Packers are in today

Well, it's all action stations today. The packers are currently in removing all of my possessions. This follows over a week of my packing, sorting & disposing of everything in the house. To say I'm sick of the sight of bubblewrap, cardboard and packing tape is an understatement.This evening I move into Mum and Dad's for a fortnight before catching the flights to Auckland.

I'm travelling alone as I think I've mentioned before which means that I'm only allowed 30Kgs on the plane. This wasn't going to be nearly enough so I found a courier to send 200Kgs for a sensible price. Everything else that isn't going on the plane with me, or with the courier, is being removed as I type, by the storage company. Trying to sort out what was going with the courier has taken days and days and I finally packed my last box at 2am this morning. I've had to pack my luggage already aswell, so that all that was left was for the storage company. I had visions of the guys packing away all of my undercrackers, documents, passport etc unless I moved them out of the way beforehand, so I put them into the bath! - Well it seemed a good place to put them ! Luckily everything is going to plan and the lads should be done in no time at all.

So what's happened since the last time I wrote? I've finished at work. I'm still an employee but I'm on holiday until my notice expires so I'm not going back apart from clearing my desk and saying my farewells. It's been an interesting experience working there, Management have taken the dept in a direction that won't do anybody any favours and will ultimately cost them considerably more in the pocket than it would have if the department had been taken down the correct path.



They will go down the correct path in due course, and see the benefits, but a lot of water will have passed under the bridge before they do so unfortunately.

Me and Shorty went on a ghost hunt last weekend at Alton Towers.



The building was awesome as the pictures show (These were taken around 5:30am as the mist was forming...... very eerie) but the ghosts weren't playing and it was quite possibly the quietest night we've ever had. This was a real disappointment, especially given the heights we soared to at Woodchester the last time we were out on an investigation.

I went to Paris for the day the previous weekend. I went alone as my companion pulled out of the trip that morning, which was a real shame. I still had a great day out as hopefully the pictures show. Anyway, the flights were all being delayed due to the extra security in the UK at the moment so the flight was an hour late getting into Paris but I was still at Notre Dame by 11:30.



For anybody wishing to do Paris in a day, this was my itinery. Arrive Charles De Gaulle, take the RER B train to Notre Dame, St Michel Station. Visit Notre Dame. Walk along the Seine to the Louvre. Go into the Louvre and visit the Mona Lisa and Venus De Milo amongst others (pic of the Venus De Milo below). Walk from the Louvre through Place de la Concorde and along the Champs-Elysees to the Arc De Triomphe. Go up the Arc De Triomphe (where most of these pictures were taken). Take the Metro to the Eiffel Tower, go up the Tower. Take the metro to Anvers station to visit Sacre Coeur & the village of Montmartre. Take the metro to Gare de Nord and then change lines onto the RER B to Charles De Gaulle !

I've never been to the Louvre before but it was well worth going as the place is huge and has an enormous amount of artifacts and exhibits. The star of the show is the Mona Lisa but having seen it, I'm more curious than ever as to why this is the Worlds most famous painting. Quite simply, it's smaller than you imagine, features an average looking woman against a bland background and in my opinion is a painting of very average standard for a Professional. Anyway, I can tick off "visit the Mona Lisa" on my list of things to do now that I've accomplished it.

Coming back, the flight was delayed 6 hours due to the backup of flights (is there a worse airport to be delayed in than Charles De Gaulle ?) so rather than land back at Liverpool at 10:30pm on Sunday, we landed at 4:30am on Monday !







Have a guess who was on the morning helpdesk shift which commenced at 7am ? So after getting home at 5:07am I went to bed and had only 20 mins sleep before the alarm went off and I had to get up. Doh !!



To further the story, in Paris the flight delays meant that by the evening, the EasyJet crews had all exceeded their flying hours for the day so they had to charter a plane in from Spain to take us home.The plane had a cabin pressurisation problem which meant that we couldn't fly at more than 10,000 ft so we flew from Paris to Liverpool at very low level (I've been higher in my little plane). So there you have it, a bit of an adventure, a bit of a disaster but however you look at it, not boring at all !

Things I've learned this week:-

1. Charles De Gaulle is still my least favourite airport in the World
2. The Mona Lisa is a bit rubbish really !
3. That Alton Towers ghosts need to shape up if they're to remain on the paranormal radar
4. That my entire house contents fit into an average sized van !
5. Going to work after 20 minutes sleep is not a good idea (yawn)

Must crack on, I'm sitting on my spare bed writing this and In a couple of minutes the packers will pack it (and me if I'm not careful) away so I best sign off and move PDQ !

Later peeps

John

PS Has anybody seen my slippers ??