Tuesday 16 June 2009

Back Home

So where was I?

Ah yes at Toronto Airport, I checked myself in, seat 1A, not my favourite as I don’t like the swing tables (see VIARail) however a window seat which is always my favourite, although to be fair taking off at 23:50 (ish) means that there isn’t a huge amount visible as we fly over the Canadia.


Ambled round the airport, which is a little spread out ending up at gate C32, one news agents, where I finally purchased some maple syrup and biscuits and a couple of “restaurants” anyway I amused myself there for three hours waiting for the flight to board, reading and listening to the walkman (I thought there would be shopping possibilities in the airport).


Boarding time, and there we are, sitting at the front of the plane, still reading (no walkman until the seatbelts sign has been switched off!) and the stewardess comes round offering shampagne which was pleasant, and then we take off into the dark night. I don’t think that suspense will work, as it seems obvious that the plane landed safely!

Supper I refused as I had eaten something that was alleged to be a turkey club sandwich in the airport (it seems that the bird turkey is named after India in most other languages d’inde in French for example, OK I added the apostrophe, the joys of sitting opposite a Turkish lady J in Turkey it is called a hindi) put in my duty free order. Tip: in about 80% of cases it is cheaper on the plane than at the airport, check the brochure on your way out. And tried to get a little sleep.


Didn’t really get sleep, however I did manage to get very relaxed with my eyes closed which is better than I normally manage on an aeroplane, was dragged back to reality by the requirement to pay for the duty free, and then a couple of hours before we landed for breakfast, the options were a) Cheese Omelette, b) Herb Omelette or c) Eggs Benedict. Now this is a trickier question than it may appear, I had attempted to explain to omelette chefs in Canadia that herbs are the best thing to put in an omelette but they never had any to put in.


Digression – I never had an omelette in Canadia, I probably should have done, they looked like they might actually be omelettes, otoh I have had omelettes in the USA and they are … well not omelettes as it is understood in Europe, however I suspect that this is because of the USA “Thou shalt not eat food that has been undercooked” elf n’safety thingy. Funnily enough that sort of omelette would be ideal for herbs, to my mind in a lovely fluffy only just set omelette can tend to overwhelm them a little, for me a wild mushroom omelette is the ideal.


So in a fit of optimism I ordered the Eggs Benedict, firstly we were given five nice sized strips of fruit, the melon was gorgeous, why can I not buy melon that tastes like that? Then the eggs, well it was some sort of scrambled eggs that had been compressed into a disc on a slice of ham, on half a bit of slightly chewy bread, with some yellow gloop over the top. It was surprisingly pleasant, although I think it would have taken me to guess five to identify it had I not already known!


Then a cup of tea, they say that tea and custard are what you miss most when you are away, and it is very true, we do have the best tea in the world, and no other country really seems to have got the hang of custard yet, the French even serve it cold! Sadly I was still on the plane. A lot of circling around Heathrow, and finally we land, a quick trot through T2, passport control and time for my T2/T3 complaint.


Why is it quicker for someone who comes from a country outside of the EU to clear UK passport control than someone who has lived in the UK all his life? I used to work with a Romanian/Peruvian/Statesian lady who would [i]ALWAYS[/i] beat me through passport control, and it gets a little frustrating.


The plus side of the wait though is that 30 seconds after I arrived at baggage handling my suitcase came out, grabbed it and then through the green channel, and on the dog to get a taxi, and as if to welcome me home it started raining :-) It was lovely being away, but sometimes it is even better to be home.


20 kilo (OK 19.8 according to the airport scales) of suitcase and one rocksack full of laptop, books, maple syrup and biscuits dragged up the stairs to my flatlet, and then a quick refresh, and off to visit the Mater. Cannot remember if I have mentioned this, however I picked up two pieces of fudge in Niagara , one Key Lime, and one raspberry and chocolate. We split the raspberry and chocolate, and I had an heavenly cup of tea. The fudge wasn’t particularly fudgey in consistency, however it did taste very nice.


Then home, and time to try to get some sleep. Pom pom pom, asleep about midnight UK time, another complaint, at the moment UK time is BST, this is [i]not[/i] the same as GMT, in fact it is one hour ahead of GMT. Awoke on Sunday with a very nasty wet cough, now I have had a dry cough for a couple of months, however it wasn’t really anything to worry about, this wet cough was also affecting my breathing. Anyway didn’t do a lot on the Sunday and went to the Doctor on Monday morning.


Not a chest infection, as the one coughing up brightly coloured gunk I begged to differ, however there we go, she didn’t want to prescribe me steroids as I have had so many for my skin (maybe I could swallow some of my creams?) so she just prescribed some asthma tablets. Went home and tried to work from home, quite unsuccessfully.


Tuesday I went into the office, still coughing like a professional, and dropped off the biscuits, and some chocolate covered blueberries that I had bought along with the duty free, did a day of trying to look through my mails, and catch up with what had been happening.


Tuesday night was up until about two coughing and breathing badly, so decided to work from home on Wednesday, had a couple of meetings, and continued trying to catch up.


Thursday and Friday were complete busts, giddy, pained, coughing, and having some issues breathing.


So on Saturday when I was finally starting to feel human again we tried the Key Lime fudge, and both agreed that it wasn’t bad, but not a flavour we would purchase.


Sunday, a little better, I managed to go out shopping, not proper shopping, just a list based type thing, although I did buy three melons and a bag of satsumas for a fiver.



In OT there had been much talk of something called “Chuck” particularly by Tummy, and I had been intrigued, so a few months ago I purchased the DVD box set of the first series, however I had never got around to watching it, I even took it to Canada with me, however I didn’t even take off the plastic wrapper. In fact I only turned on the television once in Canada , and that was to watch a bit of the baseball game before the baseball game I was going to.


Anyway whilst I was lying on my bed with my little receptacle by my side, coughing and breathing I put Chuck on the lappie, and lo, it was good. I’m not going to explain the plot, if you don’t know it then get the DVDs. However what I would say is that it has a superficial similarity to things like Ugly Betty, although it is set in a different milieu, however unlike Ugly Betty the plot strands are kept to a sensible number, and each episode near enough stands on its own merit, although you do need to have seen the first episode or intersects and suchlike wouldn’t make much sense.


In fact I so much enjoyed the first series that I ordered the second from Amazon, and on finding out that it wouldn’t be out until October, watched them on-line. The little chap gets a little less annoying in the second series, the bizarre thing watching it is that the female lead looks like Sarah Alexander, and even plays an almost identical role to Sarah Alexander in the Strangerers (really not worth watching complete tripe).

Monday back to work and suffering, today back to work and suffering less, although I seem to have some sort of bugette, as I am defo not feeling right, just not feeling that wrong.



So Canadia…


The lorries have noses, British ones don’t.


The people (or at least the ones I met) are very pleasant.


The food can be OK, just watch the menus for giveaways that the restaurant don't know what they are doing.


The scenery is gorgeous.


Toronto has big town amenities with a small town feel.


Niagara Falls are seriously amazing.

4 comments:

  1. This was fun to read. I often come home sick, or get sick after an airline flight.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I hope you're feeling a lot better by now, Starshine!

    I've never seen Chuck, though I thought the premise was interesting.

    It's nice coming home after a trip, I find. You appreciate the comfortable, everyday things just that much more.

    ReplyDelete
  3. My daughter has a history of getting sick on planes or shortly thereafter. I've told her it is all in her head.

    Never saw Chuck.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I hope you are finally feeling better!

    Regarding Passport Control: I have several friends that were British citizens and are now American citizens but still have their UK passports. They always pick the shortest line and use the appropriate passport! :D

    Regarding Lorries: My best friend from high school did her junior year at the University of Aberdeen. No one there had every heard of a girl named Laurie and they couldn't get over why she was named that!

    Traveling is fun but its always nice to come back to home base. I'd glad you had a nice trip and had THREE peep meets. You've beat me - I've only had two!

    ReplyDelete