Today was one of those times. After a 4.50am alarm call to be on the quay side in Palma, Mallorca for a taxi transfer to the airport I was bleary eyed and more than a little frazzled at the travel week that had already befallen me.
Monday saw me leave home at 5.30am to travel from Manchester to Frankfurt where i was supposed to make a 45 minute connection time to my onward flight to Nice to meet the ship later that day. However a 40 minute weather delay ensured no possibility of that so I set about the process of sorting out the knock-on effect of this on the rest of my journey. I then settled in to a tasty Asian lunch in the airport, albeit one I would need to remortgage to buy.
“No point in stressing about things you can’t change” I thought to myself. So after lunch I ambled around the airport browsing, waiting for my three hour window between flights to disperse and found myself peering in the Freezer in the cafe. I might spoil myself for being such a good and patient girl with a chilly treat, I thought.
“ooo that red one looks nice” I said to myself as I reached in to flip the iced treasure over to read the label
“Bum Bum”
The name of the ice cream.
I put it back.
I headed to my gate, pretty tired and weary now after travelling for a good eight hours already and still being only fractionally closer to my final destination.
I had now been rebooked on a later flight. Yes, i would subsequently not make it to to Nice on time to join the ship today and yes this would in turn, mean finding a hotel and another ‘crack of dawn’ flight to try and catch the ship up the next day in Corsica. Bum Bum.
Tuesday therefore saw me up again at 5.30am after a stay in an odd hotel selected firstly for its proximity to the airport rather than its facilities and also as a result of my distain for early mornings.It would buy me an extra hour in bed. The city of Nice is an incredibly beautiful place and indeed one of my favourite ports ever to spend an overnight stay. The streets bustle with life and the restaurants and outdoor entertainers breed an air of ‘je ne sais quoi’ that oozes effortlessly from everything ‘French Riviera’. I LOVE it. But today I loved my bed more.
This hotel was not in the city. It was at the airport. It had no restaurant (its my own fault, i booked it) but it DID have a microwave so one late night mad dash to the petrol station later i was safely ensconced in my rather rigid bed, eating a frozen Lasagne for one and watching catch up TV online.
I eventually arrived at the ship around noon on Tuesday, very tired but still in good spirits. I was determined to spend the subsequent few days catching up on sleep and resuming my errant exercise regime. No wine for me this week. Early nights and healthy eating was the plan. My body needed a break. I had in fact only arrived home from my previous trips on Saturday evening. Only 36 hours at home to turn everything around, see my loved ones and then head out again can also at times prove stressful.
Skip to today and again I am up at 4.50am as aforementioned and ready for my flights to pick up the beautiful Celebrity Constellation in Messina, Italy tomorrow.
My maiden name is my stage name. Jayne Curry, as you know.
I worked as a professional entertainer, accruing a reputation (I hope.. )for six years before I met Steve and so it made little sense to start all over again after wedlock with a new monicker so I kept it.
My married/passport name is Parry. Not much of a change. The first two letters have been substituted for an alternative two and it can and does cause all kinds of trouble. I have frequently, as was the instance yesterday, had to send flight details back to the offices because they were booked in my stage name instead of my passport name .Or arrived at gangways to ships and had to virtually burst into song to convince the security guard I’m not trying to smuggle myself onboard as someone else. On my arrival at the airport this morning I was to discover my booking of my flight to Frankfurt (yes, back to Frankfurt again) had been cancelled due to a similar mishap. This started to reveal itself as that little bubble of internal potential stress that you know can develop in to a full on melt down if you don’t control it. So I did. The lady at the Air Berlin desk was so impressed at my passive approach to my situation, even after a 20 minute phone call to the USA out of hours travel line to rectify the situation, that she made sure I had a lovely aisle seat with no one sat next to me on row 3. Its the simple things.
I asked the helpful lady on the phone in the states to copy me in on any correspondence relating to her having to rebook my seat just so as to avert any discrepancies when attempting to explain myself to my agent in the UK once the hour was reasonable enough for me to call them. Believe me I’m hugely fortunate. They will and have indeed answered the phone to me 24 hours a day 7 days a week wherever in the world I find myself stuck, but if I can avoid getting them up at 6am I will. This was something I could sort on my own.
On reviewing the subsequent email, (whilst the flight had now indeed been booked in the correct name), the author of the email had called me something entirely different throughout the content of it.
I have in the past been called Janet Clark, June Kerr, Jayne PURRY even. But Jayne Payne?? That was a new one. Was she trying to tell me something?
I made a total school girl error when selecting the queue for bag drop after seemingly sorting out my earlier woes at the airline desk.
A trainee on check in.. being supervised on what was undoubtley his first day on the job. Not his fault obviously and I was rapidly becoming a veritable ninja at this whole ‘patience is a virtue’ thing, clearly.
I don’t mind queuing. Brits are awesome at it. In fact I think they made a huge error when hosting the 2012 London Olympics in not choosing “Championship Queuing” as the host nations elected choice of sport to integrate into the games. We would have won gold across the board for sure.
The queue was not the issue here. My ultimate mistake was choosing someone I should have KNOWN would weigh my hand luggage. He was being trained to. And thats when the wheels came off. And when I lost it.
If you have read my previous blog you will know that I lost my luggage last month and much to my dismay it became apparent on my return to the UK( and after first scouring my house from top to bottom to eliminate any mistake on my part,) that during its solo adventure throughout Western Europe, my case had indeed been tampered with and my small travel jewellery box stolen. I was beside myself with anger at my stupidity after my less than enthusiastic travel insurance provider informed me that I was not covered for the theft as jewellery was classed as a valuable and should have been kept in my carry on case. I was quick to point out to the customer service advisor that the jewellery was of sentimental value and had a net worth of less than one of my Manolo Blahniks, also in my luggage (they are shoes guys, just in case!) and should I therefore then include every item of footwear in my carry on also??
“No Mrs Parry. Your shoes are not classed as valuables even if they are Manuel Blewiks”
So by trying to learn from my own mistakes, I now ended up with hand luggage containing everything valuable, 10kg of sheet music, a stage dress and a spare outfit. Just incase my suitcase decided to sightsee Germany too.
After ten minutes of fruitless protestations, I was shoving half of my carry on into my luggage and paying excess for the privilege. This usually does not bother me. Its part and parcel of being an indecisive packer. But after the week I’d had some thing was about to give. It was like when you need to let the steam out of the back of the radiator. Tears began pouring down my face,
The horrified trainee sat there in abject terror as i thrust my credit card in his direction, knowing full well if I’d tried to utter one syllable, volume control would no longer be an option and i would likely assimilate a sea lion in the final throws of childbirth. I’m not a pretty crier.
I sat on flight number one to Frankfurt, feeling down right sorry for myself. And I know I have no right. In the grand scheme of things I have no worries at all. This is the part of the job we get paid for and the law of averages alone would denote the simple equation that more travelling equals more chance of Calamity for Jayne. (she spells it wrong not me!) Before you know it, my Season One re-run of ‘Ally Mc Beal’ the box set was coming to an end and as the final scenes played out, the lead character sits at her desk contemplating the year gone by. Poised there pensively, her own voice over can be heard philosophising in the background:
“If you look back on the last year of your life, and it doesn’t bring you to either tears of joy or sadness, then it has been a year wasted”
I was off again, blubbing like a toddler. Out of the corner of my watery eye I could see the napkin on the floor that had housed my complimentary pretzel moments earlier and reached down to grab it and blow my runny nose. It was at this point I realised the tissue didn’t belong to me at all but to the snotty nosed fidgeting Chinese boy sat in the seat in front. Bum Bum.
After a steadying chat with my agents at home whilst I waited for this connection in Frankfurt, I got to thinking about the tumultuous few days I’ve had and how its taking its toll on my hair tone.Six-weekly root cover ups will no longer do. I’m Fifty shades of going grey and I swear this job is the main contributor.
I decided to do what I always do in these situations. Try to think positive. What are some of the good things to come out of this week?
- I’m going to get to meet up with my awesome friends on the Constellation tomorrow. The ship I was on for six weeks in the winter.
- I have a week off next week… including my birthday at home (actually scratch that, the impending doom of turning another year older only serves to cause me more angst)
- …. and then I remembered the sign I saw as I sat in the back of the taxi on Tuesday morning heading back to Nice airport to try and catch up with the ship. An arrow pointing left instructed “Kiss and Fly…. At manchester airport we call it the "drop off bay". Damn those French are good! I wonder if Steve will “Kiss and Collect” on Monday?
I smiled to myself and boarded my now delayed (surprise surprise) second flight.
Babies cry. thats what they do. And now I find myself eventually sat in my aisle seat in row three whilst a tiny baby in row one screams its lid off…. and so do its parents…..at each other. I can sympathise with the baby. I’ve had a rubbish day too. But I don’t understand German, at all.
Nationally we should adopt the slogan
“Great Britain… fabulous at queuing, atrocious at languages”
From what I can deduce, the baby daddy has been screaming “Ein, zwei, drei” at his wife for the last ten minutes. Maybe thats how many seconds are left until he starts crying too.
I might try it
ein zwei drei
ein zwei drei...
