7695/20634
Deep sleep, dreaming of swimming in a warm ocean, thinking that it was great that I'd gone on that horrible skiing holiday because now my wife had to let me go somewhere hot and fun. Then the alarm went off. I was not being buffeted by waves, I was in bed, it was 3am and we hadn't yet gone on the skiing holiday. I can't work out what my dream could have meant.
The good thing about going to an airport at 3.45am (we'd hoped to get everyone out the house by 3.30am but that was a bit ambitious and unnecessary) is that the roads were pretty clear. We'd driven over 5 miles before we even encountered another occupied car and there were no holds ups anywhere. Maybe I should drive everywhere at this time. The bad thing is that you're basically still asleep and even if you aren't everyone else is, so you're almost certain to die. We beat the odds and didn't crash.
Once at the airport I couldn't remember if the service I'd booked was in the long stay or short stay car park. I assumed long stay, but the gate didn't open, so I tried to call for assistance, but instead pressed the button for a ticket. I had no choice but to go through the car park and hope we got out. I wouldn't mind but a very similar thing happened as we left Gatwick last time. I got to the barriers, but in handing my wife my phone to look to see where we should be, I had dropped the ticket. Catie could only find a blank piece of paper, which couldn't be it. I was panicking a bit by now. We weren't going to be late for the flight unless this took an hour or so, but it was frustrating. I called for assistance and no one answered. I got out of the car to search for the ticket. I couldn't find it. I tried assistance again and a bored sounding man opened the gate for me. We left the car park but I didn't know which way to go. I turned right and found myself once again heading into the long stay car park. Fucking Hell.
I took a ticket again and looked at it. It was completely blank. So we had found the original ticket and the machine was broken. I drove round again and managed to find an employee who told me where I should be. Again I had to call for assistance at the exit, but this time I got out and went the right way. Even once in the proper car park I managed to miss the ramp up and had to drive all the way round the ground floor and for a second nearly went up the exit ramp. But eventually we were in.
Surely no one is as incompetent as me. No one could be more incompetent.
Except for me. It turned out that when we got to the baggage drop that I had accidentally bought tickets with cabin baggage only. And we'd come with four other bags (though two of them were luckily small enough to count as cabin baggage). I was flying BA, but booked through
booking.com and I don't remember being asked about baggage and assumed that we'd get one proper suitcase each. Luckily the flight was full so they were letting people check in cabin baggage to go into the hold for free, but also the nice lady helping idiots work the automated system put our other bags through too and said that a lot of people didn't realise that there was a cabin baggage ticket and this happened a lot when people didn't book through BA. She didn't charge us. It could have potentially cost us £200 extra for each flight (though I have now paid online for two suitcases for the return for just £50 more). Anyway, my family didn't judge me too harshly for my rubbishness.
Having had awful slow experiences getting through security recently, I had bitten when booking parking and paid £20 for us all to have speedy security. I'd forgotten that Gatwick had a special entrance for families (where Ernie had caused a minor security scare by sliding under the barrier last time) and also there was hardly anyone around, so our speedy security pass was useless (the man at the entrance didn't even scan it, just let us through anyway). But apart from fucking up the parking, the luggage and the security pass and not being in the Caribbean sea, I was doing everything right.
Everything else went OK. The boarding was easy and we were all sat together and though we were warned of turbulence it was pretty minor. Plus one of the cabin crew turned out to be a fan and presented me with a bottle of champagne. This kind of thing has never happened to me before and I certainly didn't deserve to be rewarded for my uselessness, but I suppose it was apt that it was a reward that I couldn't use (I am now 3 years and one day sober) and that would benefit Catie - and the kids if they feel like getting pissed on holiday. It was a nice thing to happen and made up for the 35 years of non-recognition for my comedy career!
We were travelling with friends who had booked a holiday to this skiiing resort and we just piggy-backed our way in, so we all got a cab from the airport to the resort. We had landed in Italy but were heading for France (though it was just over the border) and the drive was an hour through beautiful mountains, passing loads of history and monasteries and castles built on perilous mountain tops, before arriving in a snowy town in France.
I have done too much jigsawing, as you know, and what the jigsaw manufacturers keep quiet is that if you do too much jigsawing you get that effect where every time you close your eyes you see jigsaw pieces. You may be familiar with it from too much video game playing. It's interesting that this happens to me despite my aphantasia. I see actual images, but only ones that have been burned into my retinas. Equally though it makes everything you look at seem like a jigsaw, especially when being presented with mountain scenes that would make excellent jigsaws. I wonder if in reality we are all just in a massive jigsaw. You'd think there would be bits missing, but we're so insignificant that we are a figure in the distance that fits comfortably into one piece. It's a theory.
Don't get into jigsawing kids. It's more mind blowing than any drugs.
Of course we were exhausted by the time we got to our hotel, but it was still only early afternoon. I haven't managed to catch up on sleep since before Christmas and I was running on fumes and we still had to pick up ski equipment and find some dinner and get to bed as early as possible.
I am not going to ski again because it's horrible, but I still had to help get all the stuff for the others and lug it around - so am experiencing the worst bit of skiing without actually skiiing. And once we'd dumped all the stuff in the hotel (the locker we had didn't actually lock, but the receptionist thought it was unlikely anyone would steal anything) we went to look for a pizza, but all restaurants seemed to be closed and didn't open until 7pm (which would be too late for us- turned out they were all booked up too) and the cafes and supermarkets were very full. We managed, finally to get some cheese and waffles at a small cafe and then somehow got back to our hotel - having to corale the kids away from playing in the snow and at some point I must have fallen asleep. Though I think I might have been sleepwalking through the last couple of hours.
Why couldn't I be in the warm sea? Though that's a good jigsaw too, so that's ruined for me too now.
