2 Idiots abroad...

DAY ONE:

At a drunken New Years Eve party Laura and I discussed going on holiday, gushing what a wonderful idea it would be thanks in part to all of the alcohol in our system. The idea was actually a good one, I could do with a holiday, my last one had been last year and my amazing trip to see Molly in New Orleans then Jared in New Jersey. However the more excited Laura got the more filled with trepidation I became, because I wasn’t sure I was even going to be in England, I was offered a job in Connecticut for the summer, and seeing as that is where Jared lives and the job was a dream job, I thought I was going to go for it. But then real life and responsibilities got I the way and I decided to, for once, do the responsible thing and not be flighty. However in doing that, I took away an entire summer of being together with Jared and that was a bit of a kick in the teeth. So instead I thought that I would take a holiday to go and see him, we already had plans for later in the year, but I didn’t want to wait so long and was planning for 2 trips. And then I thought about how excited Laura had been and thought, no, I need a girls holiday, a chance to get away from it all, have some quality girlie time and relax, no stress. So I went and told Laura, and three weeks before we jetted off, we went and booked a holiday.







** I swear, I packed like 20 pairs of knickers **






We left England and it was a gorgeous sunshine filled day, Laura came to my house and we were both dressed like the jet-set girls that we are. I said my goodbyes to my family and Lau and I cheered and hugged on my front garden (I’m almost positive that my neighbours think I am a basket case) excited that our holiday was here at last. Lau drove us just down the road to her Dads house, he and his girlfriend were going to drive us to the airport, as we were climbing out of her car, I was telling Lau about the trouble I had packing. “I have no control over how much I pack. I swear I packed like 20 pairs of knickers!”


“20 pairs?!” A male voice exclaimed and my head whipped up, standing in the doorway was Lau’s bemused looking father, who I was just now meeting for the very first time. Now because I often make a complete fool of myself I don’t get embarrassed too easily, so I just laughed it off the best that I could, thankfully Lau’s dad has a great sense of humour so a potentially humiliating moment was defused.


Whilst at her house Lau’s dad wondered at my packing prowess, my suitcase was bigger than Lau’s and also much, much lighter. (We later found out this was because I apparently hadn’t packed anything that I needed).


The drive to the airport was fine, thankfully we didn’t get stuck in any traffic and the journey was filled with pleasant chatter and excitement from Lau and I.


And then our holiday officially began. Now I love airports, but I absolutely loathe planes, it’s quite the contradiction. The last couple of times I have flown, I have flown alone so checking in and going through security with someone was a novel experience.


The trouble here is that I am quite sarcastic and a smartass at the best of times, and like a naughty child when I have an audience I only become more precocious, you have to be really careful with what you say when you go through security you aren’t allowed to say certain words like ‘terrorist’ ‘bomb’ or ‘drugs’ and when I know that I can’t say something I have the compulsion to say it all the more, it’s like a form of tourettes.


I must look so suspicious because I make such a concentrated effort not to say something inappropriate or something that will get me either arrested or banned from flying.


Lau went through the scanner first and it went off and the security woman called her over – this woman was tiny, I wondered why someone so little would want a security officer job. She asked Lau how old she was (possibly because baby faced Laura looks under 18 and the woman didn’t want to face a lawsuit for feeling up a minor) Lau promptly forgot that she was 21 and attracted more suspicion and I did what any good friend would do, I laughed.


As I walked through the scanner towards the absolutely lush security man the alarm went off. I realised too late that my headband was made of metal and instead of getting me to take off the headband and walk through again, I had to be felt up. I must say I was quite looking forward to it, the man was absolutely gorgeous. However I had to wait for the pixie woman. As I said earlier, I travel a lot by myself, so I often get patted down at the airport, apparently I have the look of a drug mule, despite this fact this was the most thorough public exam I have ever had, I would have appreciated her buying me dinner first. I was half expecting her to snap on some latex gloves. And I was sad to realise that was the most action I was going to see all holiday.


After our ordeal we headed straight to the food court because it was 3 o’clock and I hadn’t eaten all day, as we sit in ‘Spoons I peruse the menu and am horrified by the markup I see in prices, at the end of the day it is still a dirty Wetherspoons and they charged us £1.60 for cheese on our chips!!


As we are sitting waiting for our stupidly expensive bowl of chips (I was expecting caviar to arrive on the side for those prices) I look down at our knife and fork and am transported back to a time when I served up plastic food, because our cutlery was the metal version of the little plastic utensils I served my plastic food up with. I understand that they don’t want dangerous weapons to be taken on to a plane, but I am pretty confident I could do more harm with my mascara wand than with a butter knife.


After a few hours of wandering around we finally get a gate number and make our way to the plane, I’m not a fan of flying but being with Lau made me much less scared, as did the fact that we were sitting next to each other (I refused to pay money just so they’d seat us together). As we are waiting at the gate for them to take our boarding passes and check our passports a man picks up his phone and asks “Are you doing the fuel for the Thomson 4778?” And Lau turns to me and says “I hope so.” That then prompted me to do my surprised loud laugh and stood giggling whilst everyone else looked at us in bewilderment.


We take some pictures and finally get on the plane, I have a window seat (and it has to be said, despite the fact that I hate, hate, hate flying, I do indeed love having the window seat) and we’re sitting over the wing, which Lau tells me is the safest part of plane, I’ll believe her because it sounds reassuring to me.


The flight is only 4 hours and we declined the option of getting a meal because we weren’t prepared to pay £12 for a meal that is just terrible. We’d gotten snacks at the airport instead, Lau had gone into a little restaurant to get a roll for the plane and a man just ahead of us, had purchased some hot food and managed to drop it all down himself. His lovely white shirt was covered in gravy. My karma is terrible right now because I will admit it, I laughed. I laughed, hard. I had to turn my back as I tried desperately to stifle my giggles and Lau was the same. She kept gasping “gravy on his shirt!” over and over again and I seriously thought I may asphyxiate from lack of oxygen.


Back on the plane, I was by the window with Lau next to me, and she had a nice young woman around my age next to her, so she was pleased that it wasn’t some freak. Lau turns to the woman “just to let you know we’ve got Wotsits” and the woman replied with “That’s ok, I like Wotsits.” I hope she realises we were just being polite and letting her know we had stinky crisps and we weren’t offering to share. I don’t share Wotsits.


About halfway through the journey Laura stirs and is starting to feel a little nauseous, she gets travel sick and I’m worried, I tell her to drink some water and maybe eat something, so reaches her bag and pulls out her Wotsits which currently are inflated and look like they’re about to explode. We laugh again for a long time, but then I get to thinking, if a pressurised cabin does that to a pack of Wotsits what the hell is it doing to our bodies?


I am used to flying long-haul, I’ve only ever really travelled long-haul and so I expect a little more leg room, a television in the back of the headrest, multiple channels, complimentary drinks and meal. However in a package holiday you get crammed in seats, rude pushy airline staff, overpriced beverages, a few small screens placed on the aisle. I wouldn’t recommend it, but it comes as part of the deal, you just have to suck it up.


Before too long we arrive in Tenerife, it’s night time by this point and I loved looking out of the window to see the twinkling lights below. The landing is relatively smooth and before we know it we’re all shuffling off the plane like drunken zombies. I have 35 inch legs, having them crammed into what feels like a 10 inch gap is not pleasant for four hours, and I have lost most of the feeling in my legs. As we get off the plane we spot a girl who we first noticed back in Gatwick, we named her ‘socks’ she was a larger young lady in her mid-twenties who had decided her comfortable flight wear was to be a t-shirt, the shortest shorts I have ever seen (and they were tie-dye *shudder*) and knee high socks. Now my sister often wears knee high socks and looks just adorable but for starters this girl was too chubby for knee high socks, they were cutting into the soft flesh of her legs (the reason I don’t wear knee high socks) and secondly, they weren’t even cute socks, they looked like flight socks to me, so they were tight and they were dirty. The whole look was just like one giant no-no. This was the start of a game we played all holiday where people were given nicknames – none to flattering nicknames.


No-one checked our passports in Tenerife – I dread to think the amount of criminals that probably hideout there. We made our way to baggage reclaim, I was tired and excited and I was hoping they hadn’t lost our luggage. Really hoping.


They hadn’t ours came out relatively quickly too, and we walked out to get our taxi transfer, we were really excited that we would have someone standing there with a card with our name on it, but when we got out, there wasn’t anyone with a card. There was however a Thomson rep, so we went over to her. She checked our names, gave us a welcome pack, and grabbed a taxi driver to take us to our hotel.


We were staying in El Médano which is roughly ten minutes away from the airport, we didn’t want to have to get the mini-bus that would probably take us all around the houses, so we opted for a taxi, our taxi driver took us over to a minibus and Lau and I looked at one another and sighed, guess he didn’t get the memo and we would be waiting for other passengers after all.


We sat down and he put our bags in, and then we were off! We had an entire mini-bus to ourselves, it seemed a little bit excessive, but Lau and I were happy again.


The area we were driving into was beautiful, it reminded me of the harbour near our house, all new looking houses and apartments, all typical Spanish architecture, really beautiful. We arrive at our hotel in no time at all, and climb from the cab, there are two gentleman standing outside awaiting our arrival, it was gone midnight but no-one looked tired or put upon, they booked us in, checked our passports and put our all-inclusive bands on (they’re like hospital bracelets) they were a bronze and gold colour, Lau hated the colour I liked it, it was subtle I’d have hated a garish yellow or orange.


We were told we were in room 526 and away we went.


Our room was on the top floor and we had a junior suite – it was gorgeous, utterly gorgeous we had a huge bathroom, a double bed (2 singles pushed together) a wardrobe which separated the bedroom from the living area. A television, mini fridge, coffee table, chair and sofa, leading out onto a balcony, the balcony was beautiful a view of the stars, the mountains and the sea. Absolutely glorious.


Lau and I ran around ooh-ing and ahh-ing and taking pictures, then we got into bed and crashed out after a long day of travelling.

Thrills and Spills.

I haven’t written in ages, I’ve had a very stressful couple of weeks and a terrible case of writers block, it sucks but I think it’s starting to lift now thank goodness.



Work is iffy, I have days where I absolutely love it, and days where it just does my head in, but I think everyone feels the same about their jobs. I must say I was a very lucky girl the other day and won a Kindle E-Reader at work yesterday, that’s a big deal to me, I’ve wanted one for the last couple of years since they first came out, but couldn’t justify spending that much on a luxury item. So to find out I won one for just doing my job is pretty sweet it has to be said.


The other day I had one of those amazing nights you know, I went out on a pretty good date, had a lovely evening and the next day I went and spent some time with my nan and grandy, it was my first time seeing my grandy since his operation and he looked really good.


Nan had made me a cooked breakfast, I was utterly spoiled, as always when I see the Grandparents, I spent a couple of hours with them having catch up chats. I mentioned to my Grandy that Jared was interested in the British Royal Navy and had been trying to tell me facts about it which I had scoffed at, because both of my granddads had served in the Navy, pretty much at the same time too. Once I mentioned to Grandy that Jared was interested he got me a whole bunch of his precious pictures and lent them to me so that I could send them to Jar for him to look at. It always touches me that my granddad is so kind and selfless, he has always been that way, if he had something that I was interested in he would immediately lend or give it to me.


After an eventful and wonderful morning I head home to check on mum, because she has the beginnings of a nasty cold and I wanted to make sure she wasn’t exerting herself too much, the weather is hideously bitingly cold, but I just pull my hood up and continue on my way as I am in a happy, happy mood and nothing could bring me down. Except of course for gravity.


I am approaching my house so I shove my hand into my massive bag, rooting around for my door key, I cut across to my path, but pay no attention to where my feet are treading and I miss my path, my foot sank into the soft grass, my ankle twisted painfully and I lurched forward. I remember a time when falling used to happen in slow motion, this did not, I had no recollection of the fall at all, just that hideous sound of flesh hitting concrete solidly, my hand still in my bag couldn’t stop my fall so my face did, thankfully my massive hood was still up protecting my cheek.


I was so embarrassed I jumped up to my feet and hobbled in to the house, my light grey jeggings were wet, but thankfully not torn. My knee was throbbing as was the palm of my hand, the sort of pain you get every other day as a child, but seeing as I haven’t fallen like that since I was like eight, it was somewhat of a shock to have that pain thrown so casually and unexpectedly back at me.

As I gingerly peeled my damp and skin tight jeggings off my leg, I am not shocked at the blood, just shocked that there wasn’t more of it. My knee was swollen and bruised in three places.


I have to be honest, I didn’t deal with the sharp pain well, and I milked it for all it was worth, because lets face it, I don’t often fall, at least not without being tanked up on a whole lot of alcohol and when that happens you don’t often feel the pain until the next day.

Grandy and Nan

So today was a rough, rough day for me, but it ended pretty damn well. My grandy had to have heart surgery, I got myself so worked up I made myself pretty sick. I already have the flu and nerves just made me sick all day yesterday and today.I am very lucky though and have been blessed with wonderful supportive friends. And my grandy he's badass, I should know better than to count him out too soon.
So I thought today's blog would be a celebration of some of the best moments of Grandy and Nan, you see most people have conventional grandparents - not me. And I wouldn't change it for the world.

The Snowman

A little while ago we had some deeeeep snow, so deep in fact that it made getting in to work impossible and we got a snow day - always an exciting prospect when you're a grownup.
I remember my sister and me went out for a walk in the deep snow, we took pictures, had snowball fights, general snow based merriment. Later that night, mum phoned nan to make sure that she and grandy were ok at home, that they didn't need anything, etc, when nan told the following story.
In the spirit of snow based frivolities nan decided to go in to her back garden and build a snowman, she didn't have any winter gloves so she was wearing her bright yellow washing up gloves and she built her snowman whilst my grandad watched from the warmth of indoors. When she was done she went searching for a carrot for the snowman's nose, when she got to her fridge she realised that she didn't have any, all she had was tinned carrots. So she used a tiny limp tinned carrot for a nose. But what to do for eyes? I hear you cry.
As my nan looked for inspiration my grandad pipes up "Use dog turds!" Perhaps the most sensible advice ever uttered... What makes it worse was that my nan did. Yes that's right, the snowman with his limp carrot nose had dog turds for eyes. Looks like it'll be an chavtastic Christmas...

What have I ever done for you?!

My nan and grandy argue, kind of all the time. The funny thing is they obviously love each other, they just bitch and moan all the time, sometimes it drives you insane, and sometimes it's utterly, utterly hilarious, this argument is one of those times.
My grandy and nan were arguing about something petty, and nan listed all of the things that she had ever done for Grandy - those big romantic gestures, the deep emotional stuff etc real compelling stuff when my grandad looks at her, in full earnest anger...
"What have I ever done for you? What have I ever done for you? I've bloody kept you in t-shirts!"
Best. Line. Ever.
My nan looked at him dumbfounded and walked away, she later told us that she was holding back laughter, she had gone to her wardrobe and looked inside at all of the many, many t-shirts grandy had bought her over the years and she couldn't fault him, he had indeed bought her a lot of t-shirts...

Dropping the C-bomb

My grandad used to be in the Navy. He has travelled the world, had a woman in every port, and cursed up a storm. That being said he's a true Italian Gentleman and won't curse in front of a lady and HATES it when women swear especially when the C-bomb is dropped.
During another one of their little arguments, I remember this vividly, I'm sitting on the sofa, eating some treat that nan has lavished upon me in true nan style and nan is following grandy around chanting the c-bomb, and every single time grandy flinches as if he's been slapped. It was one of the funniest things I had ever seen but Grandy was getting cheesed and I didn't want to annoy him more so I just put my head down and snorted in to my cake crumbs.

Pole Dancing Pensioner

My nan is outrageous, I am almost one hundred percent positive it is where I get it from. My nan will always make inappropriate jokes and have fun, and I think it is awesome. The other day we were on a bus and she gets off halfway during my journey home, as we approach her stop she kisses me on the cheek, presses the bell and starts to make her way down the aisle, as she gets to the bit in the front where people can stand, she's holding the pole, the bus breaks suddenly and she pitches forward, catches herself and swings around the pole like a geriatric stripper (if she knew I'd used the term geriatric she would punch me, no word of a lie) She then bellows "woohoo, sorry driver, fancied trying my hand a pole dancing" and continues to gyrate around the pole for a moment. I am killing myself laughing at this point whilst the rest of the silver surfers stare at her in stony faced silence.

A picture perfect memory - Hazel bear and the doll house...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Wow, we've entered 2011 and I am sure that it's going to be a wonderful year, it's gotta be better than 2010, don't get me wrong, it wasn't all bad, but a lot of bad stuff did go down last year. Saying that though we get out of life what we put into it, so I'm going to be more positive and outgoing. I was looking through my old profile pictures on facebook and thought that I could reminisce with you fine people out there...

Todays picture is courtesy of my 23rd birthday party - many years ago now :D It was a costume party- the theme was toys, I went as a Living Dead Doll and my friend went as a Panda bear...

I was working at an opticians at the time, I had been there for 2 years and I was incredibly close to all of the wonderful people that I worked with. I remember when I went for the job, I thought that it was going to be a small team of uptight people and I was unsure I even wanted to work there, however the money was good and it was a 'grown up job'. I was working at a cinema at the time and the opticians had asked me to an interview, I had nothing smart enough to wear and true to form I left it until the last possible minute to think about getting interview clothes. The night before my interview I went in to Asda and bought the cheapest suit they had in the sale, it was this hideous biscuit brown skirt and jacket and it was 2 sizes too big - I looked a state, they probably gave me the job out of pity.

In my interview I had to impress not one but two people, I am confident and outgoing so I wasn't really worried about that aspect of it. The man who interviewed me was lovely, I was sure I had impressed him, he was very open, the woman however seemed not at all impressed with me, and I got the vibe that she didn't like me at all, I remember I left that interview and phoned my mum, I told her that I didn't get the job, that I had blown it. So imagine my shock when not only did I get the job, but that woman would go on to become one of my closest friends.

It's not often that you can say that your bosses are your friends too, but the opticians was an incredibly social place to work, the true definition of a team, and as such when my 23rd birthday rolled around and I threw a party I invited everyone and they all turned up - and they turned up in costume too! Hazel came as a panda bear, because she is obsessed with them, she had gone to so much effort making her costume and she looked incredible! All I remember her doing that night was going up to my friends - men that she didn't even know and groping them - she was the groping panda! There are tons of pictures of her in action. I actually think as that picture was taken she was going in for a grope of the birthday girl!

Hazel and I have so much in common it's a little strange, but it also made working for her that much easier, I knew how far I could take a joke, I would never overstep the limits and take advantage of our friendship and Haze never takes any crap from anyone anyway.

One of my favourite memories of her came from the days when I worked in the office. It was my job to answer calls, organise doctors letters etc and there was a toilet right next door to the office - not always pleasant - but at least I saw people as they went to and fro from the toilet. Because the toilet was well used and often 'odouress' we had copious amounts of air freshener.

The air freshener was usually a life saver, but someone made the grave error of buying a rose scented air freshener. It wasn't one of those that got rid of a stench, it just tarted it up. I can't tell you the amount of times I was assaulted with the revolting stench of a trussed up turd.

Hazel found my hatred for the rose scented freshener hilarious and would often tease me about it.

One day in December, I was being driven insane because not only was it freezing in our tiny office, I had the space heater on and the door closed to keep the warmth in, it was also dead, the phones weren't ringing, I was nearly all caught up with my work, I was finding myself tasks because otherwise the day drags, so I'm sitting getting absorbed in filing when I hear this strange hissing noise.

I have no idea what the hell it is, and I'm looking around our tiny office in confusion wondering what the noise is and whether it should disturb me, then just as suddenly I'm assaulted by the sickly stench of the rose air freshener, and it's so thick in the air it's burning my throat. I try to get out of the office only to find that the door is stuck!

Turns out that Hazel making the most of her lunch break had wedged the door shut and was spraying the rose air freshener through the keyhole in the door.

I'm sure that office still smells of roses three years on.