back! and off again…
And I’m back! After spending the last three days being fed, fussed, dry-flotated (?) and otherwise mollycoddled to a heinous degree (and even learning new and useful skills; hula hoop fitness class anybody?) I can happily report that I’m looking forward to a lively few weeks…
I have had a special bamboo massage plus a pedicure so luxurious I almost fell asleep, attended a nothing-short-of-bizarre Zumba class presided over by somebody who appeared to have never seen or heard of Zumba before (and I suspect never will again), and returned home last night über-relaxed and immaculately preened (Bob Marley-esque hair excepted, which will be dealt with later today) and polished, with ample time to unpack, repack, get the washer on, clean out the fishtanks and throw another coat of satin finish on the current lot of woodwork before heading off to Belfast tomorrow. Even the journey home via Northern Trains was less than arduous, bar the earlier part necessarily covered by car which took in a bit of motorway, a couple of service stations with funny names and finally a unnerving procession of the kind of picture-postcard Middle England villages which never fail to make me wonder about their suicide rates.
To this week, and it is no secret that the lovely city of Belfast and her friendly inhabitants are high up on my favourites list, albeit being a relatively new addition to it – the coming days are looking as busy as ever, so just the ticket after a desirably low-fi break (and I cannot deny heaving a sigh of relief at the lack of snow this time after the shenanigans on my previous junket the other weekend). To those who have been unsuccessfully trying to phone (and if you haven’t read the site you’ve really only got yourselves to blame) then unusually for a Sunday the phone is on today (although in all fairness if you didn’t read that, you’re unlikely to read this) so by all means give it another go and hope that the emailers haven’t beaten you to the punch. I will be around this time until just after lunch on Thursday 1st, so plenty of time for mischief!
In other news (and after many months of only boarding flights where the duration in hours is in single figures) I can also announce that I am finally getting a proper holiday almost four years after the last one, as those who were with me when I bought the apartment will remember – yay! I will be packing my bucket and spade and heading off to Koh Samui in Thailand in July, along with a couple of days in Bangkok at the end to sharpen the reflexes (and a layover in Muscat, which I shamefully had to Google) on the way back. Something of an impulse purchase, but after an idle browse through one of the plethora of hotel-booking-site emails I am flooded with (a rather chi-chi one known as Splendia, to be specific – I once booked a serviced apartment through them in 2008 and they have mailed me daily ever since) containing an offer on a 5* spa resort working out at roughly the same nightly price as the Scarborough Travelodge. The flights are slightly dearer than a cab to St Nicholas Cliff, for anyone who was wondering, but suffice to say a very good deal was had and I will be away for eleven days in mid July (narrowly missing the Olympics on the way back, which would undoubtedly undo all of the stress-removing work in under an hour between Heathrow and Kings Cross station). Woohoo!
Back in Scarborough for the briefest of moments, it seems that Spring has definitely sprung and I hope to enjoy a couple of days of the mild weather at the end of the week when I get back – New York, now only ten days away, hasn’t quite caught up yet (according to weather.com at least), but packing for every eventuality is very much my thing, after all. As far as today goes, the packing is almost finished, the refrigerator is organised and everything is on track for tomorrow – Belfast here I come!
More in the week…
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