Hola

So, I've returned from Spain, a delightful shade of... red. I'll start off on a positive note before delving into the true incompetence of Jet2, among other things. Firstly, I see England drew to Australia. True to form, the Aussies complain. Sore losers, sore winners, and apparently sore drawers (which actually sounds like a colloquial term for a certain type of disease), which I never imagined possible. Another positive is Bolton signed another player. The bad news is it's Paul Robinson. Not the goalkeeper, the left back. Although I'd say he adds about the same to our squad - nowt. Jlloyd for left back/prime minister.

If you were to google "Jet2 bastards" I'd be the top result (I was fourth, but the last blog post put me top.), I think this will consolidate my place. First of all, on the way there. We got to the airport on time, got the car parked, everything fine. Then there was no queue for baggage drop. Good times. The staff then offered us a letter, explaining that we would be delayed for 3 hours, due to the plane having a technical fault. The grumbling starts. Then, 2 hours later, this bloke (incomprehensible) called everyone on our flight to the gate... only to tell us it's so smokers can go out and take one larger stride to their death. We walk back to our seats, grumbling. Then, we were finally called to the gate (all this time ringing Hertz in Malaga Airport to make sure we could still get our car rental). We spent 30 minutes stood at the gate before boarding. We managed to all be on the plane 3 hours after the scheduled flight (ironically, that's longer than the actual flight). Then we sat there for an hour whilst the staff counted the amount of people wrong. Several times. Total delay time - 4 hours 15 minutes. On the way back, we were greeted with news that, shock horror, we were delayed 1 hour 45. We waited about half an hour because they missed the takeoff slot (again), so that's 2 hours 15. Total delay time - 6 hours 30 minutes. The flight to Gambia was 6 hours. We spent about 5 hours 45 minutes in the air on each journey.

So, our holiday started rather magnificently. We landed at about 1:30 Spanish time. We got our rental car no problems (our bags were off the plane pretty sharpish, for a change) and off we set to the villa we rented. Which was an hour and a half's drive, maximum. We couldn't find it. We drived around in the car until daylight (7am) until we finally found it. I'm no stranger to all nighters, but all nighters in a car are far worse. When we got in, there were ants everywhere. Anyway, we managed to sort it all out proper later on, after we all had a few hours kip.

Now, the only things that hadn't gone wrong so far were the car and the parking at Manchester. I've neglected to mention that when we were going down the hill to the villa that the car started smoking. We thought it might just be dust (as it was a dirt track), so we carried on as normal. On Friday, we decided to make the 2 hour drive to Gibraltar. That was the plan, anyway. We ended up breaking down on some Spanish motorway, the clutch having been knackered. We waited ages, trying to explain where we were to the breakdown company (Surely there's not that many places that are on the AP-7 heading westbound, 1km from exit 23? They certainly thought so). Anyway, eventually this motorway breakdown bloke came out to check if we were alright. Didn't speak a word of English, ironically we communicated better with him than anyone else we encountered. Anyway, we got a free taxi to Malaga airport and got a new car, and the holiday continued as normal. Not much else of note happened, except I've managed to strain my right shoulder on the last day, skimming stones, kayaking and swimming at a lake we stopped at (cos our flight was supposed to be at 8.20pm, and we had to leave at 10am).

So that was the holiday. A nice surprise is that I'm not actually burnt, and I appear to have caught at least SOME sun. For a change. I've also discovered that there's not only San Miguel worth drinking. Cruzcampo and Aurum are both also particularly nice beers.


The ice cream truck driver that disrupted my revision last year returned whilst I revised this year. Oddly enough, I've not heard a peep from him since my last exam, even when it was boiling (although I feel cold now). Maybe it's all in my head, but I'm a bit miffed. Especially cos I recognise his new tune but cannot name it. I'm starting to miss Yankee bastard Doodle.


They Call Him Rutman - bringing you sunshine since 2009.