Monday, August 18, 2008
Jersey Part 2
Feeling definately better this morning having got a pretty good nights sleep last night. Poor old Tim is still snoozing but then I think he was worse off than me sleep-wise so it's not surprising.
Thought I'd fill in with a few amusing/mad/annoying bits from our holiday (actually, there weren't that many annoying bits!) Just so you know who I'm talking about, we went with Tim's mum and step-dad and their adopted son Luke, Tim's sister (Sarah!) and her boyfriend Rob and Tim's mums god-daughter, Hannah. Here goes ...
- Me staggering around the duty free shop on the boat lugging 2 litres of vodka with me like I'd already had one too many was pretty funny. I was laughing at myself and my mother in law was laughing even more. If you've ever tried to duty free shop on a ferry (particularly an express one) you'll know it's impossible to walk straight. The shop is probably the worse bit of the boat as it's down at the bottom and it REALLY rolls - not good if you get travel sick but luckily I've got good sea legs.
- Luke tripping over in the restaurant at breakfast and falling face first in his mum's full English shouldn't have been funny because he upset himself. However, I've got to admit the sight of eggs, bacon, sausage etc flying everywere was very nearly too much for Rosie and I and we had to hide behind our napkins.
- The roads in Jersey are CRAZY. Firstly, the maps lie - they tell you to go down a certain road which then either doesn't exist or ends up being a dead-end (this very nearly ended up being the cause of several minii screaming matches between Tim and myself as we tried to navigate our way around). Secondly, a "B" road in Jersey wouldn't even constitute a country lane here. Several times we turned into what was supposed to be a "B" road and sat there saying "this cannot be a main road - it's only one cars width!" We ended up down one such road and, having driven a good way down it, found ourselves confronted with 2 workmen who had dug a big trench across the road which we couldn't drive across. We certainly coudn't reverse ALL the way back down the tiny road so we sat there and they scratched their heads. Then one of the men grabbed his shovel, partially filled in the trench and put a piece of wood across it so we could drive on! As we drove off Tim said "God, I hope we don't find this is a dead end and have to turn round!" *laughs*
- I mentioned the windy day in my last post but I really cannot put into words just HOW windy it was. At the same spot where Tim took the light house picture, there were some toilets that Rosie and I needed to use. I actually had problems getting out of the car because the wind was buffeting the door and then when we tried to cross the road there was a sudden HUGE gust of wind and we couldn't walk - we actually did just stand there, trying to remain upright, with our hair plastered to our faces and laughing our arses off. Thank god no cars came!!
- On one of our last nights in the hotel, we had the misfortune to have a bunch of noisy, rave music playing idiots be moved into the room above. I'm very surprised they picked that particular hotel to stay in because it just didn't seem their type being a sort of sleepy, slightly well-to-do country hotel. Anyway, they drove us nuts so Tim went and complained to reception who promptly reprimanded the "villains" amid much grovelling and apologies to Tim. The horrible people were then moved to another part of the hotel - in the room above Tim's mums!!! Bwa-ha-ha!! Ahem.
- As mentioned before, the journey home was a nightmare. We got to the ferry terminal on time and were supposed to be boarding and sailing within the hour. However, it was not to be. Firstly, there was a stonking great "slow" ferry (bound for Portsmouth) in the space where our ferry should have been and it would not go. This was due to the fact they were still trying to get their passengers on and the passengers were obviously dense and couldn't seem to navigate their way on to the ship. So, the tannoy man had to keep sending out messages - these started off firm and authorative "Please could all foot passengers, heading for Portsmouth, board the ferry now". As time passed he started to get more panicky - "This is the last and final (LAST and FINAL!) call for foot passengers to Portsmouth!" It wasn't the last and final call though because a while (a LONG while) later he came back on the tannoy, this time clearly having a full-on breakdown judging by his hysterical voice. I can't remember exactly what he said but it was words to the affect of "for the love of god, will all foot passengers for Portsmouth PLEASE get on the bloody boat NOW!" Rob, who's car we were in, said he'd go out and round them up with a pitch-fork *laughs* Anyway, that wasn't the only delay. Having finally got rid of the big ferry and ours arriving to replace it, we were then told by the boarding card office that sailing was being delayed by an hour (it ended up being nearly 2) due to "worsening weather conditions". Perfect. We left the car in the queue and fought our way through the driving rain to the terminal cafe (not surprised they're called "terminals" - you could die of terminal bordem in them), to have a revolting cup of tea and read magazines. Then we fought our way back through the rain and started to drive on to the ferry. Whilst doing this the boarding "officials" were shouting "come on! hurry up! I want to go home!!" like it was OUR fault that they were running late! UN-believable!
So, we FINALLY got home, didn't really notice the mess caused by the builders (when I get my hands on those bloody builders ......) at first and just collapsed into bed. It wasn't until the next day that I really noticed the huge stain in the middle of my hall floor, the plaster dust over EVERY surface and the total rubbish left in my entrance porch *sigh*. Got lots of cleaning to do now.
Right, I'm off now to get on with some stuff - got a HUGE pile of laundry to get through and MAYBE I should wake Tim now?......
PS - I know autumn is on it's way because last night Tim caught the first big house spider of the season. Now I'm terrified as well as being surrounded by dirt and dirty washing. Perfect.
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