the debate now is whether they can fit her in pre xmas or if she has to go back to work and then get it sorted around February time. It also turns out that the doctor she saw this week was amazed the other doctor/surgeon didn’t sort it all out in one go, but of course this would have been all too simple.
In what seems a strange move, when my frame expandeth in all the wrong directions, I have cancelled my gym membership. With the new job, rubbish traffic, cold weather and general apathy, I am just not getting any use of the silly sums of money being given over to the gym. I shall welcome the cash saving, but fear for the extra funds required to equip me with a wardrobe of clothes large enough to accommodate my expanding girth. I MUST cut down on the stuff going in.
In what is turning out to be a busy week in retrospect, on Monday (and why am I outlining events of the week in reverse order??) my brother celebrated his birthday, so I popped round with a card and pressie to be entertained by George, my four year old nephew, who ran through his repertoire of every song from the Johnny Depp Willy Wonka film. Truly impressive stuff, especially whilst wearing his Woody from Toy Story pyjamas….George that is, not my brother, as at 46 that would be silly.
It takes more power than a small town
I know many of you will have been awake night after night, scouring the internet, consulting with experts and haranguing HTC themselves to solve my bluetooth issues with my phone. Fear not, I have found a solution!
That solution was to get a different (note that word does not say new) phone from the IT boys at work. Found somewhere in the darkest corner of the dustiest cupboard, I have been presented with a HTC HD2. If you seen a film on iMax recently, the screen is a similar size. It is a Windows phone (for those who know or care), but alas not one of the new ones currently advertised on the telly, it is a 6.5 thing, and works OK, crucially in terms of bluetooth, but the Marketplace, where you go to get apps for these Windows phones is about as full as Gillian McKeith’s bookings diary for next year.
The choice of apps is pitiful, and I mourn the loss of critical apps such as Angry Birds, which I used purely as research for my job in the mobile industry.
The screen is so large that if anyone phones me in the car whilst it is dark, it lights up the car, three surrounding streets, and causes several low flying aircraft to land on the M60, confusing the lights for the runway at Manchester airport. Hopefully, the bugger will break soon and I can get a real one.
The weekend arrived like a long-lost relative, but one that you actually like, perhaps one that is at death’s door with a favourable will. We then proceeded to insult it, by taking on a challenge greater than anything thrown at those jungle folk, and I almost fainted at the prospect.
Swedish for Hell!
With Christmas shopping in full swing, we “had to” go shopping for some stuff for the house. Fine, thought I, we’ll nip into Bolton, do the deed, and be back in a few hours. This was until Louise announced that we HAD TO go to Warrington! I repeated the word WARRINGTON in a similar style to the well known Peter Kay Garlic Bread catchphrase. Why Warrington? No offense to folk living there.
It turned out that the holy trinity of retail worship, Ikea, M&S and Next all had large shops there, and would have (and I quote) “Lots more choice than Bolton”. Remember that.
We arrived at Gemini Retail Park, and first popped into Porcelanosa, which is a bathroom shop. With an ensuite to fit out in the coming weeks, we popped in to see what our options are. In that shop, it turned out that our options were to get out before we were ejected on the grounds of my pitiful earnings. They had some lovely stuff, and we can only hope B&Q have similar versions somewhat closer to our budget.
With that behind us we did M&S and Next, neither having anything we were looking for (a rug, and some lamp shades) so we entered the devil’s lair, Ikea. I always feel like one of those lab rats in Ikea, forced to navigate the maze and find the exit. The way in which you are forced through the store in that one way system brings out my deeply hidden rebellious side, and I always end up saying at least once, “How the hell do you get out!”
So, for all that driving and walking, we returned to our car with a pack of spotlights (one had gone in the kitchen), and on the wrong end of one of the worst cappucinnos in the history of mankind. Let it be recorded, here, that I was indeed right and Louise was wrong. We headed back to Bolton, and to cut what is becoming a long story short, we ended up buying a rug in a shop about seven minutes from our house!! Sigh!
Last night, with Rebecca in the Fatherland, and Emily sleeping out at a friends, we had the unusual occurrence of being home alone. With this in mind we decided to go out for a meal at our local Italian restaurant. Don’t let the local tag fool you into thinking we’re regulars. I think last night was our second ever visit, and having been overwhelmed by the total averageness of the food, that may well be our last.
Full up, we headed home to make the most of our time alone, and of course, this manifested itself in Louise falling asleep on the couch by 9pm, and me flicking through endless channels trying to find a TV show that didn’t include people voting for something!
Tomorrow sees work actually start on this garage thing. It seems I have been on about it for weeks, so it will be good to actually have stuff happen. Snow permitting, the chaps are quite confident that they will be done before Christmas, leaving us to decorate etc. We should be in by early to mid January, depending on our ability to paint.
For me, next week nothing earth shattering is on the cards, and the best I can hope for is a downfall of snow so severe that I can work from home for a few days. Rebecca is home next Friday, and to be honest it can’t come soon enough.
The last three posts have been a mini trip report of my time at DLRP, but fear not, these tales of exotic travels are at an end and we can get back to the really important stuff like how much I don’t want to go to work, my life of woe as the world turns against me, and my life as taxi driver and bank for the girls. What more could you want?
Whilst we have all been away in France not a great deal has happened that I need update you on. Garage wise not much has progressed as we still await a resolution to our gas issues. Not an unfamiliar state for me. At least now we have a date, and that date is the 29th of November. With that in mind work actually starts on the 1st of December.
We're going to sleep in there???
My efforts to ready the garage for the arrival of work men have long been documented via Twitter and this blog, and we are now seeing light at the end of tunnel, not to mention some floor space. Previously, with the garage chock full of essential crap, every inch of floor space has been occupied.
After one fully loaded Mondeo, and a trip to the tip, yesterday saw me “break the back” of ridding us of about nine years worth of hording. It didn’t all go. Some stuff we want to keep has been redistributed to other areas of the house, where it can gather dust for another nine years. But the stuff retained is worth it, as it was memory stuff. Photos, school books, paintings by the kids, from a time when we could decide what they wore, and how their hair was.
Browsing through some of that stuff did delay the task yesterday. There was a fair amount of head shaking, and wondering where the time went.
For those who plan to still be reading this nonsense in a few weeks time, the picture above, and the one below shall serve as the befores, compared to what will be several lovely looking afters at which we can all bill and coo.
Ignore the bins, Louise will hate them being on this photo!
Speaking of wondering where the time went, earlier this week on Thursday, Louise and I spent the evening at school, attending an open evening for the sixth form college, as somehow she is now in her final year at school!!! Seriously, how did this happen? It was only last month that I was sat on a miniature chair in the school hall of the local Infant school, fretting at my eldest striking out on the scary road of attending school.
The night was very helpful, and it only took about half an hour for Emily to choose the subjects she wants to do at A level. It was at this point that I officially became old. I used the phrase “in my day”, whilst trying to explain to Emily that when I chose my A levels, I had a choice of boring traditional subjects, such as English, History, and I pushed the envelope by also taking Economics.
Our quick tour of the sixth form’s TV studio, editing suite and gallery convinced Emily to take Media Studies and Film Studies. A further chat with another member of staff, and she added Photography to the list, having dismissed Product Design!! To be able to study subjects that truly interest you must be a joy, and I “pecked Emily’s head” for the journey home, explaining how important it is to find a job/vocation that enables you to wake up every morning and not consider chopping your right arm off as an excuse for not getting in to the office.
She didn’t get it, as of course she is fifteen, immortal, and a million years away from all this adult nonsense. All she has to do now to get into sixth form is deliver her predicted grades. She seems quite relaxed about the whole thing, and I wish I could be too, but I seem to be living in a perpetual panic attack at the endless milestones hurtling towards us at a million miles an hour –
GCSEs
Getting into College
Will they go to Uni? If so how will we afford it?
Learning to drive – fills me with fear and dread.
Relationships, and heavens forbid weddings!
I keep telling myself that there is no destination here, and the trick is to enjoy the journey, as the discovery of those photos in the garage demonstrated, if you keep waiting to arrive, you miss all the scenery along the way. Nice words, but putting them into play is not my strength.
Rebecca is getting ready for her school trip next week. Again, “in my day” would apply here, as she is off to Nuremberg on an exchange trip, rather than the local museum to see some bloke in a low quality costume talk about the life of a blacksmith. She has been exchanging emails with her pen pal (although no pen has been involved) for a few weeks, so I hope they can stand each other in the flesh for ten days of the trip.
Getting ready for the trip translates to having clothes bought for her at the Trafford Centre yesterday. I of course had other tasks at hand so Louise did the honours. I am sure I got the better deal.
One trifle, two week's calories
So after a hectic Saturday, today has been a little more relaxed. Some ironing aside for Louise, we’ve been what is called pottering, and Rebecca is making a trifle for tea. Having seen the ingredients in her own special recipe, I’m either going to lose some teeth, or about five years of my life expectancy after eating it.
I’ve just booked our tickets for the Harry Potter film tonight, and my main concern is when to eat the trifle. The last thing I want to do is take the edge off my sweet tooth before the film. It looks like a long one, and may involve a double-header of Pick n Mix and Popcorn. I’d hate to run short of eats at a crucial time in the plot, and become distracted.
No doubt I’ll spend the first half hour of the film marvelling at how grown up the three principal actors look. I don’t have any photos of them in the garage, but the same time machine has been at play it seems. How this can happen when I am not aging at all is, as Toyah once said, a mystery. Not that I am old enough to know who Toyah is of course.
Looking ahead to next week, Louise meets with Occupational Health to assist her in her return to work, and I have a meeting in Harrow on Tuesday. My how I am looking forward to those eight hours in the car, probably about as much as Louise is looking forward to going back to work. Her knowledge of day time TV is very impressive, and her obsession with Coach Trip is quite frankly a bit worrying.
By the way, on the theme of time flying by, as it turns out this post has all been about, I am wishing this blog a slightly overdue Happy 1st Birthday. It was the 5th of November last year that this thing sprang into life, with just me Louise and two others reading it.
I am astounded that I have kept up the postings and that now hundreds of folk each day come here to see what nonsense I am rambling on about. I know, I find that hard to believe too. Who would have thought it?
Close your eyes and make a wish, and it can't be that there isn't a 2nd birthday!
So I will count Rebecca’s trifle as a birthday treat for my bloggage, and therefore I’ll be able to justify the few thousand calories with my name on them at the local Cineworld. I’ll be coming down off of my sugar rush just in time for work tomorrow, and who knows, removing an arm may be more appealing than the M60.
Despite a very tiring day on Saturday, we embraced the theme park commando ethos, and Adam made a point of setting his iPhone alarm for 8.00am. However, with the whole clocks going back thing, this all went wrong, as Adam manually adjusted his phone before going to sleep, only to find the iPhone then adjusted itself during the night.
All this confusion meant that when his alarm went off it was actually 9am, and not 8am. As welcome as the extra hour of sleep was, this now meant that all our plans of getting to the Studios early lay in tatters amongst our twisted duvets and dirty clothes.
However, we did not do anything stupid, like miss breakfast. After quickly showering, dressing and packing, we made our way down to the restaurant to find a fairly long queue to get in. This was a worrying sign for the day ahead. We were soon shown to a table, and unleashed on the crepery etc once again.
After checking out, we joined the cast of Ghandi outside the hotel, who were all waiting for the next bus to the parks. As it arrived, Adam trampled several small children and got on, but alas, I was trapped behind people who were quite frankly bigger than me, so I could not get past them. No matter, the next bus was only five minutes away, and I met Adam at the train station, after he had checked that France actually had trains running today. Luckily, today was one of those special non strike days in France.
Once again, the scrum to enter the park was large and unorganised, and we had to do it twice, once to get into the Disneyland park, and check our luggage in Guest Services so we didn’t have to cart it round all day, and then again to get into the Studios next door, as the latter has no facility to hold your luggage. When checking in my bag I put my receipt in my back Jeans pocket, along with my mobile phone (which now has a full charge!). That might be important later!
Don't get RC with me!
Adam was keen to try to ride the RC Racer ride first, as it was new. Having not arrived at the park at first opening our fears for the queue situation were large and valid, as the posted time was 75 minutes. As it was only likely to get worse, we decided to give it a whirl, and were then delighted to spot a single rider line. We clambered through and over a couple of barriers to get to it, and waited around 15 minutes for me to get on first, shortly followed by Adam a few minutes after.
I took a video of Adam’s go, which is both the wrong way around, and the reason I then had minimal battery for the rest of the day again!
The ride itself was another one of those that looked less intense than it turned out to be. I wouldn’t say I would wait 75 minutes for the two minute experience, but it was good fun, and worth the 15 minutes we waited.
Adam was not keen to ride Tower of Terror, and wanted to take some photos of the new Toy Story area, so I toddled off, VIP Fastpass in hand, to ride it solo. I couldn’t spot the Fastpass entrance initially, as it had a queue all of its own. I was shocked to realise that this queue was (mainly) French folk, waiting to speak to the CM, and see if they could get in now with a 2.30pm entry time!! I floated gracefully to the front, with my timeless, uber Fastpass, and endured the hatred as I was allowed into the hallowed halls. Once inside, I used local knowledge (from Orlando!) to stand at the right place in the library, allowing me to leave first and get to the loading area.
The ride itself is a good one. There is no forward moving section as there is in Orlando, but the droppy stuff is just as good.
After meeting up with Adam in the gift shop, we made our way over to the Rock n Rollercoaster. Another 75 minute wait is thankfully avoided with the magic pass, and again, a ride similar to Orlando, yet different. It was very good indeed, and brought out similar shrieks and screams all the way round.
Hello Mr Bonks!
Next, was one of my favourite attractions of the weekend, Cinemagique. This to me is a great example of what Disney does best. I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone yet to experience it, but it is a live action and film show, brilliantly executed, and thoroughly entertaining. As an added bonus for me it stars Martin Short, who I love in O Canada, and no matter how many times I see them, makes me howl with laughter, as Franque in the Father of the Bride films.
I did some extensive gift shopping in the area where last night Cast Members were “attacking” guests in a ghoulish manner. Today was business as usual really, and in a typical Dad type shopping session, we are were quickly in and out of the shop area, equipped with two suitable presents for the girls. Job done!
Having largely done the park now, in addition to what we covered last night, we headed for the exit, and across to the other park. You may have noticed a complete absence of food since breakfast, so we remedied this at this stage with a welcome Hot Dog at Caseys.
Suitably refueled, it was time to do battle on Buzz Lightyear. Being honest, my expectations of victory were low, bearing in mind Adam was a veteran of 35 previous visits. We got through the first battle, which was the usual congregation of confused French folk around the Fastpass entrance, trying to negotiate with the CM, that it really was time for them to go in.
With a wave of our “golden ticket” we were in, but still had a 10 minute queue or so before loading. As expected Adam wins easily, however he was very gutted that we both achieved the same level (Level 4) even though our scores were miles apart. I counted that as a creditable draw, and quickly moved on.
Star Tours was next, and this was almost identical to the one I am used to, apart from, of course, the fact that the pilot does the whole thing in French. No matter. Having ridden it countless times I knew the script anyway.
Dragon's Den
Next, we wandered to the castle. It was very pleasing to see that they have actually used it for something more useful than just a restaurant, and a place for Tinkerbell to jump off. There are shops of course, in which Adam bought a Christmas bauble, but they also have an area you can wander around, and do some sort of walking tour, plus in the basement, an impressive dragon in its lair.
After watching a few minutes of the show currently in progress in front of the castle, it was time to make our way out, and head for the train station. Upon collecting our bags, I discovered that my receipt must have fallen from my pocket upon me taking out my phone to see how little battery I had left somewhere in the park. Luckily, with some ID and a description of my bag, it didn’t pose a problem.
At the train station, Adam discovered that his original train was delayed by an hour, which would have meant he missed his flight, so after a quick review of the time-table he realised he had to take the train leaving, sort of nowish.
So a rushed thank you (from me) and good-bye, and he was off to his train. This left me with nearly two hours to kill until my train, so I set off for a wander around Disney Village. Having my bag with me, I was wanded at the entrance. Beggars can’t be choosers!! A touch more shopping happened, in which I picked up a present for Louise, and then had a general mooch.
Disaster was narrowly averted, when in a crowded shop, I turned around only to hear the bag on my back bash into a load of Disney mugs hung up in the aisle. I closed my eyes, and prayed that no further sounds followed, which would signal the smashing of the mugs, and either a quick getaway or a painful use of the credit card. Luckily, nothing fell to earth, and I quickly moved on.
Having exhausted my interest in retail, I went back across to the train station, bought a drink and sat outside people watching for quite a while. I then wandered around the station, and frustratingly discovered a source of power for my phone in the waiting room, about ten minutes before I was due to board!! A quick injection of juice, a tweet bemoaning the shocking battery performance of my phone, and it was time to go to the platform.
I won’t bore you with the details of the train journeys home, as everything was on time, and pretty uneventful. I will comment on the delightful food I endured on the Eurostar leg, which was basically a microwaved pitta bread with a slice of dairylea and wafer thin ham. It only cost me around £7, with a soft drink!
The walk from St Pancras to Euston was brisk, as the time between trains was short, but I made it quite easily, and took my seat in First Class (this is very cheap at 8.30pm on a Sunday night!!), and settled in for the last leg.
Louise picked me up just after 11pm, and I was more than happy to find my own bed about half an hour later.
I have to say that I really enjoyed the weekend, and would once again like to thank Adam, Juz and Craig (the DisneyBrit Podcast folk) for their generous prize, and of course to Adam for looking after me all weekend.
Having never really fancied or planned a trip to Disneyland Paris, I was pleasantly surprised by the experience. Once inside the parks, they are of the same quality of the Orlando parks, and indeed some parts are better! For me, my obsession is not just with the Disney parks, but now I realise it is with the whole Florida experience. The whole place feels like a theme park!! In Paris, I felt that once outside the gates, the “magic” did not pervade. I’m not saying anyone was rude, or we had bad service by any means. It is an intangible thing, that you just feel.
The one thing that did strike me was that unless you are careful, a weekend at DLRP, with the family could get very expensive very quickly. With flights (or trains), hotel, park tickets, food etc you could easily be into a couple of grand. I’m sure you can do it for less of course, with knowledge and experience, just like Florida, but I’m not sure I would want to invest that sort of cash into such a short break.
If money was not an issue I would gladly return, with the family, and have a really good time I’m sure.
Thanks for reading these unusual blog posts, and with these travel journals providing a break from sheds, garages, work and general Meldrew style moaning, normal service shall be resumed next time around.
Adam’s alarm woke us around 7am, so we had a plentiful five or six hours sleep, which was splendid.
Brown sticky stuff.....it's crepe!
We showered (separately), and made our way to the restaurant for breakfast. Things were pretty quiet at this time of day, and we had “kids in a sweetie shop” expressions as we cast our eyes over the pretty impressive array of wares on offer. A little cereal got us warmed up nicely, as we then progressed to the cooked items, which included, quite weirdly we thought, chicken sausages, and finally we have a really big crepe. That’s French for pancakes.
First on the agenda this morning was an interview with the manager of the hotel we were staying in (and the one next door) for the podcast. We loitered in reception until she turned up, and Adam had his microphone out and everything. She’s all polite of course, but it turned out she did not want to do an interview….at all. Not to worry, we accepted her offer of a tour around both hotels anyway.
Halfway through this I had a horrible sinking feeling that I had left my phone in the restaurant after breakfast and I was ever so slightly distracted for the latter part of the tour, being keen to get back there and find it.
Once we were done we quickly dashed back, but with no joy. I then realised that I was indeed an idiot, as I must have taken it back the room after breakfast, as I had taken a photo of the view from our window.
Still, I was still ever so relieved to see the little beast, charging next to my bed. This is a situation my darling phone would find itself in for much of the next few days.
Our room with a view
Senior moment over, we got ourselves ready for the day ahead, and headed for the parks. The bus service to the park was (as it was all weekend) pretty good, and we were soon on our way. Upon arrival at the main entrance, the weather was the worst we would see all weekend, with a light drizzle. However, the weather was nowhere near as grim as the queue to get in. A huge crowd was congregated, slowly inching its way to the bag check. It turned out that we were through it in a few minutes so it was not as bad as it looked.
A crowded entrance
At this point we needed to convert Adam’s magic letter to actual park tickets, so we joined the horrific looking queue at the Guest Services windows. There were only three of them, which would have been OK if they were just used for queries etc, but they were also being used for normal sales, despite there being about three hundred other sales windows ten yards away.
I would say we waited here for about an hour, with the star of the show being an Italian chap who occupied one of the windows for at least forty minutes all by himself. I obviously could not understand what he was discussing as I understand neither French or Italian, but I did feel quite a bit like punching him in the back of the head.
Finally after sorting our tickets, Adam suggested we go into Mickey’s Salon. Having no real idea what this is I of course agree. It turned out to be a special place for shareholders. It is a beautifully decorated room, with free hot and cold drinks, and the odd croissant, so it would have been rude not to partake. Anyway, with all this waiting around, it was hours since we had last eaten anyway.
Salon....
and on....
and on and on.
For me, it was at this point that things started to feel a lot like Disney, probably for the first time. Ironically, this experience is not available in Orlando for shareholders, for long complex reasons that I will not trouble you with here. So, like a 70’s disco, we were full of hot chocolate, and on our way to do some fun.
Ah not quite yet. One more stop at City Hall so Adam could pick up our essential VIP fastpasses. Looking at the hordes of folk around me as I waited, it was worth this wait, to avoid much more later on.
A pink castle
Now, whether this was Paris or Orlando, nobody was going to stop me taking the traditional first view of the castle photo. OK, so now it was definitely time for some fun type stuff, and we decided to ride Big Thunder Mountain first. Adam flashed the fastpass and we avoided the hour of queuing lesser mortals had to face. The ride itself was, like a lot of this place, strangely familiar yet different. The first thing I did realise was that if you come to Paris in the seriously cold months, then a couple of rides like this would see you picking ice out of your eyelashes. The wind chill factor took the temperature down a lot, so a balaclava would be essential kit in February!
We then wandered across to the Indiana Jones ride, and again from the special fastpass line, we boarded very quickly. I was mildly surprised to see that this ride went upside down, but coped manfully, and my warnings to Adam about my world-renowned coaster Tourette’s, were largely redundant.
There were some rides that didn’t have fastpass. After lodging my formal and official complaint about this we queued for Pirates for about thirty minutes. This seemed to pass fairly quickly, as it was constantly moving and we were chatting away about….well, Disney stuff. As the French might say, quelle surprise.
I remembered thinking that this version of the ride was probably actually a little better to the Orlando version. It felt longer (not that this is a guarantee of satisfaction of course!), and somehow more logical in the story line, although much of the ride is pretty much identical to its US cousin in many respects.
We then found ourselves in Fantasyland, and knowing that most rides here were aimed below our demographic, I still decided to queue for half an hour for the Pinocchio ride. Well, there is no point coming all this way and missing stuff out!
Two grown men waited 30 minutes to ride this!
Likewise Peter Pan saw two odd-looking (not old-looking in any way) blokes waiting amongst hundreds of kids, but hey I enjoyed it, and again felt this version slightly superior to the Orlando one. We walked across to Frontierland now. On this note, it was very odd for me not to have a clue where I was going, and not to have any sense of my position in the park. We long since stopped needing park maps in Orlando, so it was a little strange to be following Adam around all day. I think he knew where we were, based on his 35 previous trips!!
It was lunchtime now, actually around 2.30pm, and the eatery of choice was the Cowboy Cookout. We joined the line, and waited to order, and witnessed, in the adjacent queue the greatest contribution to Anglo-French relations since Sasha Distel. An English chap approached the French cast member on the till and started to order. However, he was of course using his best slow and loud English so that Johnny Foreigner could pick things up. However, being a part of the modern Europe he must have felt compelled to make some sort of effort to speak the lingo, and so we heard….
“Bonjour, could I have one diet coke and…..erm….deux….erm…..normal cokes”.
Genius. Sir I salute you.
The cast member, who no doubt speaks at least three languages, just carried on as if he heard this stuff all day everyday, and he probably does!
Our double cheeseburgers were huge, and tasty….and huge.
On our way over to Phantom Manor we passed Jack and Sally, and I don’t mean the characters from Coronation Street. The make up for Sally was excellent, and if I put some weight on, Jack’s suit might fit me nicely!
Jack isn't a character I am built to play....
Again, Phantom Manor was a no fastpass ride, so we settled in for a long wait. I think it was posted as a 75 minute wait, but it either wasn’t, or my memory has fooled me into thinking otherwise. Now, doom buggies aside, this ride is pretty different, and the house itself, to me, reminded me of the Bates Motel. You start with a stretching room type thing, but beyond that there are few similarities between the US and French versions. Both are very good, and both often stop mid ride a lot!
At this point we headed over to Space Mountain, which from the outside looks a very similar animal to the one I am used to. Adam warned me however that not much else was common between the two. After a restroom stop in Videopolis, which seems to be a vast auditorium built for a now dead attraction, currently being used to show old cartoons, and somewhere to eat your lunch, we took the fastpass back entrance, and still queued a fair bit. A sign of how busy the parks were today.
A mountain of space
Once at the point of boarding, it quickly became very clear that this is a VERY different ride. The fact that we got into a Rock and Rollercoaster style carriage with full on pull down restraints gave me a big clue that I had better take my glasses off for this one!
It was a wise move. It started like the Hulk, and I spent the next few minutes teaching the French some English swear words! A great ride though.
At this point, it was coming to the time that Adam had arranged to meet up with some of the cast from the Buffalo Bill show, for interviews for the Podcast, so we made our way out of the park.
Back at the Village, we waited a while outside the show, having a welcome sit down, and eventually Buffalo Bill (Trent) and Annie Oakley (Lesley) came out to see us. After brief intros and chatting, Adam whipped his microphone out, and launched into his interview, and I just loitered a bit trying not to get in the way.
They were both very lovely, and treated us both to a back stage tour of the arena. We shook hands with most of the cast, walked behind too many horses for my liking, and had a look at the buffalo too. They are pretty big!
Complete with our cowboy hats and tickets for the show we made our way front of house to mingle with the muggles now entering, and we watched the pre show in the lobby before going up to our seats in the arena.
At this point, we say goodbye to my phone (and therefore camera) for most of the rest of the weekend.
The food and drink were brought out almost immediately, and we take on board some welcome beer, and some pretty nice Chilli. I also had some (if not all) of the corn bread on offer! The rest of the savoury food wasn’t the greatest, but I guess this is to be expected at an event of this scale. The crumble to finish was nice though and we both made short work of that.
The show itself is based on the central sand arena, with lots of horse trickery, a section of songs including a few Disney characters, and it ends with a set of rodeo games that pit four different sections of the audience against each other, as we each cheered on our respective players. Good fun!
We left the show and headed for the bus. We were quickly back at the hotel, and in the room preparing for the Terrorific Night 2 at the Studios. This involved the addition of a few more layers of clothes, for me, a thicker warmer hoodie, an attractive hat, and gloves. Being two males this took us a matter of minutes, and we were back on the bus at 8.50.
Once at the studio gates we had the same organised chaos to get in. Having no bags, surely we could have simply walked through the no bag entrance? Alas, there wasn’t one, so we jostled with everyone else for about ten minutes. As we did get in, I was asked by a burly, surly security guard to open my coat, as with my 23 layers of clothes it looked like I was smuggling in a small child. I chuckled, and told him that I was simply fat, not a terrorist. My humour did not translate and I narrowly avoided Le Glove Rubber.
All around the park, the atmosphere was superb. Obviously at this point I had not seen the park in normal circumstances, so I could not judge how much work had gone into transforming it. Well, after seeing it the next day, my verdict was, quite a lot! Cast Members wandered the park, mingling with/attacking the guests, in some fantastic costumes. As the posters said, this was definitely an event for those over twelve years old. We saw one Dad rushing for the exit, carrying his young daughter who was quite distraught. Adam did a video of some of the night’s events.
Ride wise, we headed for Crush’s Coaster first. A ride unique to Paris, but also with a huge queue. This took around forty minutes, but the ride itself was very good indeed. Again, Adam told me it was very different to normal operations and I had to take his word for it. Anyway, it was a belter! Many of the attendees tonight had dressed up in Halloween costumes, and indeed I had come as a grumpy, overweight, balding UK Dad. Scary enough I think.
Next we decided upon the backstage tram tour, which for tonight had been rebranded as the Terror Tram (or something like that). As queues went, this was the Daddy of them all. It took an age, and towards the end we were both tired, cold and in danger of losing the magic a little. Finally we got onto our tram and set off. It all began quite normally, but soon enough the usual pre-recorded patter on the video screens “broke down”, and we had just white noise as we entered Catastrophe Canyon. This was pretty much unchanged, but upon leaving that we came upon a scene from (Adam told me) Dinotopia. If you have watched the video by now you will know that a scene was played out here with a large devil type bloke and his minions.
As they stole the young girl from the carriage it did take a few moments to realise the boyfriend was in on it. His subsequent “performance” as he himself then turned into a zombie was truly impressive, and he absolutely frightened to death the young girls sat behind Adam and I.
Next, at a London scene, more zombie types appear, only to be chased off by chaps in welder masks at the last moment, who then in turn, also reveal themselves to be “not of this world”.
All in all the whole experience was pretty amazing, pretty hard to describe here, but suffice to say, it was easily impressive enough to put all thoughts of grumpiness about the queue out of our minds. Typical Disney!
Our next ride was Armageddon, which in effect was “closed down”. Instead we were invited to do a walking tour, which quickly turned into an attack from more deformed types, this time in the shape of aliens. Again, anyone showing the slightest sign of fear was targetted for “ghouling” and there was a lot of screaming and shrieking along the way. Again, really good fun.
To finish off the night we ended up in the odd position of doing a couple fo rides in the Toy Story section, on a night of horrors and Halloween. I think this is called a juxtaposition, which I always thought were an 80’s pop band!
First we rode the Slinky dog ride, which is a pretty simple merry-go-round type thing for young kids, but we jumped on nonetheless as it had no queue at all. We had no shame!
Image pinched from Google due to lack of phone battery
We then did the new parachute drop ride, which was surprisingly more intense than it looked, and a definite tummy tickler.
By now it was going on for 1am, and we were both, not to put too fine a point on it, cream crackered. What we really needed then was to have to sprint to jump on the final bus of the night to avoid a forty minute walk back to the hotel. So after a full-blooded Dad run, a red face, and asthma attack, the bus then sat there for ten minutes with us sat on it, heavy breathing.
We got off the bus and into bed within moments, and it took me seconds to fall asleep!
So my trip to DLRP is done, and so I thought it only right and proper to tell you all about it. This trip really was sponsored by the DisneyBrit Podcast. Go on click the link!
I’m going to break this report up into three sections, each representing a day of the trip, so this one is primarily about trains!
My day started at around 8am, and after some breakfast and a shower (not at the same time), I had time to play a little bit of Xbox. I hope you realise this is the sort of crucial detail I shall be including.
Louise dropped me off at Manchester Piccadilly train station, which was handy, as this was where I was due to catch my train to Euston. I picked up my tickets from one of those clever automated machines, without struggling in any way to figure out how it works, as I am dead technical and clever.
Good Evans!
With twenty minutes to kill I wandered into WH Smiths to find some stuff to occupy me over the next endless hours on a train. I quite fancied the new Chris Evans book, and via his twitter, had found out that it was on special offer. It was that special that WH SMith had none left.
I therefore switched my attention to the fiction section, and chose a James Patterson novel. I’ve read quite a few of his, and they are decent page turning stuff, without making you think too much. This is a pre-requisite for holiday/travel reading.
So with that, a bottle of water, a newspaper, some paracetamol (just in case) and a pad and pen (for trip report notes) it was an astonishing £16.
Upon boarding the train, some bloke was sat in my reserved seat, but with lots of available ones around I just took another one. The fact that he was slumped across the table, and looked like he needed a good wash were other contributory factors. However, shortly afterwards I was asked if I would mind moving to let Keira (the grand-daughter of the woman asking me to move) to sit next to her. So I moved to the seat opposite, and settled in for the peaceful journey to Euston.
Alas no. Keira’s grandma is one of those so full of pride in her offspring’s offspring that she “performs” all the way to Euston. You know the sort of thing. Everything the child says is repeated, but louder, and with a chuckle in the voice, and a look around to see who is watching.
So the whole carriage “enjoyed” Keira and her grandma looking through her Disney Princess magazine for two hours. What do you mean I sound like a grumpy old git? And???
So I tried my best to read my paper, and then my book, but couldn’t really concentrate over the noise of grandma reading stories out loud.
About an hour in thankfully she fell asleep….Keira, not the grandma, so I made the most of it and played some games on my phone. This was OK as the train had a source of power for it. As you will learn my phone has a battery life shorter than one half of the Krankies.
The train arrived at Euston exactly on time, and I decided to walk to St Pancras rather than catch the tube, as my google map showed me it was just down the road. It took about ten minutes, and I went to more of those automated ticket machine things to print off my tickets for the Eurostar. After a few minutes of entering stuff with no joy (a familiar tale) I started to wonder if I had the right reference numbers etc, so I called home, and asked Emily to take a look on my laptop.
I was in no way a bit short and panic-stricken, and after realising I did have the right numbers, I put the phone down and went in search of a human being to ask. There were none. So I wandered deeper into the station and came across an Information desk. I joined the queue, and whilst waiting, glanced up at the sign above the Information desk. The one that said Kings Cross Station Information.
Realising I was sort of in entirely the wrong train station, I made a quick exit and went next door to St Pancras. Seriously, who the hell had the bright idea of building two stations next door to each other!!
Once in the right place I was now close to missing the train, and after quickly printing my tickets, I heard the last call being made, and I hurried through to check in. It entailed all the pre trip rituals of a flight, such as ticket check, passport control and security checks. I had somehow not imagined all this would not be necessary! At security, I did some bleeping, and this resulted in some big bald bloke wanding me. There is a first time for everything, and it didn’t hurt at all!!
I arrived on the platform, and luckily the train was still there. I checked with the member of staff on the platform that I was in the right place, and I indeed I was. I also asked him where my carriage was. He says the one right in front of me…..is number 2 and I am in 18, so I’d better start jogging!! With a sweat on, I clambered aboard carriage 18 and found my seat just as the train pulled away.
France...obviously.
I was sat next to a French lady (what are the chances?), and had to disturb her to sit down, and then again moments later to get at my bag again to rescue my book, and my lunch. Having had no time to procure anything close to lunch, I had to rely on the emergency Sports Mixture, packed for me by Louise. At this point they were literally a life saver, and I polished them off quickly as I got into my book.
Shortly after boarding, as usual I discovered that I was sat near to a screaming child, and this one was going for it big time. To me, it sounded like a tired cry, and my mind raced back to the days of my girls being this age, and at this point I would have been stood up, rocking and gently patting her on the bum to get her to sleep. I offered this to the young mum, but she didn’t want me to pat her bum at all.
Honestly, a screaming child does not usually bother me at all (apart from in restaurants, when the parents don’t take them outside if they won’t stop crying). We have all been there at some point, and as a parent I have developed the ability to block out child noises!! However, a couple sat just in front of me were having none of it.
One of them stood up and announced to the whole carriage that he was not sitting next to THAT all the way, and was off to find another seat. He demanded his boyfriend followed him, and off they flounced out in a flurry of designer clothes, stubble and false tan.
Very quickly we were under water, and then out again, and I took it from the emergence from the tunnel, that we were now in France.
We arrived in Lille bang on time, and I had about half an hour to wait for the train to DLRP. I wandered about for a bit wishing I’d taken French and not German at school, as it may have helped me read a couple of signs. In the end I asked at the Information booth, and was relieved to at least be in the correct station this time. It turns out I needed the Perpignan train and it was due to leave in ten minutes.
I watched the board for the platform to be announced, and soon enough I am aboard. Despite a couple of announcements on the train about its destination, I was none the wiser. By the time they did the same announcements in English the train was already moving, I couldn’t make out what he said anyway, so I just crossed my fingers that I was on the right train, or I would be doing an impromptu tour of France.
Thankfully, I was on the right train, and at around 6.15, the train arrived at Marne la Vallee-Chessy. It is a good job I had looked this up beforehand, as you might expect the Disneyland train station to be bedecked with all sorts of Disney stuff, and have characters parading up and down the platform. It doesn’t, and it is only as you ride the escalator up to ground level that the hordes of folk in Disney hats assure you that you have indeed arrived.
Village People
Adam had let me know he had been delayed, and this meant I had even longer to wait until he turned up. So first of all I went for a wander around Disney Village. It was very un-Disney like to be honest. The music was generic pop stuff, and it felt really just like a shopping precinct, which happened to have a few Disney shops in it.
It was nice, don’t get me wrong, just not at all like Downtown Disney. This is a theme I need to avoid, as it is unfair to compare the two locations, as I really don’t think Paris is trying to be Orlando.
After a quick browse around the shops, I nipped into McDonalds and had Le Big Mac et Pomme frites. I found a table for one and tucked in. A French child approached me, asking (in perfect English) if she could have the prize sticker thing off of my drink. I agreed, realising that if she actually won anything, the resultant wrestling match would be quite embarrassing, and not at all conducive to Anglo-French relations.
At this point I decided to head for the hotel, and settle in for the wait.
The train station really is right next to the Disney Village, and in turn the buses to the hotels are there too. The bus was waiting there as I arrived and I jumped on as it set off on the loop of non Disney hotels. Adam had let me know by text that we were staying at the Dream Castle, rather than the Magic Circus as first thought, so I got off at the right stop and wandered in.
The hotel is themed in a medieval style, and is decorated for Halloween as you might expect. I couldn’t check in until Adam got there, frankly as he was paying, so I made my way to the bar, bought a Stella (and the glass for that price I presume) and settled in with my book in a corner. The corner position was required, as I happened to have found a power supply behind a curtain, which means I could plug my phone in again! It had run all by itself for about two hours and so was now quite tired!!
So after lots of reading, I made my way to reception, and sat there for a while. I got updates from Adam about his hellish journey. His delayed plane meant that he had missed his train, and was now having to use the Metro (is that what it is called? I am so metropolitan, pardon the pun), and he expected to arrive sometime on Tuesday!
After a while I went back to the bar, had another beer, and a sandwich (I always eat when bored), and finished my book! It was now coming up to midnight, and I was so tired that I was tempted to go to reception and see if they had a spare room and just book it myself.
Anyway, being tight, means that I sat and waited instead, and finally Adam arrived around 12.45am. I shook his hand, bleary eyed, and we quickly checked in and went up to the room. I can honestly say I have never gone to bed with anyone so quickly after first meeting them!
We had a quick chat for half an hour or so and then realised it was bloody late, and we went to sleep.
Tomorrow, (and the next blog) some actual stuff that may be interesting, rather than trains and waiting.
Mkingdon's Blog 