Journal Entries
Twas the night before Christmas
Posted Dec 24, 2006
[Welcome to Paff's second annual Christmas eve live poetry journal.]
Twas the night before Christmas
And all through the house
Not a creature was stirring
Not even a mouse
Discuss this Journal entry [20]
Latest reply: Dec 24, 2006
Christmas _isn't_ cancelled...
Posted Dec 23, 2006
Yay. Home again.
Both nippers came running to get me at the airport. Lotsa 
type stuff. Stopped off for a run about with the 
on the way back across Dartmoor. Got back, youngest nipper danced about in big pink woolly jumper, eldest nipper got a fire going. The missus had got the place looking lovely in the week with the lights and stuff.
Sometimes you have to have something almost taken away so you appreciate it more. Going to make the most of it this year.
all. Happy Christmas.
Paff
Discuss this Journal entry [5]
Latest reply: Dec 23, 2006
Christmas is cancelled...
Posted Dec 23, 2006
It's Saturday morning, 23rd December. I'm stuck on a piece of rock 9 miles long by 5 miles wide in the middle of the sea. Me and hundreds - if not thousands - of other people want to get off this piece of rock before the 25th. But the weather has other ideas...
I was walking though the terminal at Jersey airport, when in front of me an airport manager answered his mobile and said:
"Oh hello. Yes, not bad, thanks. Although it's just about to get really bad, we've just had to cancel some..."
The rest of his conversation was obscured by the PA system going: "BING BONG", and then:
"This is a passenger announcement. We regret that due to adverse weather conditions, all flights to Birmingham, Exeter, Gatwick, Leeds, Norwich, Southampton and Stanstead are cancelled. Please make your way to the back of the 4 hour queue for the ticket desk where you may wish to lose your temper and/or get a refund or attempt to rebook your flight for some point this year if you're lucky. Oh, and merry Christmas."
The entire airport simultaneously erupted into a sort of 
sound. Then there was a mini stampede towards the ticket desk.
Quite literally, we queued from one end of the terminal building to the other, snaking our way back and forth. If I hadn't been so busy stampeding and queueing I should've taken a picture. I was quite quick into the queue and was maybe in the first quarter when I got there. I took an hour getting to the desk. The poor folk at the back would've had a further 3 hours to wait.
So, I'm stuck on this bit of rock in the sea. But I'm getting off... I've rebooked my flight to Sunday evening. I've booked an extra flight for today. If both those options fail, there's the back-up plan of the 9 hour ferry crossing on Sunday night which at least gets me somewhere on the mainland on Monday morning, where maybe I can spend Christmas day freezing in a bus shelter or on a platform or something. 
Paff
Discuss this Journal entry [7]
Latest reply: Dec 23, 2006
A bit of a blur
Posted Dec 10, 2006
*gets breath back for a few minutes in the departures lounge*
Waiting for the Jersey -> Plymouth flight. The first proper bit of waiting around that I've done since 6:30am Monday morning, when I was waiting for the Exeter -> Jersey flight.
Since then it's been non-stop work, not enough sleep and not enough to eat. 60+ hours last time I checked. (Is this what junior doctors feel like?).
Usually go home on Friday night. I'm going home now (Sunday midday), to see the missus and nippers for a few hours, grab a few hours sleep, then fly straight back out, to do 1 and a half hours work (!) Monday morning, then fly straight back home to see youngest nipper in the school nativity play, then sleeping for a few more hours then flying back out again to do some more work.
See you in the departures lounge next Friday night then. 
No time for , Paff
Discuss this Journal entry [6]
Latest reply: Dec 10, 2006
Nipper Observations: Learning languages (8 in a series)
Posted Nov 29, 2006
Eldest nipper's take on learning French and German at school:
"I don't get it. Why don't they just teach us, 'hello', 'goodbye' and 'sorry, I only speak English'. Then we could learn loads of languages. We could learn one a day."
Deluded? Or too clever for his own good? Hmmmm.Paff
Discuss this Journal entry [5]
Latest reply: Nov 29, 2006
aGuyCalledPaff
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