I normally like to begin with a quote or some other creative way to start a blog. I cleverly (adjective open to opinion) add the quotes to the beginning of my own writing as an introduction in the (mostly) vain attempt to create interest.
But this time I have truly outdone myself (again, open to interpretation) - and thought I'd post a blog made up of quotes! Creative or plain lazy? Neither, probably.
Approaching the festive season I have started to prepare for my own Christmas celebrations. Being a resident in a non-Christian part of the world, I wondered what Christmas would be like. Sure, it's multi-cultural enough, with a small percentage of people who celebrate it, but would it still 'feel' like Christmas? No carols, no trees, no decorations and no tinsel. Very different, sure, but then, what is Christmas?
So I got to reading and have come up with some Christmas 'quotes'. Some have given me something to think about while others I have heard long ago and wanted to include.
"Christmas is not a time or a season but a state of mind. To cherish peace and good will, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas." ~Calvin Coolidge, 1927
"Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we're here for something else besides ourselves." ~Eric Sevareid
"A Christmas candle is a lovely thing; It makes no noise at all, but softly gives itself away".~Eva Logue
"Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect." ~Oren Arnold
"There is no ideal Christmas; only the one Christmas you decide to make as a reflection of your values, desires, affections, traditions." -Bill McKibben, Author, Hundred Dollar Holiday: The Case For a More Joyful Christmas
"Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind." -Mary Ellen Chase
"What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace." -Agnes M. Pharo
“I am not alone at all, I thought. I was never alone at all. And that, of course, is the message of Christmas. We are never alone. Not when the night is darkest, the wind coldest, the world seemingly most indifferent. For this is still the time God chooses.” Taylor Caldwell
"Once again we find ourselves enmeshed in the Holiday Season, that very special time of year when we join with our loved ones in sharing centuries-old traditions such as trying to find a parking space at the mall. We traditionally do this in my family by driving around the parking lot until we see a shopper emerge from the mall, then we follow her, in very much the same spirit as the Three Wise Men, who 2,000 years ago followed a star, week after week, until it led them to a parking space." -Dave Barry
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Snow
My recent trip to London was something of a hastily planned jaunt, the reasons for which will become clear.
It was a fantastic start. The plane was only half full, meaning I was able to stretch out and occupy the 2 seats on the side. And it was a great flight. Smooth, quick and I even managed to get a short 10 minute snooze. Win!
On my previous visit 12 months ago, a taxi was necessarily the mode of transport from the airport due to the seemingly obscene amount of luggage we had. This time however I was on my own and staying for less than a week, so the train was a viable option. From the terminal it was a short walk to the Heathrow Express. Almost immediately the train arrived. Advance Token to Paddington Station. From there it was a short walk to the Underground to Charing Cross Station. This is where the overground trains depart to South East London. It is here, in this station, that on many occasions I have waited an hour for a train. Not so this time, for there was a train waiting to greet me on the platform. I couldn’t believe my luck. From one side of lovely London to the other and I had been made to wait all of 5 minutes altogether.
It was like the city was greeting me like an old friend. I certainly felt like I was back ‘home’. I felt safe. I felt comfortable. I love that feeling of familiarity – when things are just the same as you remember them when you pass a place somewhere that takes your mind back to sometime in the past – a memory of a song, or a feeling or emotion that you remember with fondness. I have history here and I love it. I have no need for a map. I know my way around the city. The backstreets. The small pubs and old buildings that most tourists don’t know exist. I enjoy the intimacy of being there. I know I’m sharing it with 10 million other people, but it’s almost like I’m there by myself.
It was all working out for me, from trains to pedestrian crossings. The lights would just change as I approached the edge of the road, as though it was planned. To top off an awesome day I was able to spend the evening with some close family friends over a wonderful meal and 1 or 8 drinks, and caught up some way on the previous 12 months. It all fell into place for me and it would remain so for the remainder of my stay.
Wrong.
I remember my first English winter and how much I was looking forward to a ‘White Christmas'. All the naysayers were telling me that snow in London was a thing of the past and that a decent snowfall hadn’t happened in years. Still, I would not be discouraged. It was early December, as I recall, when the first flurries of snow arrived. I had never seen snow before and I was excited to be out in it. To be honest it was probably more sleet than snow, but it didn’t matter. I could touch it, feel it and catch it before it fell to the ground. It must have lasted all of 15 minutes and I loved every moment. It wasn’t until I went to Scotland later that month that I would see real snow. But my first experience of the stuff us very different to my latest...
Up and on the move by 6am. This was the way I started my days last week in London. The local shop had the papers and I liked to begin the morning by reading through the tabloids. I miss the London papers. They're trashy (the ones I read are), but they're amusing. On the last morning I took quite a while to get the papers, as it was snowing heavily and, as I do, I was enjoying the sight of the snow falling. The 'snow show' was all for me, I pretended, as a parting gift on my last day before returning to the Dubai desert. I figured I had time enough to do what I needed to do in the morning before readying myself for a 3pm taxi ride to the airport. London traffic can be unpredictable - leaving yourself too much time at the airport is always preferable to departing too late, especially when leaving from the other side of the city as I was. The M25 motorway is unpredictable and traffic can come to a complete stand-still. It is not referred to as 'The World's Largest Car Park' for nothing. I figured if I left at 4pm for a 9pm flight, it allowed me 2 hours to get there. This soon changed however, when I realised the day before it would be snowing. So I changed the booking - better to be safe and allow another hour, just to be sure. However, now that it was snowing so heavily, I wanted to be safe and so I decided to request the taxi immediately. I was told it would be an hour - time enough for me to finish packing and be ready.....2 hours later I was still waiting - at 3pm it arrived, delayed by the slippery, icy, snowy conditions. Still, 6 hours until my plane left for a 1 hour journey to the airport. No problem. And so began the longest, most treacherous and easily the most eventful taxi ride I have ever experienced.
The journey to the airport necessarily takes you in the wrong direction for the first couple of miles in order to reach the M25 motorway that circles London. Imagine the M25 as a clock, where I was beginning at 4o'clock needing to get to 9 o'clock. I needed to drive from slightly inside the clock face to the edge in order to begin the route. That small journey to the edge, not much more than about 5 miles, took two and a half hours......The traffic was jammed solid, on the motorway and all the way back to the roads leading to it. Trucks, cars, buses and bikes were going nowhere. It was hopeless. Pointless. Why wait to get onto the motorway - once you got there you weren’t moving anyway. The driver changed tact and decided to go back the way we had came to try a different motorway entrance. This involved side streets - less traffic but more snow, ice and untreated roads. We were a-slip slid'n away, and I had to get out not once but twice in order to push the car out of an icy grave.
By now it had been dark for some considerable time and my faint hopes of getting to the airport for the flight were all but gone. Still, if we could somehow make it onto the motorway the snow might clear and the traffic might get moving. Wrong on both counts, as the traffic was even more congested and the snow got worse. I have never been in a blizzard, but I can only imagine that what I was in would be something like it. Strong winds and snow pounding the car windows meant that even though we were now crawling onto the motorway, we couldn’t see where we were going anyway. A 6-lane highway full of cars going nowhere. Engines were turned off. Lights were out. An eerie sight and an even stranger feeling. It was silent, save for the wind and the tiny ticking sound that each flake made against the increasingly frozen windows. I was going nowhere, and had nowhere to go.
4 hours into the trip and we had only just made it to the motorway. Between cheesy 1980's songs, reporters on the radio continued to read about how conditions across the city were worsening, especially over the South East. Great - right where we were. Some guy next to us braved the elements for a much needed potty stop. Hope he remembered not to walk in the yellow snow.
The trip continued in slow motion and we were crawling along with intermittent stops. At last the main problem presented itself - no less than a dozen trucks had skidded and jack-knifed across all 6 lanes. Cars had to weave through the carnage, but with the road resembling an ice skating rink, weaving anywhere was a treacherous risk. Slowly the cars inched towards the trucks, now marooned and iced over, and through the small gaps that allowed the traffic through at a painfully slow pace. Finally we were through and on our way. The driver picked up the pace and we were finally out of first gear for a while. Soon however, we had caught up to the traffic and were once again left jammed behind the pack.
It was edging towards 9 o'clock. Not that I had any hope now of getting there on time, but there was something psychological about that departure time. What if the plane had been delayed? Maybe I could get there. But as 9.30 ticked over, I sent another text message. 'Still 23 miles to go'. It was all over. And it was too for the snow, for it had finally cleared. We had moved onto the western side of the city where the weather was less hazardous. Less snow meant greater speed and we were on our way. We made the final half of the trip in less than 30 minutes.
I arrived at the departures area of Terminal 3 at just after 10pm. Gathering my cases I hurried hopefully over to the check-in desk, where promisingly, I saw at least a dozen people lining up. Had I made it? Had the plane somehow been delayed? Alas no, these other people had also missed the flight, having been delayed on a previous flight from Manchester. Waiting patiently in line, thoughts of the following hours began to make themselves known. I had missed my flight and it was late at night. I don’t know what I’m doing and I don’t know where I’m going. I should be in the air and instead I am waiting in a poxy line. I needed to find out how to get myself on the next flight, when that next flight was and what I needed to do in the mean time. Right, all sorted. Time to try to put together a coherent sentence after sitting through the cab ride from hell for 7 hours. As I reached the front of the line, in true 'Truman Show' style (see previous blog), the check-in desk closed right in front of me. "Sorry, we are now closed". Imagine that check-out at the supermarket closing as you are about to get the shopping out of the trolley, and multiply it by, well, 7 hours. WTF? As I pleaded my case, the staff showed absolute contempt and an amount of empathy for my plight that could fit on a pin head, with room to spare. I was given a torn piece of paper with a scribbled phone number on it and told to call the reservations number. They would 'deal with me'. Lucky me. “Hmmmm, is this the same number that was strangely experiencing 'Techincal difficulties’ 4 hours ago when I tried to call from the cab?" I asked, to be replied to with a blank look and a shoulder shrug.
I made my way to the arrivals section and booked a hotel (where I was proverbially 'bent over' with the price of the room as it was apparently the last one available). Upon checking in, I called my wife who at 3am her time was, luckily, able to book another flight for less than the $3000 quoted from my airline. I was looking at least another day in the airport, if not more, if it weren’t for Michelle making that booking for me. My fondness of snow has been severely dented by this trip, and I can safely say I don't need to lay eyes on the stuff again anytime soon.
The reason I found myself stuck, stranded in the snow in the first place, was because I was visiting a dear friend who is unwell. Through her illness she has always maintained, outwardly at least, a positive outlook on life. If anyone could be forgiven for being negative and pissed off with the world, it would be her. Sharing time with her over the past few days was a tremendous, uplifting experience. She has always looked out for me and has gone out of her way to do things in the past to help me out when she never had any reason to. Over the past decade or more she has been there for me. Returning the favour was the very least I could do. Throughout the snow / cab / airport / hotel ordeal, I remained completely calm. Almost a strange state of equilibrium, a sense that it would all work out, somehow, in the end. What would happen if I missed the flight? Don't know. Where would I stay? Don't know. How would I get home? Don't know. I have never been anything resembling late before, let alone missed a flight. I think it comes from being married to an ultra- organised wife. The phrase 'drill sergeant' comes to mind when readying for appointments of any kind. Lucky for me because it seems to work in perfect unison with my own forgetful and flighty ways. We always get to where we need to be. I may still be sitting in the airport, dealing with less than helpful staff if it weren't for my wonderful wife.
But as I sat there in the cab, knowing I wasn't going to make the flight, I kind of accepted it and, in a strange way just enjoyed the trip. Not that it was in any way enjoyable, but I could do nothing about the situation except sit and ride out the journey filled with tunes from The Eurhythmics, George Michael and Lionel Richie.
Through snow, icy roads, crazy drivers, traffic jams, endless throngs of rude people, missed flights and late nights. Who would do it?
I would. Every time.
It was a fantastic start. The plane was only half full, meaning I was able to stretch out and occupy the 2 seats on the side. And it was a great flight. Smooth, quick and I even managed to get a short 10 minute snooze. Win!
On my previous visit 12 months ago, a taxi was necessarily the mode of transport from the airport due to the seemingly obscene amount of luggage we had. This time however I was on my own and staying for less than a week, so the train was a viable option. From the terminal it was a short walk to the Heathrow Express. Almost immediately the train arrived. Advance Token to Paddington Station. From there it was a short walk to the Underground to Charing Cross Station. This is where the overground trains depart to South East London. It is here, in this station, that on many occasions I have waited an hour for a train. Not so this time, for there was a train waiting to greet me on the platform. I couldn’t believe my luck. From one side of lovely London to the other and I had been made to wait all of 5 minutes altogether.
It was like the city was greeting me like an old friend. I certainly felt like I was back ‘home’. I felt safe. I felt comfortable. I love that feeling of familiarity – when things are just the same as you remember them when you pass a place somewhere that takes your mind back to sometime in the past – a memory of a song, or a feeling or emotion that you remember with fondness. I have history here and I love it. I have no need for a map. I know my way around the city. The backstreets. The small pubs and old buildings that most tourists don’t know exist. I enjoy the intimacy of being there. I know I’m sharing it with 10 million other people, but it’s almost like I’m there by myself.
It was all working out for me, from trains to pedestrian crossings. The lights would just change as I approached the edge of the road, as though it was planned. To top off an awesome day I was able to spend the evening with some close family friends over a wonderful meal and 1 or 8 drinks, and caught up some way on the previous 12 months. It all fell into place for me and it would remain so for the remainder of my stay.
Wrong.
I remember my first English winter and how much I was looking forward to a ‘White Christmas'. All the naysayers were telling me that snow in London was a thing of the past and that a decent snowfall hadn’t happened in years. Still, I would not be discouraged. It was early December, as I recall, when the first flurries of snow arrived. I had never seen snow before and I was excited to be out in it. To be honest it was probably more sleet than snow, but it didn’t matter. I could touch it, feel it and catch it before it fell to the ground. It must have lasted all of 15 minutes and I loved every moment. It wasn’t until I went to Scotland later that month that I would see real snow. But my first experience of the stuff us very different to my latest...
Up and on the move by 6am. This was the way I started my days last week in London. The local shop had the papers and I liked to begin the morning by reading through the tabloids. I miss the London papers. They're trashy (the ones I read are), but they're amusing. On the last morning I took quite a while to get the papers, as it was snowing heavily and, as I do, I was enjoying the sight of the snow falling. The 'snow show' was all for me, I pretended, as a parting gift on my last day before returning to the Dubai desert. I figured I had time enough to do what I needed to do in the morning before readying myself for a 3pm taxi ride to the airport. London traffic can be unpredictable - leaving yourself too much time at the airport is always preferable to departing too late, especially when leaving from the other side of the city as I was. The M25 motorway is unpredictable and traffic can come to a complete stand-still. It is not referred to as 'The World's Largest Car Park' for nothing. I figured if I left at 4pm for a 9pm flight, it allowed me 2 hours to get there. This soon changed however, when I realised the day before it would be snowing. So I changed the booking - better to be safe and allow another hour, just to be sure. However, now that it was snowing so heavily, I wanted to be safe and so I decided to request the taxi immediately. I was told it would be an hour - time enough for me to finish packing and be ready.....2 hours later I was still waiting - at 3pm it arrived, delayed by the slippery, icy, snowy conditions. Still, 6 hours until my plane left for a 1 hour journey to the airport. No problem. And so began the longest, most treacherous and easily the most eventful taxi ride I have ever experienced.
The journey to the airport necessarily takes you in the wrong direction for the first couple of miles in order to reach the M25 motorway that circles London. Imagine the M25 as a clock, where I was beginning at 4o'clock needing to get to 9 o'clock. I needed to drive from slightly inside the clock face to the edge in order to begin the route. That small journey to the edge, not much more than about 5 miles, took two and a half hours......The traffic was jammed solid, on the motorway and all the way back to the roads leading to it. Trucks, cars, buses and bikes were going nowhere. It was hopeless. Pointless. Why wait to get onto the motorway - once you got there you weren’t moving anyway. The driver changed tact and decided to go back the way we had came to try a different motorway entrance. This involved side streets - less traffic but more snow, ice and untreated roads. We were a-slip slid'n away, and I had to get out not once but twice in order to push the car out of an icy grave.
By now it had been dark for some considerable time and my faint hopes of getting to the airport for the flight were all but gone. Still, if we could somehow make it onto the motorway the snow might clear and the traffic might get moving. Wrong on both counts, as the traffic was even more congested and the snow got worse. I have never been in a blizzard, but I can only imagine that what I was in would be something like it. Strong winds and snow pounding the car windows meant that even though we were now crawling onto the motorway, we couldn’t see where we were going anyway. A 6-lane highway full of cars going nowhere. Engines were turned off. Lights were out. An eerie sight and an even stranger feeling. It was silent, save for the wind and the tiny ticking sound that each flake made against the increasingly frozen windows. I was going nowhere, and had nowhere to go.
4 hours into the trip and we had only just made it to the motorway. Between cheesy 1980's songs, reporters on the radio continued to read about how conditions across the city were worsening, especially over the South East. Great - right where we were. Some guy next to us braved the elements for a much needed potty stop. Hope he remembered not to walk in the yellow snow.
The trip continued in slow motion and we were crawling along with intermittent stops. At last the main problem presented itself - no less than a dozen trucks had skidded and jack-knifed across all 6 lanes. Cars had to weave through the carnage, but with the road resembling an ice skating rink, weaving anywhere was a treacherous risk. Slowly the cars inched towards the trucks, now marooned and iced over, and through the small gaps that allowed the traffic through at a painfully slow pace. Finally we were through and on our way. The driver picked up the pace and we were finally out of first gear for a while. Soon however, we had caught up to the traffic and were once again left jammed behind the pack.
It was edging towards 9 o'clock. Not that I had any hope now of getting there on time, but there was something psychological about that departure time. What if the plane had been delayed? Maybe I could get there. But as 9.30 ticked over, I sent another text message. 'Still 23 miles to go'. It was all over. And it was too for the snow, for it had finally cleared. We had moved onto the western side of the city where the weather was less hazardous. Less snow meant greater speed and we were on our way. We made the final half of the trip in less than 30 minutes.
I arrived at the departures area of Terminal 3 at just after 10pm. Gathering my cases I hurried hopefully over to the check-in desk, where promisingly, I saw at least a dozen people lining up. Had I made it? Had the plane somehow been delayed? Alas no, these other people had also missed the flight, having been delayed on a previous flight from Manchester. Waiting patiently in line, thoughts of the following hours began to make themselves known. I had missed my flight and it was late at night. I don’t know what I’m doing and I don’t know where I’m going. I should be in the air and instead I am waiting in a poxy line. I needed to find out how to get myself on the next flight, when that next flight was and what I needed to do in the mean time. Right, all sorted. Time to try to put together a coherent sentence after sitting through the cab ride from hell for 7 hours. As I reached the front of the line, in true 'Truman Show' style (see previous blog), the check-in desk closed right in front of me. "Sorry, we are now closed". Imagine that check-out at the supermarket closing as you are about to get the shopping out of the trolley, and multiply it by, well, 7 hours. WTF? As I pleaded my case, the staff showed absolute contempt and an amount of empathy for my plight that could fit on a pin head, with room to spare. I was given a torn piece of paper with a scribbled phone number on it and told to call the reservations number. They would 'deal with me'. Lucky me. “Hmmmm, is this the same number that was strangely experiencing 'Techincal difficulties’ 4 hours ago when I tried to call from the cab?" I asked, to be replied to with a blank look and a shoulder shrug.
I made my way to the arrivals section and booked a hotel (where I was proverbially 'bent over' with the price of the room as it was apparently the last one available). Upon checking in, I called my wife who at 3am her time was, luckily, able to book another flight for less than the $3000 quoted from my airline. I was looking at least another day in the airport, if not more, if it weren’t for Michelle making that booking for me. My fondness of snow has been severely dented by this trip, and I can safely say I don't need to lay eyes on the stuff again anytime soon.
The reason I found myself stuck, stranded in the snow in the first place, was because I was visiting a dear friend who is unwell. Through her illness she has always maintained, outwardly at least, a positive outlook on life. If anyone could be forgiven for being negative and pissed off with the world, it would be her. Sharing time with her over the past few days was a tremendous, uplifting experience. She has always looked out for me and has gone out of her way to do things in the past to help me out when she never had any reason to. Over the past decade or more she has been there for me. Returning the favour was the very least I could do. Throughout the snow / cab / airport / hotel ordeal, I remained completely calm. Almost a strange state of equilibrium, a sense that it would all work out, somehow, in the end. What would happen if I missed the flight? Don't know. Where would I stay? Don't know. How would I get home? Don't know. I have never been anything resembling late before, let alone missed a flight. I think it comes from being married to an ultra- organised wife. The phrase 'drill sergeant' comes to mind when readying for appointments of any kind. Lucky for me because it seems to work in perfect unison with my own forgetful and flighty ways. We always get to where we need to be. I may still be sitting in the airport, dealing with less than helpful staff if it weren't for my wonderful wife.
But as I sat there in the cab, knowing I wasn't going to make the flight, I kind of accepted it and, in a strange way just enjoyed the trip. Not that it was in any way enjoyable, but I could do nothing about the situation except sit and ride out the journey filled with tunes from The Eurhythmics, George Michael and Lionel Richie.
Through snow, icy roads, crazy drivers, traffic jams, endless throngs of rude people, missed flights and late nights. Who would do it?
I would. Every time.
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