Who we be
Dopey - 39 (but 40 whilst we are away)
Grumpy - 39 (and still 39, so there)
Getting There.
Cases packed, tickets, money and passport all ready. Everything that should be plucked, waxed, trimmed, teased, moisturised and toned is and I am set to go. People may remark on my well turned ankle and I am confident that my left ankle (and strangely my right elbow) are looking particularly fine. My right ankle (and my left elbow) maintain the current high standard.
Dopeys colleague very kindly agreed to drive us to the airport and we set off at about 1645, have a mirthful journey, and arrive at the airport at 1750. This is our first time using twilight check-in and we are delighted to be all done by 1810. We poottle around the airport for a bit wondering what to eat and where. Eventually Dopey say that he wants to see Corrie so we go and get the bus to the Travelodge as this is where we booked a room (it‘s not like we just wanted to see it). We’d looked at various hotels and decided that as Travelodge we going to charge us £39 for a family room it beat all the competitors into a cocked hat (well the nearest competitor was more than twice as much money and we figured that we were just going to sleep there anyway - I also know too much about some of the longer term residents at some of the nicer hotels - so it‘s not worth splashing out…ooh eerrr). Fortunately there is a bus ready to take us to the hotel which is, their website assures us, under a mile from Gatwick. Well it may be a mile as the crow flies but not the way the bus drives. It takes us about 25 minutes of driving through industrial estates. However something very strange happens in my head. I’m on a bus, it’s dark outside and I know that I’m on holiday. My mind plays tricks on me and it seems very like Florida. I disrobe and put on my teeny speedos, causing gasps at my honed, toned torso. It feels like the holiday has started. We arrive and check in quickly and have enough time to eat in their illustrious restaurant. Not an experience we will be repeating. Having laughed myself sick at the prices we decided to not eat ourselves sick on the content and pick and poke at the food like a supermodel in a kebab shop. Back to the room for Corrie, The Pride of Britain Awards (something else vomit inducing) and eating of the snacks we bought at the airport, ’just in case’. We discover that our room is quite near a runway and seemingly some kind of plant device humming electrically all night. Earlyish night only occasionally disturbed by common people having a high old time getting into their rooms. Maybe they’re pontificating about my chiselled cheekbones (word will have got round that I am resident).
Day 1 Proper.
We wake up at 8. Hurrah. This means we won’t be half as tired as we usually are when we get to Florida and can go out and whoop at things. Our bus to the airport leaves the hotel at 910 and we have a hilarious driver who keeps everybody entertained for the journey. We arrive at the airport and join the very long queue to get through security. They send us upstairs and we are through in 20 minutes. We decide that we really like this twilight check-in lark and staying at a hotel (even though we live about 15 miles from Gatwick). We then bound over to Garfunkels for the Compulsory Overpriced Breakfast to find they’ve changed the menu and we can eat quite reasonably and only have to promise our first born and our souls. (I leave the waiting staff a signed photograph. They were clearly too shy to ask for one but it was all too clear).
It’s soon time to board our flight (leaving about 45 minutes late). Despite having pre-booked our seats and having them confirmed when we booked in we find we have been moved, ’possibly to let a family be together’, and are sitting by the doors. I always thought that they had to check that you were physically fit before placing you there…nobody asked us. Anyway we understand if it’s for a family. Dopey likes the seats. I don’t. We have a quiet man beside us. He plane takes off…with nobody in our pre-booked seats. People are moved there later because their screens don’t work. Not a family. I suspect they moved us so that more people would have the opportunity to view my remarkable visage. I did hear some gasps of admiration, though some made excuses about fantastic cloud formations. We know what was going on really, don’t we. (I was still wearing those speedos).
I don’t travel well on planes. There’s something about sitting in a large metallic tube hurtling though the sky at altitude and speed that I just don’t like, and I can’t settle or concentrate. Dopey watches Spiderman 3, Shrek 3 and something called Knocked Up. I read my book, a couple of magazines and watch Tobey Maguire gurn his way through the villain-heavy Spidey film. I quite like him usually. very good in Pleasantville, but just found him cringeworthy in this. I thought that he got the geekiness of Peter Parker well in the earlier films. They were also showing Pirates of the Caribbean 3 on the plane. What is it with film studios? Have they lost the idea of making a good film and then making another film about something else? I’ve never seen Citizen Kane 3 or Brief Encounter 4. I spend the remainder of the journey pondering imponderables. Why do people let their children thunder up and down the plane? This leads to, what would happen if everybody on the plane jumped up at the same time? Would the impact of the collective landing result in disaster? I decide that I won’t ask everybody on the plane to join in this experiment with me. I then compile a list of people I would like to be on a plane when this experiment is carried out. Sharon Osbourne and her family/coven feature heavily. The nice quiet man next to me decides to strike up a conversation about 3 minutes before landing. Odd. I mean it’s better than having someone drone on for hours when you clearly have nothing in common. “I'm sorry, would you mind desisting from conversation. I have some very important tutting at the parents of unruly children to do. Thank you”. Anyway he did seem a very nice man on our brief acquaintance. Maybe he was a particularly timid tabloid journalist whose job was on the line and had been placed next to me to see what I ate and count how many times I breathed (it'd be a scoop). Perchance a half eaten cheese cracker is subject to a bidding war on ebay. I just don't know.
We land and only have a short wait at immigration grab our cases and get on the shuttle with them and are at the bus within 35 minutes of landing. Result.
Usually we get the bus and sit for ages waiting for everyone to get on. I had decided that as there is only about an hour between the 2 Gatwick flights arriving they always waited for the 2nd flight, hence the delay. This year we were on the later flight. I was wrong. We had an interminable wait for people. One family (mum, dad and 2 children) had misplaced a set of grandparents. How? You were all on the same plane and had to travel the same distance to the bus. You know each other so must recognise one another …how have you lost them? We wait an hour and a half on the bus before we set off. This could be a ploy by ground staff to allow them more time to come and gaze at me? Understandable but irksome.
We arrive at the hotel and check in. Our request for a ground floor room has been ignored but they manage to find one when we ask (no doubt my twinkly eyes and commanding presence helped). Despite our intention to get out-and-about as soon as we get there we realise that it’s almost 2030 so go to the food court and use a couple of counter service credits (we are on the dining plan) for a turkey and mash dinner, before retiring to our room to watch the Golden Girls, the Nanny (imagine the Sound of Music gone horribly wrong) before falling to sleep.
Tomorrow we shall do what all red blooded males do on holiday. Shop.
Dopey - 39 (but 40 whilst we are away)
Grumpy - 39 (and still 39, so there)
Getting There.
Cases packed, tickets, money and passport all ready. Everything that should be plucked, waxed, trimmed, teased, moisturised and toned is and I am set to go. People may remark on my well turned ankle and I am confident that my left ankle (and strangely my right elbow) are looking particularly fine. My right ankle (and my left elbow) maintain the current high standard.
Dopeys colleague very kindly agreed to drive us to the airport and we set off at about 1645, have a mirthful journey, and arrive at the airport at 1750. This is our first time using twilight check-in and we are delighted to be all done by 1810. We poottle around the airport for a bit wondering what to eat and where. Eventually Dopey say that he wants to see Corrie so we go and get the bus to the Travelodge as this is where we booked a room (it‘s not like we just wanted to see it). We’d looked at various hotels and decided that as Travelodge we going to charge us £39 for a family room it beat all the competitors into a cocked hat (well the nearest competitor was more than twice as much money and we figured that we were just going to sleep there anyway - I also know too much about some of the longer term residents at some of the nicer hotels - so it‘s not worth splashing out…ooh eerrr). Fortunately there is a bus ready to take us to the hotel which is, their website assures us, under a mile from Gatwick. Well it may be a mile as the crow flies but not the way the bus drives. It takes us about 25 minutes of driving through industrial estates. However something very strange happens in my head. I’m on a bus, it’s dark outside and I know that I’m on holiday. My mind plays tricks on me and it seems very like Florida. I disrobe and put on my teeny speedos, causing gasps at my honed, toned torso. It feels like the holiday has started. We arrive and check in quickly and have enough time to eat in their illustrious restaurant. Not an experience we will be repeating. Having laughed myself sick at the prices we decided to not eat ourselves sick on the content and pick and poke at the food like a supermodel in a kebab shop. Back to the room for Corrie, The Pride of Britain Awards (something else vomit inducing) and eating of the snacks we bought at the airport, ’just in case’. We discover that our room is quite near a runway and seemingly some kind of plant device humming electrically all night. Earlyish night only occasionally disturbed by common people having a high old time getting into their rooms. Maybe they’re pontificating about my chiselled cheekbones (word will have got round that I am resident).
Day 1 Proper.
We wake up at 8. Hurrah. This means we won’t be half as tired as we usually are when we get to Florida and can go out and whoop at things. Our bus to the airport leaves the hotel at 910 and we have a hilarious driver who keeps everybody entertained for the journey. We arrive at the airport and join the very long queue to get through security. They send us upstairs and we are through in 20 minutes. We decide that we really like this twilight check-in lark and staying at a hotel (even though we live about 15 miles from Gatwick). We then bound over to Garfunkels for the Compulsory Overpriced Breakfast to find they’ve changed the menu and we can eat quite reasonably and only have to promise our first born and our souls. (I leave the waiting staff a signed photograph. They were clearly too shy to ask for one but it was all too clear).
It’s soon time to board our flight (leaving about 45 minutes late). Despite having pre-booked our seats and having them confirmed when we booked in we find we have been moved, ’possibly to let a family be together’, and are sitting by the doors. I always thought that they had to check that you were physically fit before placing you there…nobody asked us. Anyway we understand if it’s for a family. Dopey likes the seats. I don’t. We have a quiet man beside us. He plane takes off…with nobody in our pre-booked seats. People are moved there later because their screens don’t work. Not a family. I suspect they moved us so that more people would have the opportunity to view my remarkable visage. I did hear some gasps of admiration, though some made excuses about fantastic cloud formations. We know what was going on really, don’t we. (I was still wearing those speedos).
I don’t travel well on planes. There’s something about sitting in a large metallic tube hurtling though the sky at altitude and speed that I just don’t like, and I can’t settle or concentrate. Dopey watches Spiderman 3, Shrek 3 and something called Knocked Up. I read my book, a couple of magazines and watch Tobey Maguire gurn his way through the villain-heavy Spidey film. I quite like him usually. very good in Pleasantville, but just found him cringeworthy in this. I thought that he got the geekiness of Peter Parker well in the earlier films. They were also showing Pirates of the Caribbean 3 on the plane. What is it with film studios? Have they lost the idea of making a good film and then making another film about something else? I’ve never seen Citizen Kane 3 or Brief Encounter 4. I spend the remainder of the journey pondering imponderables. Why do people let their children thunder up and down the plane? This leads to, what would happen if everybody on the plane jumped up at the same time? Would the impact of the collective landing result in disaster? I decide that I won’t ask everybody on the plane to join in this experiment with me. I then compile a list of people I would like to be on a plane when this experiment is carried out. Sharon Osbourne and her family/coven feature heavily. The nice quiet man next to me decides to strike up a conversation about 3 minutes before landing. Odd. I mean it’s better than having someone drone on for hours when you clearly have nothing in common. “I'm sorry, would you mind desisting from conversation. I have some very important tutting at the parents of unruly children to do. Thank you”. Anyway he did seem a very nice man on our brief acquaintance. Maybe he was a particularly timid tabloid journalist whose job was on the line and had been placed next to me to see what I ate and count how many times I breathed (it'd be a scoop). Perchance a half eaten cheese cracker is subject to a bidding war on ebay. I just don't know.
We land and only have a short wait at immigration grab our cases and get on the shuttle with them and are at the bus within 35 minutes of landing. Result.
Usually we get the bus and sit for ages waiting for everyone to get on. I had decided that as there is only about an hour between the 2 Gatwick flights arriving they always waited for the 2nd flight, hence the delay. This year we were on the later flight. I was wrong. We had an interminable wait for people. One family (mum, dad and 2 children) had misplaced a set of grandparents. How? You were all on the same plane and had to travel the same distance to the bus. You know each other so must recognise one another …how have you lost them? We wait an hour and a half on the bus before we set off. This could be a ploy by ground staff to allow them more time to come and gaze at me? Understandable but irksome.
We arrive at the hotel and check in. Our request for a ground floor room has been ignored but they manage to find one when we ask (no doubt my twinkly eyes and commanding presence helped). Despite our intention to get out-and-about as soon as we get there we realise that it’s almost 2030 so go to the food court and use a couple of counter service credits (we are on the dining plan) for a turkey and mash dinner, before retiring to our room to watch the Golden Girls, the Nanny (imagine the Sound of Music gone horribly wrong) before falling to sleep.
Tomorrow we shall do what all red blooded males do on holiday. Shop.