We’re Back

And I suppose you want to know how it all went. A bloody disaster. There is no other way to describe it.

On the morning of September 25th, our taxi to the airport arrived early. That was the last piece of good fortune we had. We were at the airport by 3:30 ready for a 6:15 flight. We then learned that the flight was delayed and would not leave until 11:20. Eight bastard hours we would be hanging around the airport.

I’d been in some severe pain in the day or two before departure, so I took a brace of Dihydrocodeine Tartrate. This is powerful stuff, and it has some unpleasant side effects, but I’d calculated that we would be airborne before the drowsiness and nausea kicked in. Thanks to the delay I was still in the departure area, and at 6:30, my wife was sufficiently concerned to call for help. Enter one paramedic, who, to be fair, was only doing his job, and talked about carting me off to A & E at Wythenshawe Hospital. I may have been pissed on those pills, but I wasn’t having that, so we shouted for a pharmacist who sold me an anti-emetic to counteract the nausea of the dihydrocodeine. They left me to sleep it off.

At last we got going, and it was a comfortable flight, even though the captain warned us of turbulence over the Pyrenees. We finally hit our apartment at 4:30 in the afternoon thirteen hours after he had got to the airport. And then came the major disaster. Somewhere en route, I lost my phone.

If it had been a pay as you go, I wouldn’t have bothered, but it wasn’t. It was a contract. The resort reps could not have been more helpful. They were brilliant, but my phone didn’t show up. So I reluctantly decided to call T-Moblie and block the number. What followed turned this disaster into a full blow Irwin Allen/James Cameron production

My wife’s PAYG had about £5 credit. Rather than use that, I tried a payphone first. It cost me £2, read that again TWO POUNDS!!! Just to listen to it ringing at the other end. No one answered. I paid to hear it ringing out. So I resorted to my wife’s mobile. After numerous attempts and being cut off once, I got through, explained the situation and the operator put me through to the correct extension. Only he didn’t. He cut me off, too.

By now, the wife’s phone had no credit, so I went online and spent 10€ (about £9) trying to top it up. After the first attempt, I received a text from T-Mobile saying the top up had not been authorised by my credit card company, and I still had no credit. I tried again. Failed. Third attempt I used a different credit card. Failed. Fourth attempt I finally topped up the wife’s mobile to the tune of £40. But when I checked the credit, there was not £40 but £80 on it.

The first failed attempt hadn’t failed, it had succeeded. Who the fuck puts £80 on a PAYG mobile?

Putting that question aside, I rang them again and after an interminable wait, I finally got through and put a block on my missing mobile, and that call cost me another £9.

All up it took almost six hours and I spent £14 on mobile calls, £2 on duff payphone calls, £9 on internet charges and £80 topping up a mobile phone. Grand total: £105. Read that again, ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE POUNDS!!!! Just to block a missing phone. T-Mobile, thy name art shit in this house and your people will need to do some serious grovelling tomorrow to stop me going elsewhere.

You would think that I’d had enough punishment, wouldn’t you?  Oh no. Some bastard up there really has it in for me. The weather was some of the worst I’ve seen in Majorca as the cloud  below will demonstrate.

We had three days of rain, the nights were perishing cold and I caught a mild chest infection which will necessitate a visit to my doctor this week. The accommodation was fine, but the site was rubbish. Set in the middle of nowhere, they sold only cheap, local beer, there was nowhere to get a decent meal and no late night takeaway. To cap all that, the entertainment was the bog standard Butlins variety aimed at kids. And we all know hoe much I love children. They’re great on toast, but I couldn’t manage whole one.

When we got back to Manchester yesterday afternoon, it was pissing down (what else is new?) but I can honestly say I was never happier to see Beetham Towers from the air.