Hi everyone,
I know… I’ve been conspicuous by my absence this month, but there have been several good reasons.
First of all, it’s been my holiday/vacation month. Yay! April (or March, depending on when the Easter school holidays fall) has traditionally been when we try and go away on holiday/vacation, and this year was no exception. Hubby, youngest son, BFF and her youngest son, all headed out to Orlando for 18 days of fun and parks – a proper break from work and writing for me, and a first time in Orlando for my BFF.
Well, that was the plan… (Seriously, if you want to feel better about whatever has been getting you down lately? Read on!)
Now before I go on, I’m really not complaining! (Well, I am, but I realise that I’m lucky to be getting a vacation at all, as so many people aren’t so fortunate.) But, as you’ll discover as you read this, sometimes you start to feel as though you really weren’t meant to go on holiday at all. Some evil spirit is at work, trying to spoil it for you!
Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah. So we headed up to Heathrow on the Tuesday evening (4th) where we stayed overnight, and had a nice meal at the Honeycomb in Hounslow (great food and service, if you’re ever in the area!), before heading in for our flight on the Wednesday morning. We’d gone for an indirect flight, as apart from being considerably cheaper, we would also skip the passport queues at Orlando, which can take hours.
We headed to Detroit (because, why not?) on Delta Airlines, on what, I have to say, was a pretty turbulent flight, with headwinds of 140mph!
We landed on time and headed to our gate for the onward flight 90 minutes later, still completely unaware of any problems, only to be informed on arrival, that due to severe weather in Atlanta, our cabin crew had been stranded there due to flights being grounded. We had a plane, and we had our pilots, but no stewards/stewardesses. Great! We had no luggage, as it was stuck on the plane, and we were dressed for Orlando! It was sleeting and snowing in Detroit!
Well, anyone who tried to fly Delta that weekend will know what a disaster it turned into, with between three and four thousand flight cancellations over the following 6 days! While United and American were making headlines over mistreatment of customers, Delta’s fiasco almost went under the radar. Almost!
Firstly, I have to offer praise and thanks to a lady from Delta’s helpline (cancellation) by the name of Rose Marie. She was fantastic, and although I was on the phone to her for almost two hours, she did manage to get us on a flight on Thursday (24 hour delay), when all the passengers around me were being offered Friday and Saturday alternatives!
As for the rest of Delta’s staff, I can only speak as I saw, and most of them were rude, aggressive, and poorly trained to handle such a crisis. They failed to cancel flights when there was obviously no chance they would take off, and left families with large numbers of children completely abandoned, with no idea what was going to happen next. There was one group of a dozen or more sitting near us, who were seriously contemplating hiring a van and driving to Orlando! From Detroit! The ground staff at the airport couldn’t have cared less. It wasn’t their problem!
Many of the US passengers were ok, as they were able to get on their phones and rebook themselves onto other airlines. For the Brits like my family, it was really difficult, as with only poor Wi-Fi reception and no idea of what airlines operated out of Detroit, we were completely reliant on the Delta helpline.
The worst moment was when I saw a Delta staff member standing at the desk shouting at an American customer and her husband who were trying to board a flight to Beijing. And when I say shout, I mean SHOUT! The woman was in floods of tears and the husband appeared to be trying to shelter her from the Delta employee. I so wish I had had my phone handy to film it!
Anyway, we had to spend the night in a hotel (add cost of three hotel rooms!) and eventually got to sleep about one in the morning (or 6am UK time) after being up for 24 hours. I think I got about three hours sleep!
Before I could go to bed, I had to contact Marriott and Hertz in Orlando as a courtesy, to let them know of our delay. Marriott were absolutely fabulous, and actually refunded the cost of the night we missed with them. Hertz weren’t so fabulous (despite the fact that I’ve been a loyal Gold member for 12 years) but I wouldn’t find that out for another two weeks – more on that later.
So, anyway, we got to Orlando, and finally managed to relax. For the first week, everything was great, the family was having a fabulous time visiting the parks, and in my little bit of free time, I finished all the editing for Retribution, and made some progress on book 10.
Perfect, right? Erm, no!
The day we went to Kennedy Space Centre was fun. I started that one off by falling down the stairs, cutting up my shin and foot, and twisting both ankles! Clumsy right? Yeah, that’s me!
Then the following day, I started coughing. And I don’t mean polite, ‘a-hem’ type coughing! Oh, no! I had developed the bubonic plague of all chest infections!
Three days in bed, unable to breathe if I lay down, and when I eventually crawled out, I was like a limp lettuce leaf for the rest of the holiday. In fact, 19 days in, and I’m on my second course of antibiotics, and still unable to breathe properly without coughing. (I also have a kidney infection to add to my joy!)
I can’t claim that the holiday was a wash-out, because it wasn’t. Apart from the three days in bed, we managed to get out to all the parks we wanted to visit; SeaWorld, Discovery Cove, Aquatica, Busch Gardens, Disney’s Magic Kingdom and Kennedy Space Centre. The days we sacrificed to my being ill were our shopping days, so at least we didn’t have a chance to run up the credit card while we were there (a really good thing as it has turned out!).
My BFF and her son had a great time too, which I was thrilled about. The sight of her going around the rapids at Aquatica, laughing like a lunatic, genuinely has to rate as one of the funniest moments ever!
The icing on the cake, though, has to be Hertz car hire. My contract with them was supposed to cost me $757 for our trip. I agreed that contract last August. Somehow, they’ve managed to change my contract, without telling me, add on a bunch of insurances I didn’t ask for and never take out, and they’ve charged me $1616 instead.
Seriously, people! I AM NOT JK ROWLING! I can’t afford to be ripped off any more than the next person. I’m now in an e-mail battle with them, because they’re claiming all sorts of rubbish to justify stealing my money! They’re claiming I had the benefit of insurances I neither wanted nor asked for, so I should have to pay for them. But how can it have been a benefit if I didn’t know about them, and wasn’t given the chance to decline them? Every time I point out an inconsistency in their story, they come up with something different. So frustrating!
I’ll keep you posted about how that works out, but at the moment, Hertz are fast joining my list of corporate thieves that I will never do business with again! Such a shame as I have used them for years.
Anyway, apart from that, since we came home just over a week ago, things have been pretty rough. My GP prescribed more antibiotics and I’ve been laid up in bed all week, feeling like death warmed up. I’ve had to call in to work sick, the first days I’ve taken off in four years, and even now, 48 hours until I’m due back in work, I’m still not sure if I’m going to make it.
I had a birthday last week as well, which I cancelled. Well, who wants to have a birthday when they’re feeling awful, right? I might do like the Queen does, and reschedule it for June, when I’m feeling better.
And just as I was thanking my lucky stars that April was almost over, I’ve just had one of those scam e-mails hit my account, asking for money.
No, not one of those asking for me to send money to help them free up unlimited funds into my bank account.
No, this one is telling me that a member of my family has put out a hit on me, and that they have people watching me at this very moment as they prepare to assassinate me! Unless I pay them $58,000, in which case they will tell me which member of my family wants me dead, they will carry out the assassination!
Honestly, if they want me to take them seriously, they really should improve their punctuation and grammar! Possibly, not using Google translate to get it converted to English might also help!
Anyway… What can you say to that, except roll on May!
So, if any of you has been having a month like mine, then I commiserate. April really has ‘sucked rotten eggs’!
I know in the big scheme of things, all of this is just fluff, and I should thank my lucky stars for all the blessings I have. And I truly do.
But I think it’s gonna take a few weeks until the plague has totally gone for my sense of appreciation to bubble to the surface again.
Until then…
Stay well, and I’ll try and come back to you with an update on Book 10, just as soon as I stop coughing long enough for the laptop to stay on my lap!
Best wishes,
Beth
xx