Quick Trip to the Cold UK

Well I had planned a trip to go and visit my family in the UK, I enjoy going to see everyone but I am getting more and more reluctant to go and suffer the miserable weather. I managed to get a really cheap deal for €50 return, but this actually is not good as it puts into perspective how much your paying for taxis and such to get to the airports and getting home, normally pay 40 Pounds return to get to the airport, so I cannot justify this anymore, so I decided to do it on the cheap, I caught the bus to Malaga and then the airport bus from the bus station. this was easy and very cheap, I managed to get it for about €5, the next problem with going cheap is the luggage allowance, I was wanting to bring back from the UK things i had bought on Amazon.co.uk and also some things I had left from my last trip when i was also weight limited. so I went with only a warm coat some underpants in my pocket and two pairs of socks plus a toothbrush. I made the mistake of also not taking any food for my 3 hour wait in the airport, I last about 2 hours before I went to the bar for a sandwich and an orange juice plus a chocolate bar, it cost me €13, daylight robbery, The flight was OK, they tried to sell me food and perfume and beer and finally lottery tickets to which I declined all. We left a little late and then we hit a headwind and this totally screwed up my itinerary, I missed my connecting bus to chesterfield from the East Midlands airport, I had already accepted that I may not make the bus so my backup plan was asking my brother to pick me up and stay the night, I had planned to see him anyway but this was rather cheeky but as he lives only 10 miles away. He arrived after only 20 minutes or so and we greeted each other and set off, he kept looking round and it was only later he said it was the first time he had ever picked anyone up without luggage, we went to his house and had a cup of tea and then off to bed, it was midnight by now. In the morning i was going to say hello to my sister-in-law, but she had gone to catch the bus very early so I missed her, my brother then offered to take me all the way home as he is now a retired country gentleman and has only kind things to do to fill his time, I really appreciated the lift as it saved me probably 3 hours travelling. I got to my sisters home at 10 and she was with my father getting him ready for the day, being 89 with alzheimer's disease, it is advanced but he can still function basically. So i decided to get item number 1 out of the way,

1, opening 9 months worth of mail, each year when I come back I try and ask all banks and pension companies to only mail me the critical items, not all junk. I managed this in 2 hours, shredding all the old statements.

I went down to see my dad and he looked well but I am sure he didn't recognise who I was, he also looked older which is pretty normal also. I had number 2 to deal with after dinner

2, Checking all my Amazon.com purchases had arrived and were correct, namely all the kids DVD`s were the ones i had ordered, all were present and correct, i was a happy bunny by now

In the afternoon I went to walk to my buddy's new factory which is across town, i took about 30 minutes and arrived to see him pull up in his brand new Ferrari 599, he had some good business transactions and even though he said he was done with buying his silly cars he just couldn`t refuse when the main dealer offered it to him, he is on first order listing for when new cars come into the country, he was a contractor like me until 15 years ago when he had a vision of making a go of being a dealer in instrumentation and he has been far more successful than anyone could ever imagine. He showed me around his new office and his new workshop, he had some new guys who are now building instrument panels for offshore installations.

we planned the night out and I got a lift to his house with his brother who also works in the office along with his son. we went out around 9 PM for a drinking night aorund some of the older seedier bars in Bakewell, a picturesque tourist town in the Derbyshire Dales, most of the locals are farmers and quarry workers and form a very interesting and diverse group with which to make observations of drunken behaviour, I was drinking Rum and Cokes all night as after a summer of being beerless mostly I have almost lost my taste for beer, but the run I was drinking was cheap and ugly tasting but I couldn't bare the idea of going onto beer, I should have drunk Gin & Tonics, when we got back to his house it was attacking the fridge in savage style like we always used to do and ate a lot of cheese if I remember right. I got his sons bedroom for the night as he has finally moved into his own place. In the morning I got the duty of taking some business partners to the airport in his daughters new Alfa Romeo Mio, nice but a tiny engine, I was then using the Satnav to find my buddy at his shooting event, it took some searching and after he sent out the gamekeeper with his land rover to locate me I was there, in amongst the fields and hedgerows standing behind him while he shot the crap out of semi tame birds, it was nice to be out in the fresh air and some sunshine, but I cannot see the point of this so called sport, it is much more interesting going to find rare birds than shoot hand reared and tame released birds. We all left about 6pm and I went home to find my sister and finally drink a couple of cheap beers with her at home, she seems very happy with life and enjoying a busy retirement, she is now an official pensioner but still working full time. We chatted all night long and ate and drank and I started my next important function

3, open 9 months worth of charity magazines, I am still a signed up member of 6 conservation and wildlife organisations and get all the regular mags and updates, this normally take a week to read through, this took 4 days this time, as I only had 6 days anyway.

Sunday was a lazy day, just chilling doing mail and reading my mags. Monday was a day of weighing all my items to take home on the plane as I had a cheap flight which had a hand luggage limit of 10 Kgs I was already at that limit, I was taking all the Amazon stuff plus my multimeter, I wanted to take back some clothes I had left from my previous trip but all I could do was wear them in multiple layers, OK in the UK as it was about 9-11 C only, but for Spain far too warm. In the afternoon I did my next item

4,Visit the Bank and arrange all my normal banking stuff, this can be tricky, trying to deal with your bank when travelling round the world.

Tuesday was a day of rest, but i had arranged for a meal with all the brothers and sister for the evening at a local bar restaurant, it was a nice large place on the highway out of town and as soon as you opened the door there was a large array of spit roasting chickens and I decided that was what i was going to have, it was a delicious meal and I saw my sister-in-law, she looked in the peak of health and had just returned from a holiday in Tunisia, I was very happy to have seen her as I don't get to see them very often and she has had health issues over the last few years, so I was delighted to see her looking so well.

Wednesday was travelling day, I was packing my little bag, and weighing it over and over as I didn't want to pay for excess baggage, I had booked a seat on the express bus to the airport, which left at 12.00am, my sister was going on holiday the following Sunday with my brother and so my dad was going to the local old Folks Home for 3 weeks to have someone to look after him, it was a very sad and moving thing for me as I had never seen that before, he looked lost like a little kid at his first day in school and this is something he has done many times before, the biggest problem with most old folks is they become incontinent and the smell of stale urine is always joked about but when it is your own relative it isn't funny just sad. It was full of decrepit old ladies and i felt very sad for them all, how terrible that the human body so strong to stay alive and brain is totally useless, this is evolution gone mad. I left feeling as though I would never see him again, I have even dreamed of this same thing since I got home, My sister dropped me at the bus station and we said a fond farewell until the next trip, I will be visiting more often now I am closer to the UK.

The flight was uneventful, but as I landed I turned on my phone and it rang immediately and it was My lovely China Latina, telling me we had screwed up with the car keys as she had planned to collect me, I had taken the only working car key with me, so she at the last minute had managed to find a almost non drunk Brit to drive her to the airport. So we at that moment planned to go and buy a second car key, which being chipped is very expensive. but at least it will not be with me when I leave the country again.,

A relatively manic and speedy cheap trip to the cold miserable grey old country.