One night Daniel couldn't go to sleep.
"Mummy, why do dogs bark at night?"
"I can't hear any ..."
"Mummy, why do dogs NOT bark at night?"
"I don't know. Let's just sleep."
"Mummy, I need water.
"OK."
A moment later, Daniel accidentally drops the cup on me, also flooding the sheets and his pyjama top in the process. After changing the sheets and his top, he closes his eyes again.
"Mummy, I still can't sleep. It's because my pyjama bottom... it's red and it doesn't match the top."
"OK. I'll get you a red top.
"Mummy, my back is itchy."
"Never mind that. Just go to sleep. If you sleep, you won't feel it."
A few minutes later, out of the blue:
"Mummy, when I was in your tummy, did an angel come and tell you?"
"No."
"So how did you know?"
"...."
Then again:
"Mummy, I don't want to be a person."
"What do you want to be then?
"Grass."
"Really? But what if a bunny hops along and eats you ..."
"Hmm. I want to be a double decker bus then."
"But why don't you want to be a person?
"I don't want to get artificial teeth when I grow old."
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Hard times
This year hasn't been easy.
Hellish busy and productive on one hand, but also unlucky and unsuccessful.
Still fighting with Easyjet for compensation -- and almost four months on, after tons of emails sent and forms filled in, I'm not sure how much closer I am.
In January, quite unexpectedly, boarded for a job in Jerusalem. Didn't get it.
Also in January, I attended a big brainstorming session for SR which resulted in an immediate and massive increase in my workload. And I wasn't even officially with SR at that point!
It wasn't until I finally made my move to SR in February when the enormity of the project dawned on me. It was crazy; it was way too much. Far more complex than last year, far more ambitious and, as usual, I was thrown in at the deep end. My to-do list grew longer and longer. Oftentimes I woke up in the middle of the night, remembering that I've forgotten something really important without which the next day would be a disaster. I'd end up writing entries in my mobile phone at three in the morning, setting alarms to remember things. My mind was in total overdrive.
On the positive side, I've produced the best radio ever. The conversation between kids in Kabul and Bristol was brilliant. It made a real hit everywhere, across all platforms. I was monitoring the recording in a self-op and it sent shivers down my spine. And it still does when I listen to it. Great stuff, I'm very proud of it.
On the negative side, leading SR's international content left me utterly exhausted. I burnt out and I badly needed a break at the end of March - and I still haven't had it.
The day SR was over, Chrissi arrived.
She's Noni's German exchange and she spent a week in our house.
I had been so worried -- about the condition of the bathroom, Noni's loft bed which is very close to the ceiling, the lack of space in the house, the general fuzziness of the place.
Emergency arrangements were made to draft in Piotr, our much-loved Polish handyman, to replace the floor tiles in the bathroom, many of which had been cracked. Piotr did a great job -- but said the floor under the tiles was in such a bad shape that it would need to be replaced in the summer. (And he was right: four weeks on, the first tile is already rising again.)
But back to Chrissi: I shouldn't have worried. She fitted in perfectly and loved us and the house from the word go.
It was one of those rare "stranger catapulted into your life and becomes best friend" situations.
But - and that's what keeps happening this year -- the moment something starts to go well, there is a sudden relapse.
The volcano cloud and the resulting travel chaos has stopped Noni and her fellow exchanges from returning the German girls' visit. They're still waiting to rebook. And it looks increasingly like their trip would be cancelled altogether.
But I'm running ahead. First, just as Chrissi left, the Easter hols started. It was always going to be bit tricky. I had a feeling early on that things were conspiring against my well-earned break. First of all, Non's and Dan's breaks didn't fully coincide and my leave didn't coincide with a convenient window in their busy Easter break schedules. Organising a getaway was turning into a logistical nightmare and the weather wasn't good, either. Just as I was struggling to arrange something, in between doing loads of night shifts, we had an outbreak of winter vomiting affecting three out of four in the family. That was the stuff of nightmares.
So the break-that-never-really-was was cancelled.
I'm struggling on. But I don't think I've ever been in such a state of total exhaustion.
To tackle it, two weeks ago I embarked on an ambitions running schedule. It was going very well - 50 min runs four days a week, gradually increasing speed.
I was quite pleased with my progress - and then a nasty surprise: yesterday I felt a sharp pain in my right knee. It's the kneecap, the very side of it.
Hope it goes away. Running is the thing that keeps me going.
I'm missing something. I want something big. A breakthrough of sorts. Some excitement. A nice surprise. Something to happen spontaneously. Things to work out all by themselves without me having to work so hard every step of the way - only to end up taking u-turns or finding myself back in square one.
Enough grumbling.
Hellish busy and productive on one hand, but also unlucky and unsuccessful.
Still fighting with Easyjet for compensation -- and almost four months on, after tons of emails sent and forms filled in, I'm not sure how much closer I am.
In January, quite unexpectedly, boarded for a job in Jerusalem. Didn't get it.
Also in January, I attended a big brainstorming session for SR which resulted in an immediate and massive increase in my workload. And I wasn't even officially with SR at that point!
It wasn't until I finally made my move to SR in February when the enormity of the project dawned on me. It was crazy; it was way too much. Far more complex than last year, far more ambitious and, as usual, I was thrown in at the deep end. My to-do list grew longer and longer. Oftentimes I woke up in the middle of the night, remembering that I've forgotten something really important without which the next day would be a disaster. I'd end up writing entries in my mobile phone at three in the morning, setting alarms to remember things. My mind was in total overdrive.
On the positive side, I've produced the best radio ever. The conversation between kids in Kabul and Bristol was brilliant. It made a real hit everywhere, across all platforms. I was monitoring the recording in a self-op and it sent shivers down my spine. And it still does when I listen to it. Great stuff, I'm very proud of it.
On the negative side, leading SR's international content left me utterly exhausted. I burnt out and I badly needed a break at the end of March - and I still haven't had it.
The day SR was over, Chrissi arrived.
She's Noni's German exchange and she spent a week in our house.
I had been so worried -- about the condition of the bathroom, Noni's loft bed which is very close to the ceiling, the lack of space in the house, the general fuzziness of the place.
Emergency arrangements were made to draft in Piotr, our much-loved Polish handyman, to replace the floor tiles in the bathroom, many of which had been cracked. Piotr did a great job -- but said the floor under the tiles was in such a bad shape that it would need to be replaced in the summer. (And he was right: four weeks on, the first tile is already rising again.)
But back to Chrissi: I shouldn't have worried. She fitted in perfectly and loved us and the house from the word go.
It was one of those rare "stranger catapulted into your life and becomes best friend" situations.
But - and that's what keeps happening this year -- the moment something starts to go well, there is a sudden relapse.
The volcano cloud and the resulting travel chaos has stopped Noni and her fellow exchanges from returning the German girls' visit. They're still waiting to rebook. And it looks increasingly like their trip would be cancelled altogether.
But I'm running ahead. First, just as Chrissi left, the Easter hols started. It was always going to be bit tricky. I had a feeling early on that things were conspiring against my well-earned break. First of all, Non's and Dan's breaks didn't fully coincide and my leave didn't coincide with a convenient window in their busy Easter break schedules. Organising a getaway was turning into a logistical nightmare and the weather wasn't good, either. Just as I was struggling to arrange something, in between doing loads of night shifts, we had an outbreak of winter vomiting affecting three out of four in the family. That was the stuff of nightmares.
So the break-that-never-really-was was cancelled.
I'm struggling on. But I don't think I've ever been in such a state of total exhaustion.
To tackle it, two weeks ago I embarked on an ambitions running schedule. It was going very well - 50 min runs four days a week, gradually increasing speed.
I was quite pleased with my progress - and then a nasty surprise: yesterday I felt a sharp pain in my right knee. It's the kneecap, the very side of it.
Hope it goes away. Running is the thing that keeps me going.
I'm missing something. I want something big. A breakthrough of sorts. Some excitement. A nice surprise. Something to happen spontaneously. Things to work out all by themselves without me having to work so hard every step of the way - only to end up taking u-turns or finding myself back in square one.
Enough grumbling.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Abigel
We have a new winter tradition and we love it.
For the fourth year going, Noni and I have watched the Hungarian TV series "Abigel" in the Christmas break. It's on two DVDs, with a total duration of about eight hours.
This last time we broke it up to three chunks. On the second night we found it almost impossible to stop. And that was despite the fact that we obviously knew the story very well by then.
So what's so fascinating about "Abigel" that keeps drawing us back? It's simple: a brilliant plot and loads of great characters played by the best acting talent Hungary had to offer in the eighties.
The film is a real gem - if it was not in Hungarian, it would be a blockbuster.
I see that Magda Szabo's "The Door" was received very well by critics when it was translated into English in 2006. Isn't it time for "Abigel" to be translated as well? I'd love to do it. Any interested publishers out there?
It's probably not the next Potter, but you never know. it's got the potential to be big.
For the fourth year going, Noni and I have watched the Hungarian TV series "Abigel" in the Christmas break. It's on two DVDs, with a total duration of about eight hours.
This last time we broke it up to three chunks. On the second night we found it almost impossible to stop. And that was despite the fact that we obviously knew the story very well by then.
So what's so fascinating about "Abigel" that keeps drawing us back? It's simple: a brilliant plot and loads of great characters played by the best acting talent Hungary had to offer in the eighties.
The film is a real gem - if it was not in Hungarian, it would be a blockbuster.
I see that Magda Szabo's "The Door" was received very well by critics when it was translated into English in 2006. Isn't it time for "Abigel" to be translated as well? I'd love to do it. Any interested publishers out there?
It's probably not the next Potter, but you never know. it's got the potential to be big.
Milkpan
Husband selected a nice new milkpan at Tesco's. We needed a new one because
1. after many years' of faithful service, the handle of our Ikea milkpan was now in the final stage of separation from the main body;
2. and the non-stick coating on our new Sainsbury milkpan started to peel off in day one.
So as part of his weekly big shopping event, he put into his trolley a shiny new milkpan.
As he was leaving the checkout area, he couldn't help overhearing the following conversation between his cashier and the next customer:
Next customer: "What a lovely milkpan that gentleman has bought. I'm kind o' thinkin I should run back and get one myself!"
Cashier: "Don't bother, it's awful."
Customer: "What do you mean?"
Cashier: "The handle gets so hot you will burn yourself. I bought one last week and had to bring it back straightaway."
Sometimes I kind o' think this world is going mad.
1. after many years' of faithful service, the handle of our Ikea milkpan was now in the final stage of separation from the main body;
2. and the non-stick coating on our new Sainsbury milkpan started to peel off in day one.
So as part of his weekly big shopping event, he put into his trolley a shiny new milkpan.
As he was leaving the checkout area, he couldn't help overhearing the following conversation between his cashier and the next customer:
Next customer: "What a lovely milkpan that gentleman has bought. I'm kind o' thinkin I should run back and get one myself!"
Cashier: "Don't bother, it's awful."
Customer: "What do you mean?"
Cashier: "The handle gets so hot you will burn yourself. I bought one last week and had to bring it back straightaway."
Sometimes I kind o' think this world is going mad.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Happy EasyChristmas -- without a ski lift
EasyJet has become a swearword in our family.
That's because they cancelled both our outgoing and incoming flights.
With the first cancellation, they ruined our ski break. With the second, they ruined our Christmas.
We've now more or less recovered, but we'll never, and I mean NEVER again fly EasyJet. They are useless idiots who have no consideration for their passengers. They simply shouldn't be in business.
It all started with about 2 cms of snow on Dec 18. We, along with thousands of other passengers, made it to Gatwick just fine.
We checked in and we were told to wait in the lounge while the runway was being de-iced. After two hours of waiting, things became a bit suspicious, with BA and all other airlines opening gates and flying happily in all directions, with minimum cancellations. Only Easyjet passengers were told stubbornly to "PLEASE WAIT".
It didn't bode well. And there was the added complication that Daniel was not very happy to wait in the departure lounge for four hours. Quite understandably: I had woken him up at 0345. So by then he was a bit noisy and demanding. And I was grumpy, too. Quite understandably: I had just emerged from four night shifts in a row, with an accumulated sleep deficit of over 20 hours.
Eventually we were told Easyjet was cancelling all flights in the morning. That included at least 15 flights from Gatwick North, if not more. We were ushered down long corridors to the arrivals area to reclaim our checked-in luggage that appeared on the carousels as it we had just arrived. To add insult to injury we also had to queue up for passport control. It was bizarre, not even having left the airport.
Having cleared customs, thousands of disgruntled Easyjet passengers were keen to rebook their flights at the EasyJet desk. We didn't even try. The scenes were utterly disgraceful.
Instead, we collected out car and drove home. By then, almost all the snow had melted.
Back home, I first tried to rebook the canceled flight online. No luck -- EasyJet's web site said our flights could not be transferred because they were in the past! Exactly!
Next, I tried the one-pound per minute Easyjet customer service telephone line. Couldn't get through -- the automated message I got was along the lines of "We're experiencing an unexpected volume of calls. Your waiting time would be over 30 minutes so we now have to disconnect your call."
It would raise any unfortunate traveler's blood pressure, not being able to contact an airline under these circumstances. So imagine what I felt when, a few hours later, I did get through on the phone, after a 20-odd minute wait, only to be "helped" by an Easyjet staff trying to engage in small talk -- at £1 a minute. "How interesting? How do you pronounce that name? Just our of interest, is it a Turkish name?"
I really should have resisted the temptation. But I just couldn't. I know I wasted another pound, lecturing him why a customer's nationality had absolutely no relevance to the rebooking of this flight. Ah, and geography, as well -- you would have thought Easyjet customer "helpers" are given some basic training as to where European cities are located... no, why should they be? That said idiot argued with me, unsuccessfully, that Munich was so far-a-far-away from Innsbruck that it shouldn't be considered as an alternative. So much further away than Salzburg, he said. Yes, right, why don't they teach them to use a map?
Anyway, outgoing flights were rebooked for 20 Dec.. that effectively cut our ski break to three days from five, but at that point we thought it was still worth it.
We would have never gone with it if we had known that EasyJet would also cancel our incoming flight. But there we were, Xmas Eve morning, 0830, Innsbruck airport: FLIGHT CANCELLED.
We couldn't believe our eyes. There were absolutely no weather issues at Gatwick, or Innsbruck.
We were given two options: either take a flight to Liverpool at 1335 or wait for a flight to Gatwick on Boxing Day.
In the end we chose Liverpool. Along with sixty other passengers, all of whom were convinced that Easyjet cancelled the Innsbruck to Gatwick flight because it was ony half-full. Anf they could be more or less sure that all of us would re-route to fill the insofar equally half-full Liverpool flight.
They did that to save money and maximise their profits, while blaming the weather. Utterly disgusting. Mind you, there were no words of apology on the Liverpool flight. To Easyjet, it's just business as usual.
Put simply, I wanted to go back to the hotel and do Xmas in Austria, and charge it on Easyjet or our travel insurance. But the majority of my family wanted to fly back. The kids wanted to be home for Xmas, and even I would have felt a bit guilty about calling in to say my flight had been cancelled .. I was scheduled to work on Xmas Day.
It was a total nightmare though, getting home. First, me, along with our 60 fellow sufferers, got on the two Internet terminals at Innsbruck airport to book cars from Liverpool to Gatwick. One way rentals, last minute, cost upwards of £250.
Not to mention the hassle. Picking up the car was a pain, with National's office being closed by the time we got there, my reservation being temporarily lost in the system, problems with the GPS, the child seat .. all lovely stuff, with increasingly loud screams of "NONO, WHAT'VE YOU DONE?" NOBODY WANTS TO BE YOUR FRIEND, EVER AGAIN" in the background.
I'm not much of a traditionalist, but driving down the M6 in thick fog and heavy traffic is the last thing I'd want to do on Xmas eve. Stopping at Burger King for Chicken Royale made me really, really sad. For this one day a year, I'm very happy to go with tradition: cooking a proper Xmas meal, opening presents and lighting the candles on the Xmas tree.
This last year, it was not to be: EasyJet made us celebrate EasyChristmas.
By Christmas Eve evening, I'd lost my sense of humour. Even worse, I took out all my frustration on my family when we eventually got home at 2130. It was bad: I blamed them for making the wrong decision. I really thought returning to lovely Wiesenhof would have made more sense -- we would had a much better Xmas. Ok, no presents - but lovely food, pampering in the spa, and a bit more skiing. Yes, a bit of anxiety as well about whether or not we'd be able to fly back on Boxing Day, and a bit of guilt about missing my Xmas Day shift -- but on the whole I was convinced it was the less bad option.
Instead, we were back home, utterly exhausted, late on Christmas Eve, with an awful "Xmas has been cancelled" kind of feeling. Next, Xmas Day started with husband returning rental car to Gatwick and collecting our own ... by the time he got home, there was a cab at our house, waiting to take me to work.
Eventually, we celebrated Xmas on Boxing Day. And Daniel wasn't happy with his presents!
He was so disappointed that over the next few days, he kept telling anyone who would listen, with a genuinely disturbed expression on his face "Do you know, Santa didn't bring me the present I wanted." Sympathetic adult: "What did you want?" D: "A ski lift".
That's because they cancelled both our outgoing and incoming flights.
With the first cancellation, they ruined our ski break. With the second, they ruined our Christmas.
We've now more or less recovered, but we'll never, and I mean NEVER again fly EasyJet. They are useless idiots who have no consideration for their passengers. They simply shouldn't be in business.
It all started with about 2 cms of snow on Dec 18. We, along with thousands of other passengers, made it to Gatwick just fine.
We checked in and we were told to wait in the lounge while the runway was being de-iced. After two hours of waiting, things became a bit suspicious, with BA and all other airlines opening gates and flying happily in all directions, with minimum cancellations. Only Easyjet passengers were told stubbornly to "PLEASE WAIT".
It didn't bode well. And there was the added complication that Daniel was not very happy to wait in the departure lounge for four hours. Quite understandably: I had woken him up at 0345. So by then he was a bit noisy and demanding. And I was grumpy, too. Quite understandably: I had just emerged from four night shifts in a row, with an accumulated sleep deficit of over 20 hours.
Eventually we were told Easyjet was cancelling all flights in the morning. That included at least 15 flights from Gatwick North, if not more. We were ushered down long corridors to the arrivals area to reclaim our checked-in luggage that appeared on the carousels as it we had just arrived. To add insult to injury we also had to queue up for passport control. It was bizarre, not even having left the airport.
Having cleared customs, thousands of disgruntled Easyjet passengers were keen to rebook their flights at the EasyJet desk. We didn't even try. The scenes were utterly disgraceful.
Instead, we collected out car and drove home. By then, almost all the snow had melted.
Back home, I first tried to rebook the canceled flight online. No luck -- EasyJet's web site said our flights could not be transferred because they were in the past! Exactly!
Next, I tried the one-pound per minute Easyjet customer service telephone line. Couldn't get through -- the automated message I got was along the lines of "We're experiencing an unexpected volume of calls. Your waiting time would be over 30 minutes so we now have to disconnect your call."
It would raise any unfortunate traveler's blood pressure, not being able to contact an airline under these circumstances. So imagine what I felt when, a few hours later, I did get through on the phone, after a 20-odd minute wait, only to be "helped" by an Easyjet staff trying to engage in small talk -- at £1 a minute. "How interesting? How do you pronounce that name? Just our of interest, is it a Turkish name?"
I really should have resisted the temptation. But I just couldn't. I know I wasted another pound, lecturing him why a customer's nationality had absolutely no relevance to the rebooking of this flight. Ah, and geography, as well -- you would have thought Easyjet customer "helpers" are given some basic training as to where European cities are located... no, why should they be? That said idiot argued with me, unsuccessfully, that Munich was so far-a-far-away from Innsbruck that it shouldn't be considered as an alternative. So much further away than Salzburg, he said. Yes, right, why don't they teach them to use a map?
Anyway, outgoing flights were rebooked for 20 Dec.. that effectively cut our ski break to three days from five, but at that point we thought it was still worth it.
We would have never gone with it if we had known that EasyJet would also cancel our incoming flight. But there we were, Xmas Eve morning, 0830, Innsbruck airport: FLIGHT CANCELLED.
We couldn't believe our eyes. There were absolutely no weather issues at Gatwick, or Innsbruck.
We were given two options: either take a flight to Liverpool at 1335 or wait for a flight to Gatwick on Boxing Day.
In the end we chose Liverpool. Along with sixty other passengers, all of whom were convinced that Easyjet cancelled the Innsbruck to Gatwick flight because it was ony half-full. Anf they could be more or less sure that all of us would re-route to fill the insofar equally half-full Liverpool flight.
They did that to save money and maximise their profits, while blaming the weather. Utterly disgusting. Mind you, there were no words of apology on the Liverpool flight. To Easyjet, it's just business as usual.
Put simply, I wanted to go back to the hotel and do Xmas in Austria, and charge it on Easyjet or our travel insurance. But the majority of my family wanted to fly back. The kids wanted to be home for Xmas, and even I would have felt a bit guilty about calling in to say my flight had been cancelled .. I was scheduled to work on Xmas Day.
It was a total nightmare though, getting home. First, me, along with our 60 fellow sufferers, got on the two Internet terminals at Innsbruck airport to book cars from Liverpool to Gatwick. One way rentals, last minute, cost upwards of £250.
Not to mention the hassle. Picking up the car was a pain, with National's office being closed by the time we got there, my reservation being temporarily lost in the system, problems with the GPS, the child seat .. all lovely stuff, with increasingly loud screams of "NONO, WHAT'VE YOU DONE?" NOBODY WANTS TO BE YOUR FRIEND, EVER AGAIN" in the background.
I'm not much of a traditionalist, but driving down the M6 in thick fog and heavy traffic is the last thing I'd want to do on Xmas eve. Stopping at Burger King for Chicken Royale made me really, really sad. For this one day a year, I'm very happy to go with tradition: cooking a proper Xmas meal, opening presents and lighting the candles on the Xmas tree.
This last year, it was not to be: EasyJet made us celebrate EasyChristmas.
By Christmas Eve evening, I'd lost my sense of humour. Even worse, I took out all my frustration on my family when we eventually got home at 2130. It was bad: I blamed them for making the wrong decision. I really thought returning to lovely Wiesenhof would have made more sense -- we would had a much better Xmas. Ok, no presents - but lovely food, pampering in the spa, and a bit more skiing. Yes, a bit of anxiety as well about whether or not we'd be able to fly back on Boxing Day, and a bit of guilt about missing my Xmas Day shift -- but on the whole I was convinced it was the less bad option.
Instead, we were back home, utterly exhausted, late on Christmas Eve, with an awful "Xmas has been cancelled" kind of feeling. Next, Xmas Day started with husband returning rental car to Gatwick and collecting our own ... by the time he got home, there was a cab at our house, waiting to take me to work.
Eventually, we celebrated Xmas on Boxing Day. And Daniel wasn't happy with his presents!
He was so disappointed that over the next few days, he kept telling anyone who would listen, with a genuinely disturbed expression on his face "Do you know, Santa didn't bring me the present I wanted." Sympathetic adult: "What did you want?" D: "A ski lift".
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