Jet Lag, interesting books and the journey home…..

All holidays must come to an end sometime. Our visit to Whistler was fantastic….. I only managed 2 days skiing, however, the second day’s skiing was memorable, so much so, I even did a ‘phone-a-friend’. Why only 2 days? Well, the weather came in, a metre and a half of snow fell in the 2 weeks that we were there, and the visibility was poor, so me risking skiing with a dodgy knee was, well, dodgy. So, I hit the gym and the pool.

The pool ended up being my personal pool. Only once did I have company. It was really ace, free, and outside. Hmmm…. I didn’t take a picture. You might, however, be able to get a view of the Adult environment here. Over 18’s only. Bonus. Nae kids. When I swam, it was ace, I love swimming. There’s also a gym. Yup, I did the gym, rowing machine, bike, and the thingy that you sort of erm….. walk on…. erm…. and you can go backwards and forwards. It’s pretty low impact, which is what I was needing. I turned the telly on in the gym and found the ‘crime’ channel – those of you who know me, know that I am very happy with that – in particular Criminal Minds.

That was all well and good. I was happy, swimming and keeping busy, the most important thing having enough exercise to merit some wine / Ceasars. No exercise, no booze. Fair enough.

The holiday, even though I didn’t get much skiing, was more about having a ‘well deserved’ rest. OK, that’s ‘my’ opinion. I did need it. The only thing is I was gutted about was that I couldn’t ski more. I hope that in future, my knee sorts itself out enough to be able to cope with more than 2 days in a 2 week holiday.

I read some books. I have been moaning (not like me) about my lack of book reading recently. Nothing like having a good read, however, I have been aware that I have not been taking the time. One book that I read was the next in the Twilight Saga. I know it’s not to everyone’s taste, but it was a great read. Stephenie Meyer is such a writing talent, there is no doubt about it. Gobbled that up. The book Norman gave me was entertaining too. Something about Tractors… now, what was it? Oh, gotta love Google…. it was this. It was a bit of a different read, however, it was good, with a few chuckles along the way, and lots of non-subtle ‘boob’ comments. Norman really enjoyed it and Ed no doubt will also enjoy the subtle writings that are in it. It’s quite good when you are given a book that is out with your ‘normal’ reading material. I just had to finish the book to read what happened.

Then Marie arrived, she brought White Hot. Straight away I judged the book by its cover. I wanted it. Not that it looked fantastic, or the cover looked interesting, in the slightest.

You see, I have a thing about books. It needs to be a new book. Don’t ask me why, it just has to be. The difference was, Marie was reading the book and it still looked brand new. That’s good. That floats my boat. I read it, and it’s still brand new. That’s unusual for ‘American’ books, they normally fall apart on the first read. This didn’t. It has since been passed along. It’s still new.

Sometimes you need a good holiday read. This is it. White hot, descriptive, horny (in places) and so well written that you read it…. erm…. um…. in 24 hours. Great read Marie, well done girl.

So, we had a week with Jane (Ed’s cousin) and Marie (Jane’s bestest mate) and Wes, Marie’s husband. Wes puts insomnia into a totally different bracket when it comes to sleep deprivation. Wes will happily go to bed at 8pm. Dinner or no dinner. He will happily get up again at 9pm for dinner. Or not. We were not fully up to speed on Wes’ desire to sleep, whenever sleep called. After 3 days we understood. Apparently it runs in the family. How odd. Wes was down in the gym when it opened at 7am armed with a free newspaper. Coffee made in the apartment, which generally by the time we (read *lazy sods*) all got up was nearly finished or over cooked!

Where’s Wes? It’s like ‘Where’s Wally?’ only it’s easier, you can find Wes – if he was not in the gym or skiing, he’s sleeping. The last night of our holidays, Wes went to bed, then smelt dinner. He got back up ate dinner and then went back to bed for a few hours. The next morning, Wes had packed the truck and was shoving Marie out the door before I had had my second mug of black coffee. *Bye*

That’s it, the holiday is nearly over, all we have to do is get to the airport by bus. We had a bit of time leaving the apartment, so we went up to Merlin’s. We had a couple of drinks, got carried away saying cheerios and nearly missed the bus. oops.

I slept on the bus, it was just great. I hope I didn’t snore.

Little did I know that it was the only sleep I was going to get between Whistler and London, bar the 10 minutes my body wanted to have as we approached Heathrow. Great, huh? Why does your body do that? Don’t ya hate that?

In the mean time, on the way out from London to Vancouver, I had realised I had forgotten to ask for a gluten free meal. The staff on the flight made sure I filled in the appropriate form to make sure I had a suitable meal on the way home. Anyone got a pen?

So, the return flight, I was looking forward to having ‘something’ that was suitable. Little did I know the delights that were in store for me. Dinner was served just after we got on board. I wish that I had my camera handy. The only way to describe it was ‘white’. I was given boiled chicken, boiled rice, boiled veg, and the only bit that wasn’t white was 3 carrots (orange). Nice. (Not).

The other bit of colour involved a bit of fruit salad, another version of white…. melon. A bit of more melon, and I thing if I remember correctly a grape. One of. Instead of bread I was given a rice cake. They could at least of given me some Marmite Rice Cakes. They didn’t even give me butter – that might have made it slightly more interesting. My ‘white’ dinner was very disappointing. At this point, Ed’s right arm was looking very tasty.

If that wasn’t bad enough, I discovered that my ‘telly’ didn’t work. 4 calls for the flight attendants and 4 resets didn’t sort it. No entertainment and a stomach that was grumbling like an HGV rumbling through the Clyde Tunnel. Not good.

Ed watched the Harry Potter film…. I think he enjoyed it.

Ed, being chivalrous offered me his seat. He fell asleep – most unlike Ed to sleep on a flight! I watched The King’s Speech, wow. Fantastic. I have to say, the rest of the plane was sound asleep, and I had a ‘don’t care’ laugh out loud moment or 3. No wonder they won numerous Oscar’s for that. Brilliant. I would have remembered the other film I watched had I had enough food to remember it. I was still awake after 4 hours of flight…. after 8 hours, I was still awake. Ed had been asleep for 4 of them (lucky b@stard).

It’s ok, we had another meal on the way. How bad could it be? Surely, it couldn’t be as ‘white’ as the first one? Nope, it had a bit of pink. Oh joy.

A rice cake (again) cut in half, with a slice of ham stuck in it – WHAT, NO BUTTER?????

The thing is, it had been under refrigeration, so the rice cake was soggy. I pulled out the ham and ate that. More white fruit. Ed gave me his yoghurt. I think he knew that I was going to start nibbling on his arm again. I can’t remember being that hungry on a flight. It was really poor food. I got to fill in another form about the entertainment system, so I took the opportunity to have a good whine about the white food.

Give British Airways their due, I got an email from them which I suppose is something. What was something else, they have offered me a £30 voucher for their online shop. I can’t decide to accept it or make it really, really clear to them just how awful their food was. What do you think?

In the meantime, Waggamama at Heathrow was a priority. Filled my face with a noodle (rice variety) dish. Phew. Good food there, I have to say!

Getting home after a long haul flight can have it’s issues. Trying to get your sleep pattern back to normal is challenging, however, this time I cracked it. Bed by 9pm two nights in a row. Slept for hours, right through to 7am, nae jet lag! Woopee! The only thing that was maybe a bit of a give away was falling asleep on the sofa after dinner two nights in a row. It’s been a week of early nights! That might have something to do with being back at work though!

Now, when is our next holiday?