Another trip to FRANCE?!

The bag is half packed and I've just settled down to watch a recording of "First Dates". A text arrives from the airline "Your fight [flight number] has been cancelled. Please follow this link for a refund or to rebook". With less than 24 hours before I was meant to be in France, it looked like the whole trip was cancelled.

A frantic phone call to Megan followed. Unlike me, she doesn't worry unnecessarily when things like this happen and within a few minutes, had booked us onto the next flight which left a day later. We texted our aunt to arrange being picked up a day later than planned and were then left with a day and a half of unplanned time off in London.

After a bit of searching using a well known search engine, we decided to go to Eltham Palace on the day when we were meant to be flying out. We got lucky and the weather was good. Entry to the house included a free audio/interactive tour which provided some interesting facts about it all.

As we were flying out from Luton, I stayed over with Megan in Earlsfield ready to get the night bus to Victoria at 2am the next morning. After watching every comedy available on BBC iPlayer and a tense game of Trivial Persuit, we gave up and allowed ourselves two hours of sleep. Probably not the best move when we had to get up again.

I've never flown from Luton before and it definitely wasn't the nicest airport I've been to. That was until we got to Nimes at the other end and had to queue on the tarmac of the airport to get through French immigration. Meanwhile, our plane was already loading luggage and letting the return journey passengers back on.

We stayed with our aunt in Arles. We had originally hoped for some sunshine but sadly it rained for all of the two days we were there. Despite this, we had a fun trip to Avignon where we saw the famous bridge and Palais des Papes (excuse the French). We also had fun exploring the Roman architecture and small streets of Arles. Maybe next time we go, it won't rain so much. Here's some fun pictures to fill up the rest of this entry because I've run out of things to say:

"It's about time you wrote another blog entry"

Bowing to "popular" demand, it's probably time for another entry. A few things have happened since I got back from Malaysia so I'll try and make it interesting.

The big thing is that I've now moved out of the flat I was sharing with a friend and back in with my parents. Although my flatmate found another job, it didn't pay enough for her to afford to stay and I couldn't afford to stay on my own. After ten odd years of flat/house shares, I wasn't sure I could handle any more randoms with questionable living habits. At my age (late 20s), it's a bit of a change to make. Hopefully, it won't be too long term and it means I can save up with a view to making an escape to a place of my own.

Don't worry, I have also done some (less far flung) travel to balance out my failure to be an adult.

Croydon 
Actually Selsdon - a suburb of Croydon but nobody has heard of there so Croydon will do. I went there for the periodic work annual conference. Two days of talks, awkward videos and group discussions about improving strategies and developing new ideas to become a better company. To make up for this, there was a dinner on the first evening featuring a large amount of wine and a cheesy disco.

Dorchester
Another work trip including a very long train journey. On the way there, someone started a fight on the train causing the journey to take three hours, I was incredibly bored by the time I actually reached Dorchester. I also found myself there on one of the first hot days of the year but unable to enjoy it fully. I did get time to have a wander around the town and establish that nowadays there is a little bit more to do in an evening - even a cinema.

Bognor Regis
A couple of road trips down to West Sussex's best kept secret - an amazing crazy golf course. I even managed my record lowest score of 44 and rang the bell for a free game next time I'm there. The main purpose of the visits was actually to visit my Gran and on both occasions, there was nice, sunny weather so we could take her out for a walk along the promenade.

Central London
To celebrate reaching my late twenties, I had a day off for my birthday. My policy is that I should do my best to never work on my actual birthday and so far, I have successfully stuck to this policy. This year, I went up to central London with my Mum to have a touristy day on the river boat tour. Not the crazy hardcore party antics most people my age get up to but it turned out to be pretty good.

We caught the boat from Westminster Pier and joined a trip to Greenwich. On the way we had one of the crew provide a "quirky" commentary about the various sights of London. For example, "did you know that Big Ben was named after the Clerk of Works in charge of building the Houses of Parliament? His name was Ben and he was 5ft tall. He was also 5ft wide so many people thought he looked like a bell. As a token of appreciation, they named the bell after him". Who knows whether that is true...  We had a spot of lunch by the Cutty Sark in Greenwich before joining another boat for the journey back to Westminster with more or less the same "quirky" commentary in reverse. 

Tower Bridge

The Cutty Sark

Celebratory sparkling wine

I have also relaunched my fatty to fitty campaign. Over the last couple of years, I let my fitness slide a little bit so I decided to use moving in with my parents as a motivation to change that. I started by cycling to and from work every day, regardless of weather. A minimum of 2 miles each way but I've tried to go longer routes on the way home or cycle up some more hills to improve my slightly poor lung capacity. In a week's time, I'm taking part in a ride into and around Central London (part of the Prudential Free Cycle event) which will put all this to the test. Perhaps I will write an update after that to let you know how I got on.

Driving me crazy, 2012

Following my last driving related post back in 2010, I would like to announce that I passed my driving test first time on 8th November 2011. With two minors. Clearly the many driving disasters along the way were worth the trouble.

When I finally did pass my test, my Dad provided me with the following advice: "now you have passed your test, the learning really begins".  At the time, I thought this was all a little patronising and was not really sure I could handle traumatic driving experiences all by myself.

Fortunately, in the nine months since I have passed I have not had any major incidents. I had visions of dramatic crashes, particularly on the first occasion I went on the motorway. Then again, I'm not sure any sane people decide that the M25 is the best motorway to start with.

Embarrassingly, I have had a couple of minor incidents. On one occasion, I was trying to reverse out of a parking space and knocked my wing mirror off by clipping it on a metal post. Stylish. On another occasion, I was trying to manouvre out of a tight space in an underground car park and ended up getting a bit too friendly with a van. Leaving a dent along the side of my car and the van completely unharmed. Luckily, my Dad has helped me fix these problems and make my car look less battered. He has fixed my wing mirror and beaten out the dent I put in the car. Perhaps his original post test comment wasn't quite as patronising as I orginally thought?

I'm planning a road trip down to Plymouth with my sister on Friday. I'm going to add an update on that trip once I get back with a view to using this blog more frequently from now on.




Demonstrating my driving skills by not moving in a car park and letting Colin the Cat take all the credit...