brrr glasgow (nearly)…
It’s not actually that cold, and I’m not quite in Glasgow – yet – but two weeks on from an all-too brief pit stop back at Scarborough HQ (which was mostly spent either doing laundry or asleep) a couple of fun-packed but exhausting days in London (not unlike New York, but wetter) plus a slightly shorter than planned interlude in Jamaica, I now post from my cosy corner of First Class on the Pendolino and am well on the way!
A post holiday update is long overdue – without wishing to bore anyone with the details, one disaster followed another until I decided that enough was enough, having fulfilled my original purpose and attended a very lovely wedding on a beach with an equally if not more lovely celebration afterwards, given that the latter had jerk chicken, curry goat and even a nearby mango tree (which is exciting enough for somebody who hadn’t seen one before, especially when they’ve barely eaten for three days).
My trip began with the less than joyous realisation that my BlackBerry had been stolen at the airport, followed by a lengthy middle-of-the-night phone call from BlackBerry II to Tesco Mobile to get the handset blocked and a replacement SIM card dispatched (resulting in panicky texts and emails from O2 pointing out that I’d now got to £139 on my bill, as if I didn’t know), continued with the discovery that neither of my cards work in Jamaican ATM machines and the realisation that I had forty quid to last me the week – changing that into a spendable currency would have been a task in itself without the help of my kindly taxi driver who lent me his photo ID for the (presumably visually challenged) currency exchange people on the way to aforementioned wedding and finished with a mercifully straightforward date change on my flight ticket after almost 40 minutes on hold to Virgin Atlantic.
Along the way I can also report a lost/suspected stolen apartment and safe key ($90 for a locksmith), an entire day and a half without wifi (again necessitating the help of BlackBerry II, a move which excited the folk at O2 so much they threatened to cut me off) and the local phone networks disappearing for an entire morning. Add in mosquito bites (6 – usual total 0), a shower whose intricacies took me until my final morning to fathom out and relentless pestering from the local gents every time I set foot outside to the extent that I gave up entirely and relaxing it was not; upon returning home I had a bath, slept for ten hours and then booked myself into my perpetual favourite Champneys for three nights next month. They ought to add a post-holiday package section to the website (pictures of sunburnt, mosquito-bitten people sporting frazzled hair and possibly some minor injuries being wrapped in the trademark fluffy dressing gowns and gently led off to some peace and quiet).
Fast forward five days and Glasgow Frightfest approaches by way of light relief, at least for those of us to whom two and a bit days of fast food, backache and high octane, blood-guts-and-carnage-laden cinema (including the much-anticipated-by-me Wolf Creek 2, sequel to a FilmFour favourite that even Lots Of Normal People Have Seen) is a tranquil, Zen experience. According to my local sources (the very sweet and improbably glamorous Kendra, who solemnly advised me under no circumstances to wear UGGs) it’s raining. There’s a shock.
Now we’re here, a handful of other changes are afoot – as BlackBerry and Hotmail have apparently fallen out, my new email address is amyvergnes@gmail.com (don’t worry if you’d sent anything, it’s being forwarded!) and needless to say that the new and improved phone (or BlackBerry 3) will be remaining off until I arrive in Edinburgh on Sunday afternoon – yay! I will be resolutely online and answering email in the meantime; it’s been far too long but more visits are planned, partly because I like Scotland a lot and mostly because conveying oneself to and from it doesn’t involve setting foot in an airport. A trip over to Cork conversely does, but not a very long one and I will be over in the People’s Republic for the first time in 2014 the week after next (plus a stop in York on the way back on Other Business – woohoo!) Scarborough folk will have to wait until Monday 17th, but I will be around the whole week prior to assuming the position at Champneys on the 24th; please note that it’s previous visitors only for the foreseeable future. And it’s back in That London after that…
Back to the present (and for anybody who is of a similarly nerdy disposition to me and was therefore wondering why I would be sitting on a Pendolino when I live on the East side of the country), my journey has been by way of Manchester and an update from the hardworking team at National Ugly Mugs. As I posted back in January, the scheme is in desperate need of funding to stay in place and carry on the good work; this being to track down and put away more attackers, robbers and rapists in addition to the growing number already behind bars or well on their way there who may well still have been walking the streets without it – quite possibly your street, or mine, or your mother/sister/daughter’s. The scheme needs funding to continue and I make no apology for posting their JustGiving link again. Thanks again to everybody who’s already helped.
More soon! Lord, it’s good to be back…
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