Oh the stupidity

Before I explain the oh so tantalising title let's see what the last days in England held...

Sheffield was fun, hanging out with Jen a bit more, seeing a large exhibition of knives and forks which Sheffield has produced for many years. Yes, that is their claim to fame. Also Michael Palin comes from there. My bus to London left from a shopping centre outside town so we went there for a while before I made my way back to London to meet Paul for yet another pub dinner.

Wednesday Paul had to work so I went to Harrods and the National Gallery. I honestly don't think I can describe Harrods. It is one of the most ostentatious, luxurious, opulent building I've been in, up there with the Vatican and Uffizi but with that nice touch of tackiness because everything is for sale. Stuck for what to get me for Christmas? Try their Under 1000 pounds section. No, really. I mean, not to buy me but they really have that section. It includes a sterling silver engraved holder for a Heinz ketchup bottle. I spent about an hour wandering around, it was hypnotic and frightening, and it made me feel quite nauseous by the end. In comparison to the shortages of what we would consider necessities in Tanzania the idea that one might want to spend 500 pounds on a Swarovski Christmas decoration was quite sickening. Still an interesting visit and they did have some rather spectacular shoes.

Then back to the National Gallery to see the wings I had missed - some of van Gogh's sunflowers and lots of other Impressionists. Very nice but not one of the better laid out galleries I've been to, lots of backtracking required and impossible to go in order of the room numbers so I don't even know why or how they were numbered!

Then dinner and drinks with Paul, a lovely last night in London. It's always sad to leave my friends but I was also really excited to get to Canada and see all my relatives!

So now the long, horrible and hopefully entertaining tale of how a smart and practical girl managed to make a really basic mistake and had to be rescued by people who love her and a few strangers as well.

Thursday was the 11th of December. Probably you knew that. Probably I knew that somewhere sub-conciously. Unfortunately conciously I thought it was the 12th. How that came about is unclear. I know that for many weeks I believed that I was flying out of London on a Thursday and that at one point my phone calendar was set to the wrong year; whether these two facts are related is not confirmed, it is all speculation. The facts which are known are that it was the 11th of December, it was a Thursday and Caitlin was at the airport three hours before her 12pm flight. Oh and, of course, her ticket was for the 12th. So after swearing in front of the lovely British Airways girl (not at her, I'm not mean, just rude and I did apologise but she just laughed and said she understood - she's British after all and they tend to think of swearing as punctuation, I'm sure she just thought it was a lot of full stops.) she asked if I wanted to see if I could get on today's flight. Everyone in Canada believed I was arriving on the 12th so to arrive a day early would be quite confusing but manageable and the alternative was taking the tube back to London, finding Paul and getting back into his flat before repeating the morning routine of up by 7 out before 8 and to the airport by 9. Not appealing. I picked get on the plane.

To their credit British Airways was great. Stand-by ticket in hand I headed to another desk to sort of register with them and get more instructions and by the time I reached the front of the queue they had decided to put me on the flight. A very full flight I found out so it was a bit of luck and some nice staff. I overheard a man in Business class saying he was lucky enough to get upgraded and I'd like to think that was thanks to me.

Now an hour before boarding and I have to contact Canada, but it's 4am there so instead I ring Peggy on my credit card (oh yeah, add to mess that cell phone battery died) and make her stay up until 1am to phone my grandparents at 7am their time to give them the good news. Plus Gatwick airport was closed so my flight, which I wasn't meant to be on, was delayed by two hours.

I did get picked up by a confused and loving Grandfather who was nice enough to only tease me incessantly since hearing the full story. He enjoyed Friday morning saying that the only thing he had to remember to do was to pick Caitlin up at the airport. It's less than I deserved for such a completely dumb thing to do so I'm content. I did consider lying to try and blame someone else but even on an 8 hour flight I couldn't figure out a believable tale I decided to give you all a nice wee laugh instead and opted for the ruefully honest tack.

Learn from me - check a calendar as you leave the house!!

So I'm here in Canada with family, it's great. Nice to not be a tourist and to just relax, can't wait to see everyone and so looking forward to Christmas. I probably won't update this as much because while Mum and Dad will be interested in how everyone is I imagine reading about what various cousins are up to is not as thrilling as being stalked in Istanbul or visiting the Louvre in Paris for the rest of you. Hope you enjoyed my tale of Karma saving my arse once more (with the help of three BA staff, one tired sister, one devoted Grandfather and a Visa card which wasn't maxed out.)