Categories: uncategorized
Date: 19 February 2006 21:33:10
I have decided to post the bad news first, so that I can go to bed remembering the good news only ;)
Mind you, one bit of good news is that we caught the 7.50 ferry and I made it to the health spa having missed only 20 minutes of my first day. Not too bad at all. And so far the only missing items from the Smudgelets' belongings seem to be the cameras which they successfully left in Ferijen's car. Typical.
Remember the story of the princess and the pea? Well, in the luxurious mattressy heaven of two days at a health spa it wasn't a pea that got me, it was a fish bone. Why do I always fall foul of fish bones? The meal was so scrumptious - so utterly scrumptious. I mean, I'd rather the carrots had been a little more cooked - too many vitamins still in them for my liking - but when I felt something hard against my tongue I decided it was just a bit of al dente carrot as the seabass had been so lovingly prepared that there couldn't possibly have been a bone in it. There couldn't possibly. Surely? And besides, the apple strudel seemed to push it down if there was anything in my throat. Didn't it? Oh no, it didn't. Cue rapid exit from the dining room, leaving my coffee steaming by the side of my abandoned plate. I couldn't find the toilets in the main part of the building at all and certainly wasn't in a position to enquire without depositing the entire contents of my meal on the pristine plush carpet, so it was a mad dash along the corridor and up the stairs to my room. Blooming key cards, how on earth do you get those doors open in an emergency? But I made it... well, at least as far as the waste paper bin! And the manager did send up a massive bottle of beautiful mineral water with the cleaner who came to rectify the damage. It decided me on whether I wanted another swim before bed or not... but sadly it's left me with a rather scratched back of the throat.
At the travelodge the next evening I was racking my brain to remember what it was I didn't like about having a bath in the en suites in travelodges. I thought it was that there was insufficient hot water, but when I turned the tap on the temperature was absolutely perfect. I filled the bath and decided to pretend I was still at the spa by adding a dollop of the very expensive bubble bath I had purchased there. The room filled with a delightful aroma as the bubbles accumulated on the surface of the deliciously warm water. I stepped daintily in... and suddenly remembered WHY I hated travelodge ensuites. Sitting in the bath, I found myself folded up like a tree frog - legs crossed, arms pinned by my sides and my head bent forward to contemplate my navel as the bath was woefully too short.... and sitting in water which came only half way up my body as it was only half as deep as a normal bath. Wedged in amongst the bubbles, I suddenly remembered another drawback of these miniscule baths - the plug was miniscule too, but the plughole somehow wasn't. So the sound of running water wasn't the overflow, it was the main plughole... the water was simply running away down the drain. So within minutes I found myself in a tiny puddle of water, wedged in the bath, frozen, and up to my eyeballs in very expensive bubbles. Bliss!
The Church of Fools meet at Morley was fantastic and I loved almost every minute. Shame I need my sleep really. And shame my bedroom was right directly above the communal room and bar. And shame everybody else was enjoying themselves so much that they (quite rightly) forgot about the poor old lady trying to sleep upstairs, and shame the game of giant Jenga was such late-night fun too, and such a challenge when under the influence. I didn't really want to sleep, honest.
And now I'm back. And I know it. Dad is feeling fairly fit and well but is highly distressed. At the hospice on Friday he was given a letter. They all were, one at a time. It was so so badly managed, nobody talked to them about it at all. The letter informed them that, because of alterations at the hospice, their days were being cut to a maximum of one per week. Dad is losing the day he loves, the Wednesday, and will just be going on a Friday in future, the day when he hasn't yet got to know anyone. He informed me he feels so hurt by this, especially the way it was done, that he doesn't much want to go at all. It is such a mammoth kick in the teeth. Hopefully it's only a temporary measure, but goodness knows how long for. Reading between the lines there has been a lot of staff discontent too, as the alteration plans have not really taken into account the needs of the day care centre in the meantime and they have been shoved out into a corridor which is hardly sufficient for their needs. So now I am faced with the jobs of ringing to see if they can change the day back to the Wednesday and writing to complain at the way that this lifeline has been quite heartlessly cut without proper explanation... just a letter that says they can always contact social services if they need more care.
Welcome home, Smudgie. How long do you give it until that break is just a distant memory? ;)