Happy Easter!

What a weekend!  Friday saw Kate and I heading up to London early doors to attend a pop-up Moët Academy.  Neither of us knew what to expect, but I was going as it obviously involved champagne drinking, and she was going as she likes champagne, has a sense of adventure, a healthy budget and a kind habit of indulging my folly.  We were greeted with a glass of water which was not what I was expecting but after a 360 degree tour of the virtual vineyard for 45 minutes, the serious business of tasting began.  They first gave us Prosecco so that we could all spit it into our branded Moët buckets in disgust...  I surprised myself by not being the biggest champagne snob in there.  Other people took it really properly seriously.  I was just trying to guzzle as many free bubbles as possible before being kicked out.  With the help of a winning smile and a wink at the barman I think Kate and I possibly banked more than our fair share...  We glided giggling down in the lift as we were thrown out, hoping to find the loos on the way and wishing au revoir to our fellow connoisseurs; only to take a wrong turn and have to go back in the lift to the toilet as we had done a drunken loop and had to drift past the same people once again, feeling just a little less sophistimacated...  Fortunately as we left the building I was immediately propositioned by a tramp.  I didn't want to take up his kind offer for a drink but I think he had correctly sussed out the alcoholic capability of his proposed drinking partner if perhaps not quite the class...  Cue Kate and Nikki heading to Bubbledogs for hot dogs and more champagne.

Saturday I hopped on a train and joined my husband in Redditch for Lindsey's 40th.  Stu was picking me up at the station but I stomped straight past him as I was so convinced that he wouldn't bother getting out of the car to come and meet me - who says romance is dead after nearly ten years of marriage?!  He bought me lunch, then I reluctantly shelled out for dinner but then turned up cashless to the party, which of course was cash only.  My darling husband used to be a right tight-wad when I met him but has morphed into generosity itself, (well nearly). Grumping away he was that I didn't have the readies, until he found out it was £4.65 for a pint and a glass of wine.  Got to love a social club in the Midlands!  Suddenly I was no longer the devil incarnate and for possibly the only time in my life was a bit of a cheap date.

Good job, as today I reversed at speed into a brand new Audi.  Well done me.  I left a note on the window that said: 'Hello, I'm Nikki.  I crashed into your car; sorry.' and my phone number. What else is there to say?  A very nice, understanding gentleman left a voicemail for me whilst I was watching 'Zootropolis' at the cinema and I rang him back playing the helpless, dumb blonde (yes - it was acting, of course), and we had a very civilised and St Albans conversation about how my insurance was going to go up and never, ever come down again but ho, ho, ho as long as nobody was hurt and yes of course it could happen to ANYONE, so all was okay.  The patronising subtext was of course, 'stupid f-ing women drivers' but hey, we rode it out.  I now need to deal with the fortnight of ribbing from my husband and father of course...

Three and a half day week coming up followed by tenth wedding anniversary celebrations in Cornwall, a birthday and then two weeks off.  Not too shabby.  This Monday is showing Mondays what they should be like (car crash excepted).  Roll on tomorrow and my form's 'ISIS assembly'.  We are treading the thin and controversial line to get a powerful message across. What could possibly go wrong with an ethnically diverse, dramatically challenged, 'interesting' Year 7 form led by a possibly slightly hungover, dangerous reverser of a form tutor?  I'll let you know... ;-)  

Super Saturdays

I had 11 hours sleep last night.  It was utter bliss.  I awoke briefly at 9.30am as Stu left the bed and Zak entered it.  I soon ejected Zak when I realised that he can't jump on an IPad game without kicking his legs.  I guess it is like when I put the brake on whilst sitting in the passenger seat of Stu's car; intrinsic.  Zak left and I dozed for a few minutes and then Sebi took his place.  This was more restful and I carried on sleeping until 10.50.  Lazy-arse-happy-Mumma.

An hour after I had breakfasted, we went out for lunch.  That is when you know it is going to be a good Saturday.  We headed into town to a fantastic burger restaurant called 'Relish'.  Parking in St. Albans can be hellish on a Saturday so when I spied a street space very near to the restaurant I yelled and Stu duly pulled into it.  The kids and I started sauntering towards 'Relish' whilst Stu went to get a ticket.  Two minutes later however, my husband was stropping about in a mood about the ridiculous parking charge and told me I should have let him park in the car park instead.  The sun was shining, I was determined to have a nice family Saturday, so I told him he was very welcome to move the car into the car park in order to save a few pennies if it was going to make him any happier. Unbelievably, he moved the car into the car park only to find out it would cost him 30p more so moved it back out onto the street again.  I said nothing as 15 minutes later we walked to the restaurant.  Nothing.  Not a thing.  I did laugh in his face a bit however...

We decided after lunch we would park near my Nana's nursing home and Stu could take the boys to the park whilst I went to see her for a little while.  Zak legged it into the park far ahead of everyone and launched himself at a swing in ecstasy.  As he jumped on, he hadn't realised that someone before him had rolled the swing up and as he landed it unrolled leaving him hanging upside down.

'DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADDDDDDDDDDDDD!' he cried, but managed to hang upside down bat-like until Stu caught up.

I spent an interesting half an hour or so with Nana where the conversation wandered from reality to fantasy and back again.  When Dad spoke to her later she told him that she had had a lovely afternoon with Mary (my sister)...

I'm currently snuggled on the sofa with my biggest boy and a glass of champagne watching 'The Voice' and having our normal Saturday night discussion about the Transgender performer.  Zak being delightfully innocent, me being incredibly politically correct and Stu snorting from the end of the sofa.  Happy Saturday Night everyone!

Mamma Mia

Mothering Sunday is just coming into its own.  Stu has gone off to watch the footie, my parents have left, the boys are on the IPads and I have just opened my motherly bottle of champagne.  Bliss.

The boys were under strict instructions this morning that the way to make Mummy have a really wonderful start to Mother's Day was to not arrive in to see me before they were invited.  Good job as a 'civilised' few drinks and a dog walk last night turned into the normal Nikki-Sam carnage...

Once I had translated Zak's card this morning from: 'Smelly, not all Mothers are like you' to 'Sadly, not all Mothers are like you', we began getting on a little better.  I'm still not convinced that my original guess wasn't right.  It would have been a fair point first thing this morning too.

We had a delicious lunch at The Plough with the four of us, plus Granny and Grandad, plus a large amount of both Beaumont and Samuel Ryder students and parents.  One of the members of staff there is a parent and took the time to thank me for increasing her daughter's confidence at school.  Really lovely until she finished with the information that her daughter had asked her to find out how many glasses of wine Mrs Ward drinks with her Sunday lunch.  Not as many as she would like to under the beady eyes of students.  I remember our poor Geography teacher at STAGS being spotted once coming out of Budgens clutching a bottle of gin by a member of Year 11.  It's now the only thing she is remembered for.  I am so screwed.

Our lunch took quite a long time to arrive today as they were extraordinarily busy in there. The boys were 'STARVING' so Dad saved the day with some well timed packets of crisps. When they had finished Sebi asked how long the food would be and I said five minutes and told him to count to 300.  Which of course he did. When he was at about 265 he was eyeing me suspiciously and my parents enquired what my Plan B was if the food didn't arrive in exactly 35 seconds time.  How many packets of crisps have you got up your sleeve Grandad?

Zak had to shoot off to cricket straight after lunch so Mum, Dad, Sebi and I went home for coffee.  Grandad gave Sebi a pound and Sebi said that he now had £52.76 in his money box.  Grandad refused to take his word for it and counted it all out with Sebi sitting next to him asking me what on earth he was doing as he had told him exactly how much was in there and so he was wasting his time.  Grandad was far too overexcited to find that in fact there was only £52.74 in there and to prove Sebi wrong.  Until that is he got up to go and found he was sitting on two pence.  The look Sebi shot him was a six year old equivalent of sticking two fingers up I think...

I presented Mum with her bouquet as she left and the boys looked bemused.  'She can't drink that' quipped Zak.  You really can tell whose children they are can't you.

Happy Mother's Day lovely people!  Cheers!

Bah Humbug!

Today was a shitty day.  I'm meant to be in Norwich tonight with my dear mate Lyns, putting the world to rights and drinking champagne.  I'm not there, although there may be a glass of fizz on the go rather soon I reckon.

My weird 'eyeball eating itself' disease decided to make a reappearance last night which meant I spent another Saturday sitting in eye hospital in Stevenage today.  I did what I was told last time which was to go through A&E and get a referral to the eye unit.  A&E was a sight for sore eyes this morning, (sorry, couldn't resist), as it had been their Christmas party the night before.  They were on go-slow already before the bloke in front of me started kicking off about nothing in particular and I began to worry at 11.40 that I wouldn't get into the eye place before it shut at 12.  I did, only to be told that they were full and they wouldn't see me today and I should come back on Monday.  I very politely told the receptionist that they really would see me if he could just get a message to them with the name of my problem.  Huffing and puffing he reluctantly went round to the doctor and came back with a right cob on saying that 'luckily' I could wait and be seen.

I have managed to wear contact lenses for three days in the last four months and today I was told that I was back to square one and one three different sorts of eyedrops every hour for eternity; well, six more weeks.  I think the time may have come to possibly stop my contact lenses by post order as we have racks and racks of the things in our bathroom now.  As I am unable to drive in the dark and was not going to get to Norwich in the light my lovely weekend plans went down the toilet.

Whilst all this was going on, Stu and the boys were off Christmas tree shopping.  I joked to my Dad that I was quite glad to be in hospital if Stu was having to handle the boys plus Christmas tree plus his first go at getting it standing up straight in the stand.  Unfortunately, when I returned home it was still leaning against the front door in its netting.  Stu and I have thus far avoided any marital Christmas tree erecting disputes by a wonderful invention I found called 'tree-in-a-box'.  It pops out of its box, fully lit and decorated onto a stand in ten seconds flat.  The boys began to be a bit miffed that they couldn't actually hang anything on it though so last year I caved into it being tree-in-a-box's last stand.

I admit that I wasn't in the best mood when I returned home this afternoon.  Stu had no chance; it was never going to end well.  He took charge of tree-lifting and I made myself chief stand-screwer.  Within two minutes it was standing straight and stable in the lounge. Happy days.

'The feet are wonky', muttered my foolish husband.

'Who gives a crap; the tree is upright', replied his mutinous wife.

Taking his life in his lands, the poor, unfortunate man began unscrewing the screwed in and up-until-this-point, stable, tree.  He received a tirade of verbal abuse for the following ten minutes that he screwed, unscrewed, lifted, replaced, screwed, unscrewed, etc., etc. and yep, you've guessed it, the tree would no longer stand upright, or in fact stand in any way at all. Zak removed Sebi from the room at this point as he thought it was best for him not to be around his parents at this particular time...  To cut a long, painful and potentially divorce-inducing story short, Mummy ended up attaching the tree to the ceiling, Daddy legged it to the pub and the Angel Gabriel decided that Christmas was not worth the hassle and tried to top herself by flinging herself from the top of the tree.  Ho, ho, fucking, ho.

The kids are happy.  The tree is, as of 17.59, still standing.  I intend to drink enough champagne that my blurred vision soon becomes normal.  Man Utd. surely have some hope of beating BOURNEMOUTH at least, so I would imagine that peace and tranquility Chez Ward will soon be restored.  Could just do without the ghost of tree-in-the-box past, gloating quite so much from the attic. ;-)

Little Shop of Terrified...

I am taking a large deep breath this evening.  I have just finished my short but really rather lovely run of the school production of 'Little Shop of Horrors'.  I must admit that there have been times over the last few months where I have considered feeding myself to a giant man-eating venus flytrap but, forever the cliche, it was alright on the night in the end.

The problem with being in a department of one, plus auditioning for a show when you don't know any of the kids, and trying to squish rehearsals into a crazily short time frame; means that a newly appointed and inexperienced Head of Drama could end up rocking quietly in a darkened room wondering what on earth she has possibly let herself into.  Of course that didn't happen at any point.  Definitely not.

Fortunately, I have discovered, once again, that I am mostly surrounded by good-natured, patient, talented and resourceful individuals that aided me in a pulling a successful musical out of my bum against the odds.

My partner in crime, the Head of Music; the very talented Miss Sarah Dearn, was a gift from before I obviously managed to piss off the God of Performing Arts.  There was no competition, no bitchiness, many a hashtag and an awful lot of laughs.  Amazing when you don't know each other at all.  I'm assuming the fact she is now leaving the building is nothing to do with me arriving therefore... #coincidence  Neither of us are precious about our roles.  Quite often, Sarah would end up regrouping a tableaux whilst I was banging out the same tune on the piano for the ten millionth time.  It was a beautiful thing; although as we were finishing each other's sentences in Sainsbury's yesterday afternoon, we both agreed that maybe the time had come to part temporarily.

In a fit of panic at the beginning of October, I realised that directing, plus fulfilling all of the technical requirements single-handedly could potentially either (a) kill me; (b) make me very quickly become a single-mother or (c) mean that my children would have to send postcards to my school in order to be able to connect with their mother.  As if by magic, an unsuspecting and eager new Head of RE floated into my hemisphere and mentioned casually that he had taught some Drama at his old school and would be interested in attending a few rehearsals.  Like a predator sniffing out my prey, I casually enquired if he had had any involvement in the technical aspects of any of his previous productions. Would you believe it - he had only a keen interest in Theatrical Lighting and Sound.  Before he had a chance to say 'I was only being polite', I had cemented his name in the programme as 'Technical Director', handed him a poisoned chalice and made him responsible for the techy minions.  Job done.

I was inspired by this success and deciding that I had nothing to lose I penned an email to the entire staff asking enthusiastically if anyone was harbouring a secret desire to be a wardrobe or props mistress, set designer, hair stylist, make up artist or front of house manager.  It's amazing how an official-sounding arty title, a few well chosen words of encouragement and some kisses at the end of an email can manipulate poor, unsuspecting, kind-hearted and overworked teachers into giving up more of their time to the greater good.  I was flying high - I had the support of an incredible team and nothing could possibly go wrong!  Not unless of course, the lead performer dropped out two and a half weeks pre the opening night, but of course, that would never happen!

That happened.

Year 8 saved the day.  The 12/13 year old boy who was playing Mushnik stepped forward into the lead, and another 12/13 year old boy who wasn't involved at all, stepped in to take over his role.  The entire cast pulled together to support them and they all worked crazily for the last two weeks to make it happen.

On my knees, I was ready for the inset long weekend last weekend and celebrating with a few well-earned vinos last Thursday night.  The text arrived at about 11pm to say that Sebi had started vomiting.  My weekend of lunching at Auberge-du-Lac, dinner parties and an entire Christmas shopping day in John Lewis swiftly became a weekend of rubber gloves and carpet scrubbing, greasy hair and l'eau du sick instead.  All doable, as long as nobody else became ill.

There were various miscommunications with less favourite people during the Tech Run and Dress on Tuesday/Wednesday that I would love to detail but can't without risking being fired.  I think that I possibly managed to successfully communicated my displeasure however.  My own children at this point were catching the odd glimpse of somebody they used to call 'Mummy' first thing in the morning and last thing at night.  I nearly allowed one of my form to stick a post-it to my forehead to remind me about Sebi having to wear a costume to school one day in the week but in the end I thought it could be a little conspicuous until the end of the day, so I left it to Zak to sort it out at home.  Stu started puking Tuesday night and was banished to the spare room with orders not to use any towels or utensils without seriously sterilising them afterwards and under no circumstances to mix with either his children or his wife without the use of a surgical mask.

I realised on Wednesday that the show had taken over my life completely, when my work trousers burst during a lesson due to less exercise and more lard than usual; beautiful.  Fortunately, I started puking at about 10pm Wednesday so would fit into them again by Thursday.  Shame that Thursday was the first day of only two days of the show that had nearly killed me to produce and now I was possibly too ill to see.  I pulled my diseased and broken body into work on Thursday morning after three hours sleep.  I'm no martyr but I am a realist.  A new Head of Drama that phones in 'sick' on the morning of a show would forever, (in my eyes too, I admit it!), be labelled as a flaky knob who was unable to cope with the pressure.  No.  Way.  Fortunately by about 4pm I was better and able to eat a banana that got me through the first night.  It was amazing.  I was complete.  I had worried and worried about taking this job for months and whether I had done the right thing or not, and finally it had all come together and was absolutely worth it.  I came home, flying so high, and then my wonderful Nanny handed in her notice...

My Mum has this theory that not everything can go right at the same time.  She always said to me that in your twenties you can have two out of the three following things being great but not all three: flat, boyfriend, job.  She was right at that stage of my life and I transfer that to now.  Mum, Wife, Job.  Two out of three can be successful at a time but obviously not all together!

I picked up and carried on for Friday's production, putting this current problem out of my mind and convincing myself I would deal with it at the weekend.  (Damn it - I guess that is now then...)  My wonderful Technical Tom began to puke two hours before the show started but also soldiered on through.  Stu and Sam were there last night as Stu's Christmas party was Friday.  My wonderful parents picked the boys up from school, fed them and brought them to watch last night.  Obviously Dad wasn't going to stay - so not his bag, so I reserved three front row seats for Mum, Zak and Sebi.  I stuck my boss on the end next to Sebi as he has kids of his own and would cope, plus he was in and out sorting out front of house shizzle.  Unfortunately a more and very important Deputy came in and sat next to Sebi instead.  Now, Sebi is a delightful child but he also does a good line in death stares which unfortunately he has got from his mother.  Zoe and I were sitting in the row behind watching in trepidation to see his reaction.  He opened the dialogue with a light accidental kick to her thigh, for which she apologised, to which he gave a death stare.  Oh God.  He warmed up a little when she asked if he would hold his hand if it got scary.  By the time he had had a coughing fit and she had confiscated my bottle of water to sort him out, they were serious bezzies. 

Darling Daddy obviously had a fit of remorse/pride pre pick up and decided to arrive 30 minutes early to catch some of it.  He therefore sweet-talked my boss into slipping in and letting him through the back door so that he didn't disturb the show.  There's always one, isn't there...

Job done.  Now sleep and re-integrate myself into my poor family.  

Don't feed the plants. x

P45

Having proved myself in my performance management this week as an outstanding teacher in my new school, I had cockily invited the Head to pop in 'any time'.  Obviously any time does not mean period 5 on the Friday before half term!

My Year 11 students have worked like dogs since I arrived.  They are producing work that they could only have dreamed of six months ago; but not today.  We were having a bit of fun.  They have been stuck in a computer room for a month and will be again after half term.  Therefore when the Head arrived this afternoon it was unfortunate that one of the alpha males was dressed as a woman, a more able A grade hopeful was giving it gangster speak, the Jeremy Kyle theme tune was playing and every other word on stage happened to be 'shag'.

I was watching the horror unfold assuming that as I get on with both the Head well enough, and my Year 11s extremely well, one of them would do something to stop the carnage. Surely he would leave or they would stop and we would all make polite conversation until he respectfully WENT AWAY.  It didn't happen.  The Head stayed and watched the car crash unfold and due to a combination of nerves and exhilaration, the dreadful improvisation went on for about 10 minutes.  They'd only been devising it for 10 minutes - how could it last that long in performance?!

I couldn't decide on the spot,whether 'shag' is a word that can't be used in school drama.  I let it go once assuming that it could have been missed by our leader.  Wrongly assuming that the students wouldn't then take that as a green light to use it as often as possible for the remainder of their piece.

The correct teacher response would have been (a) stop the (already shit) drama and correct the use of possibly inappropriate language and (b) make a point of the fact that Year 11 students could have achieved so much more with the stimulus given. Unfortunately, this harassed and strung-out-newly-crowned-Head-of-Drama tried the following: (a) whooping up the crowd into a Jeremy Kyle frenzy hoping to blank out what was happening on stage and (b) sidling up to Head, WINKING (really, REALLY?!  WTF?) and saying sotto voce, 'it is so nice to have a bit of fun just before half-term, isn't it?'

He left then. ;-)

Come fly with me...

I'm struggling at the moment.  A lot.  I'm going on a long awaited holiday on Wednesday and at this current moment in time I'm not sure that I can get on the plane.  Bit odd to share it with the masses but my husband doesn't want to hear it anymore and I would like my bezzies to have a little break so a bit of public declaration is obviously what is called for?!

I used to be terrified of flying.  I'm not sure if it started as a child when I landed in Perth in a horrendous thunderstorm.  Or when we did an emergency landing in Abu Dhabi and my mother slept through it and denies all knowledge to this day.  Or possibly it was my Dad as our jumbo chugged along the runway on the edge of a cliff at Auckland airport, chuckling, 'I'm not sure we're going to make this!'

Who knows?  Anyway, what I did a lot as a child became a huge problem for me as I hit teenage years.  Julie will remember me chatting up American businessmen at the age of 15 to distract myself from take off.  Katy and Aly will have not particularly fond memories of me hanging out until the seatbelt sign went off as we went to Greece and we legged it to the back of the plane for a fag (remember those days)?  My fail safe solution to flying, (and possibly to everything ever), was always to become completely legless before getting on a plane.  In fact, Katy and Aly will again remember a trip to Skiathos in our twenties which has the most ridiculously short runway that we had to go around twice to land on on the way out.  On the way back I was worried we wouldn't make it into the air, (they were weighing our luggage - to be honest, I think there were some fat people they should have been weighing too if it was that tight), and so I downed a bottle of vodka at about 8am. That is pushing it, even for me.  The key to getting shitfaced on flights is doing it at the right moment.  There is that nasty pause between boarding the plane and the drinks trolley coming around to you, where you want to be nicely pissed but not a blithering idiot.  I've not always managed that balance so well.

I was in Turkey when September 11th happened.  Not a great combination for a fuckwit like me.  I remember talking to my Dad on a payphone and explaining, (quite rationally I thought), that I would just find a little boat and come home that way.  See you in a few weeks then.  At great expense, over a period of a number of days, he managed to talk me around to getting on the plane.  It was not pretty and I'll leave that one there.

I had a rather disastrous trip to New Zealand where my poor parents had treated Stu and I to first class flights with them.  I knew I would be scared so I responsibly went to the doctor and got a stock of valium in order to cope.  I didn't read the 'no alcohol with valium' rule however, and cheerfully popped the pills and drank the plane dry of Dom Perignon on the first leg, leaving me on a hideous and collectively painful come down from Hong Kong to Auckland.  Oops.

When I had Zak, I decided that the time had come to become a responsible adult and do something about this so that I didn't pass it down to the next generation.  I did a BA fear of flying course at Heathrow that was amazing; cost a fortune, but was worth every penny. You spend the morning with pilots finding out the mechanics of planes.  They related everything to driving which worked a treat for me, as, being such a control freak, the fact that when it sounds as if they have turned the engines off is just the same as you taking your foot off the accelerator a bit made perfect sense.  The afternoon was spent with psychotherapists who explained in detail the nature of phobias.  It was hilarious to see how many people sheepishly put their hands up to admit that they had checked the weather a million times that morning (there was a flight at the end of the day).

It worked!  It really did.  For a few years I flew without fear and looked forward to holidays without the dread associated with having to get there first.  I went to Las Vegas for Shell's hen do.  I remember as we went through a rather serious bump of turbulence over the Atlantic, Aly looking at me on that flight, and then looking again to check that I was still reading my magazine and drinking my glass of wine rather than digging my nails in to her and screaming.  I flew in a six seater jet from Luton to Exeter and was fine.  Nana was with us at the time and at the age of 90 she managed to get on with it so I thought that I probably should too.

I know nearly as much about flying now as most cabin crew.  I had Sam, (who is also normally a little bit aviophobic), in fits of laughter last night as I told her that it was so ridiculous that you were statistically more likely to be kicked to death by a donkey than die in an air crash, even if you didn't spend your life with donkeys!  It should put it into perspective.

So what's gone wrong this week?  I don't know if I'm honest.  The anxiety has crept back over the past few years, probably as the children don't keep me so distracted on the flights now that they are totally self-sufficiently plugged into IPads.  This year is worse than ever. I have been veering from insane to hysterical over the past few days, with no obvious cause. If I'm honest the suicidal pilot in March did throw me slightly into meltdown even then - I've always thought that whatever else goes wrong you can trust in the pilots!  My dear long-suffering husband deserves a medal.  He is entertaining the idea with almost a smile on his face, (although if I'm honest I think it could be him that is verging on hysteria, but possibly more silently), that we might have to chuck 3 grand down the toilet and drive to France for two weeks instead.  I'm hoping I get a grip before that happens though.

I read 'THE' fear of flying book in one sitting today.  I'm not cured.  Apparently there is a lot of mental rehearsal that needs to be done before I will be.  Something to do with memorising song lyrics.  I'm not convinced.  I'm obviously not helping myself as my immediate thought was 'what the hell use are memorised song lyrics when your plane is crashing?'  Hmmmmm.  I'm fully away that I'm my own worst enemy.  This flight anxiety is probably only a small piece in the jigsaw at the moment but it is the easiest thing to focus on.

Fingers crossed.  By that I mean, fingers crossed I actually head to the airport on Wednesday and don't go via Dover and a massive unnecessary bank loan.  I'm hoping that the public 'outing' might shame me into getting on the plane on Wednesday, rather than publishing random pictures from France without a location on.  Let's see.  I'm promising nothing but am fully aware of the cock that I will be if I don't make it to Greece.  Thanks for listening.