Quick Cuppa and some Chat!!

I think another quick cuppa is in order.

Mine’s a blueberry and blackcurrant tea.

I know, it’s been a while but I’m back on the case again after a bit of an unplanned WordPress breather, I hope everyone’s well.

Where shall we start!

X (or Twitter as I always refer to it)

My Twitter that was linked to this blog was hacked recently. It was a basic account, not one of those upgraded fee charging types. Apologies if anyone follows me on there and wondered what the heck was going on. I’ve removed the link from my blog and won’t be returning to Twitter/X. I’m done with it if it’s that insecure. I’ve not used it much in recent years anyway, so no great loss. The fraudster, from 9th June onwards has been posting gambling tweets and a host of other tweets sporting a Turkish flag, going by the name “Kod World” at the time and still using my old profile pic and this blog link is quite weird….might be some sort of AI bot.

Overheard

Family politics

Walking past me: a guy was talking to someone and objecting to his nephew-in-law turning up at his birthday party as they’re ‘not really that close’ 🤔

Hmmmm – if it’s an open invitation to family then you should expect the unexpected, but yes, you might question why some people choose to come, though many of us know the answer – some people might come out of the woodwork for a free party, a social gathering, free food/drink/gossip opportunity – parties, funerals anything free.

Perhap truer if you have a big extended family – you might encounter cousins you never knew you had!!

On the other hand, maybe that relative might be making a genuine effort to connect and wish you a happy birthday (with a gift to boot!!), you never know!!

Pilot Talk

A couple of interesting announcements from pilots that left me wondering…are you serious!!!

Engine failure??

Apologies for the late take off, and apologies for it being so hot on the plane. There’s a fault with one of the engines so we’re just waiting for someone to arrive and fix it, it also happens to be the engine that makes the air conditioning work, hence the heat. Shouldn’t be too long, then we’ll be on our way.

Yep. Just like that – no big deal, it’s just an ENGINE that’s failed, right. That was one of those, shall I get off the plane now while I have a chance moments.

I stayed. It was all fine in the end. 

Thank God.

Permission to fly?? 

Apologies for the delay in taking off – we’re just waiting to confirm whether we have permission to fly over Afghanistan.

Come again. What??? Only now you decide to check that. I’d like to think if the answer was NO there was a diversion route in place. 

Turbulence like never before!!

This also happened to be the first flight I’ve ever experienced ‘real’ turbulence, not just a little bump or shake but indescribable things happening to the plane and my sense of gravity, feeling like I was going to fly out of my seat and crash into everyone around me, while an almighty illuminous white light flashed and filled the entirety of the windows over and over again like something out of Star Wars (lightning apparently, not the heavens opening). It was a pitch black night flight.

I doubt there’s a rollercoaster that could accurately simulate what I felt that night.

Once someone had reassured me it was ‘just turbulence’ and not an airspace laser attack for flying over other countries without permission, I tried to relax.

I reached up to touch my screen – my arm wouldn’t raise all the way, some unseen force was pushing my arm and hand back down when I was trying to lift it up to touch the screen – wow, I was no longer in control of my own body movements, were we in space/orbit or what 😱 😳 a truly bizarre experience.

….and to top it off, when the illuminous white light stopped I spotted what looked like a small military craft flying very close to our plane, but going in the opposite direction. Weird.

According to the pilot (in that typical cheerful and merry little pilot voice they like to use) we’d ‘just’ passed through a storm and all should be fine for the rest of the flight.

Photo Source

Boots Chemist, Heathrow Airport

While we’re on a travel roll, I’ll just get this off my chest.

I know I’m not the only one who makes the ceremonial trip to Boots Chemist in duty free before boarding a flight from the UK. Well Heathrow T4 has closed their Boots Chemist down and it won’t be reopening according to the security person I asked about it at the time. Surely, they’re just refurbishing – apparently not. When in the history of EVER, has a UK airport not had a Boots Chemist. A tiny section in WH Smith is now meant to be the acceptable alternative.

What’s the big deal – well Boots is handy for lots of reasons, including:

• Reducing the weight of your checked luggage if it’s on the heavy side by grabbing things like shower gel and other heavy toiletries
• Buying back up items in case checked luggage is lost or delayed
• A wander round Boots to see if there’s anything you forgot
• To buy lip balm for the dry plane ride – since it’s classed as a liquid and you can’t take it through security

Ironically, roughly a week later when I landed in Thailand, there were Boots Chemists everywhere. We’ll talk about that trip later.

Travel Content

This probably makes up most of my blog posts and I have more in store to share very soon, thankfully. I’m also as vicariously hungry as ever and can’t wait to read about your travels too – take me away on a free blog trip lol!!

Blog Binge

I’m on a blog reading binge at the moment, having a good catch up and enjoying some really good posts. As much as I enjoy other things online, blogs never get boring – so keep flying the blogging flag ⛳️ 💻