Category Archives: travel

My night with the pigeons

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I was invited to a workshop in Ottawa last September, all expenses paid. Very nice.  I decided to the extend the trip by booking an extra night myself. I booked my one night, in the same hotel, on Expedia. I arrived at the Elgin Hotel early evening.  My room (Expedia) was pretty rubbish; dark, overlooking some enormous drum things, but as it was only one night and already evening, I didn’t think it would matter.  About 8pm a terrible sound started, like the groaning and howling of an old ship engine. It was relentless, oppressive and SO LOUD. Continue reading →

Moroccan weekend away: Part 2

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Following on from Part 1 (if you can bear to…), we are on the airport shuttle from the car park to Terminal 2 in Heathrow with the tickets, passports and Richy’s wallet on the roof of the car in the long stay car park. I don’t think I need to detail the kind of exchange (or non-exchange) we were having for the remainder of the 20 minute journey.   Continue reading →

Moroccan weekend away: Part 1

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I’ve decided I’ve got to do this story in sections, otherwise it will be too long (and unbelievable… I’ve already blogged about the very end).  I’ll start with the background and beginnings.  Richy Rich and I booked a mammoth weekend away last November. Three nights in Marrakech.  As I kept boring everyone I came across beforehand, even spending time with Richy in the airport was gonna be amazing, let alone the actual trip.   Continue reading →

First class from Birmingham

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Earlier this year I went straight from a meeting in London to an overnight work gig in Birmingham. It was all a bit surreal (involving Alan Bryman and Angry Birds impressions). The following lunchtime after an intense focus group workshoppy thing, I rushed off to catch the train back home. In the short walk from the hotel to Birmingham New Street, I thought I was in Manchester.  That really threw me when I got into the station and couldn’t find the ticket machines, and the trains/platforms had all disappeared.   Continue reading →

Flight dyscalculexia

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In line with the responsibility angle of a lot of these blog posts, I’ve invented a new pseudo condition – dyscalculexia.  This, for the less medically inclined is a (made up) mixture of difficulties reading both words and numbers.  It isn’t a medically recognised disorder, but it can only be a matter of time.  It is possibly also a way of avoiding hate mail.   Continue reading →

British Airways and the pig toilets

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That Danish trip again (see also)..this is a long, long one.  These flight stories are going to sound made up, I’m sure but it’s all true (well apart from officials’ swearing).

Travelled from seaside town to Copenhagen airport with the lovely Cornish Debbie I’d met at the conference. We laughed our socks off remembering pig toilets in India in the 1980’s.  She left me at the BA check in as she wasn’t flying back for several hours.   Continue reading →

The language of life

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This story will, eventually, evolve into a flight nightmare post but before then, other stuff happened. I flew to Copenhagen two years ago to go to a conference somewhere by the sea in Denmark. Not a good trip.

I caught the train from the airport into Copenhagen. It was like the London underground with seats long ways on each side. A gang of kids got on at the same time. One of the boys sat next to me, while the rest performed some elaborate, loud distraction routine at the end of the carriage, trying to engage with other passengers.  I don’t speak Danish but I do speak the language of life. My suspicions were aroused. I looked down and saw the little bastard had his hand in my coat pocket, millimetres from my purse.   Continue reading →

Flight Nightmares: The signature

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Rosie and I were booked on very exciting trip to Genova, leaving on her 13th birthday. She got a cow case in advance. A few days before, I couldn’t find my passport.  Panic.

Got accountant mate (anon) to sign the forms to get a speedy replacement (just had enough time luckily if I travelled to passport office the next day and waited for it to be processed). She filled in the form (A) so carefully, then got confused about a box she signed. She put a line through the signature, then filled in a second form (B) leaving the box blank, just to be safe.

Off on the bus to London, queued at passport office for about 40 mins, then handed over the form (B) to the most deadpan person ever. I blathered on about the Genova trip with Rosie, leaving the next day, blah blah blah. 13th birthday, blah blah blah. She gave the form straight back to me and said that mate hadn’t signed the box. ‘Ah, no, here’s another version where she did sign it’, I said cheerfully, pulling form (A) out of my bag. ‘It’s got a line through it, she will need to sign it again’, said Deadpan.  Sob. ‘She works about 10 miles in the countryside from hometowny which is 1.5 hours on the bus, which is 20 mins on the tube from here, it’s not physically possible’, I blubbed. ‘Fuck off you loser’, she replied.*

credits: thanks to Tracy for literally spending a day searching with me

*She didn’t really swear, but said words to that effect.

The terrorist, tagine and toilet

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Here is a convoluted story. Checking in to Marrakech airport last Oct with Richy Rich (RR), I got a bit suspicious of a Moroccan guy in front of us (Red Fox). Just one of those funny instincts, confirmed about 20 minutes later when he passed the passport control matey some cash in his passport.  Had a tense wait at the gate wondering what to do. Board? Raise the alarm with staff? Warn all the passengers? Look a total numpty? RR went off “to tell a guard” about my suspicions . What a relief. He came back five minutes later and said he was joking. He’d been to toilet.

We boarded and sat a few rows behind Red Fox and his mate.  I nearly broke the skin on RR’s arm when the pair of them went to the toilet together. Red Fox was wearing a zipped up, very padded jacket. He waited in the kitchen area while his mate was in the toilet, then they swapped.  They returned to their seats and I scoobied to the toilet to look for a device. I went through the rubbish bin and did a finger tip search of the ceiling panels. Nothing.  I realised if they were going to blow up the plane, it would be over London.

I went back to my seat.  RR was so fed up with me he was feigning sleep so I made a plan.  We had to stop them returning to the toilet once we were over the Channel. There was a tagine in the luggage rack that looked like it could do some damage. RR could throw my coat over one of them and grapple him. We could block the aisle hopefully calling on the support of other passengers. It was a very, very long flight.

Three hours later we reached London and landed.  We shuffled off the plane but the doors into the airport were locked.  We stood in a line in a corridor, people muttering and getting a bit irate. After 20 minutes, the door opened and we walked through to a heavily policed passport area. Red Fox was taken away.

Making an entrance

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I flew back from Gothenburg last year, arrived in Heathrow, grabbed my hand luggage, speeded through customs, turned the corner just before the bit where everyone waits for loved ones/chauffeurs and skidded on a pile of sick. Slid about 2 metres into the waity bit before losing my balance and cracking my knee.  Everyone rushed forward to help me and make sure I was ok.

Made that last sentence up. Course they didn’t. I just got up and limped to the bus stop stinking of sick. I always thought it was probably some poor mail order bride vomiting before seeing the guy who bought her for the first time, but someone else said it could be someone off a stag do.