Hi Y’all!
Well, life has been mental (as you can probably guess from the delay). The holiday was lovely. I have attached some photos below of where we stayed in Eqypt. The whole experience was stress free and brilliant! We got to the airport on the 11th and got a bit worried at the airport as the luggage was 2.5kg over – but the kind lady at check in just let it on without any hassle. After we had gotten a coffee and I had done a quick Blog update – the gate was announced and it was time to board! Hardly even caught my breath!
The flight ended up taking off early – meaning we landed in Egypt 20 minutes before the scheduled time. I don’t know if you have ever flown into Sharm airport – but it feels like a cattle market. The Egyptians clearly have no concept of how to organise a queue and as such we bustled this way and that, eventually getting through passport control and luggage collection to be picked up by our transfer. Once we had gotten to the hotel, we dumped stuff in the room – got changed and grabbed some dinner. The “entertainment” was a fire show, which in principal – is a great idea. In practise, it was terrible with one of the staff members wandering off in a huff halfway through and shouting at everyone. It was pretty hilarious.
I woke up on my birthday to sunshine and warmth. The view from our room (as you can see below) was lovely. The sparkling red sea and the gardens of the hotel. I had pancakes and an omelette in the warmth for my breakfast before having a lovely nap in the sun (we were up at Egypt time 6:30am – which translates to our time – 04:30am) and followed it up with a lovely lunch by the pool. Table service and good food! In the evening, we had an “a la carte” meal by the pool (which was beautiful) and the staff bought me out a cake and sang happy birthday. I would have sung too – but they firstly sang in Arabic, followed by English, followed by Italian and then back to Arabic. When we got back to the room – the cleaners had made a lovely display on the bed and written happy birthday in petals – a great day!
The rest of the holiday was wonderful too. We snorkelled, swam, met lovely people, ate our body weight in delicious food and enjoyed beer and cocktails all week. The temperature got up to nearly 40 degrees, so it was warm and relaxing.
We got back on Monday 18th to 1.5 degrees. A bit of a drop! It didn’t matter though, as we had done all the relaxing we could handle and were ready to get back to our own beds.
On the Tuesday, we had a day off (to catch up on chores) and I finally opened my birthday presents. I had some wonderful cards and presents and a really nice day with Dan. Caught up with Jo in the evening and realised how much I had missed my friends being away.
On the Wednesday and Thursday (20th – 21st) I started my Lean Practitioner course in Leamington Spa. Met people from all areas of my company and learned a lot! I’ve got to take on a huge project now – which is a bit scary – but I’m looking forward to the challenge. The venue was gorgeous (an old Georgian manor house) which is opposite a huge park. I have taken some pictures (below) of the folly and the rest of the park. I thoroughly recommend a walk around the park if you’re ever in the area!
On the Thursday (when I had gotten home), there was barely a chance to stop as I had time to shovel some stew down my neck and get changed before heading to a Flatpack Festival launch event. They had set up Great Western Arcade (a stunning old style shopping arcade in Birmingham - http://www.greatwesternarcade.
Friday was my first day back in the office. After arranging the 181 emails – blugh- I sorted out some charity event emails out to my co-workers and organised my day. It flew by – and by 3:00pm, it was time to go home. Again – not much time to chill – as we were in the car and down to the Slade Rooms (at Wolverhampton’s Little Civic venue) to watch Richard Herring’s “Talking Cock” show. So, so funny! We had a brilliant time.
Had an early night following the show as Saturday was another big day. Got up reasonably early and had to do the weekly shop and a clean, before heading out to meet our friend Clare for lunch. We were meant to be going to the Coffin works for a tour, but due to the snow and bad weather – it was cancelled. We had a lovely lunch at “The Rose Villa Tavern” before going to meet my aunt and my friend Carolyn. We went to collect them from their hotel and walked them back to ours.
We were going to go out, but due to the weather – decided to whack on the heating and stay in for the evening. It was a good choice, as we got out to the board games and had a rousing game of cranium, a few drinks and a good natter (over a lovely Thai Green curry) with Caroline, Jo, Jon, Tom, Sue and Carolyn.
Sunday was an early Start (due to the weather, the girls wanted to head off at a reasonable time), and we met the rabble at their hotel before heading out for some breakfast. After a lovely “round up” chat, we said our goodbyes and trundled off to the Cinema to watch “Jack the giant slayer.” It’s a good little British family film with plenty of action, humour, SFX and suspense. A quick trip to Tesco followed (to grab the stuff we hadn’t got on Saturday) and then it was time to clean up from Saturday and start on some dinner. Roast duck accompanied by two weeks of TV shows we had missed (Community, Walking Dead, New Girl and Archer). After we were mostly caught up, I baked a cake for today’s charity event at work (an Easter themed “bake off”) before settling down with a glass of red wine and a good film. Was tucked up in bed for 11pm – totally tuckered out.
So that’s been my fortnight. Hopefully you can forgive me for the lack of updates – but as you can see – I haven’t been resting on my laurels!
Hope you’ve stayed warm, happy and healthy while I’ve been away and enjoy the photos.
Vicky
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