The time I met Danda at the airport

A little while ago, Danda jetted off into the sun for some Portugal-based fun. I was supposed to be away at the same time but due to some nonsense rules in Texas prisons, I had to postpone it. So I was here and Danda went and had beach fun with family.

On the day Danda was due home, his flight was getting in at 23.15. I left the house at about 10pm and, anticipating boredom, took a Narnia book with me, Prince Caspian to be exact. Now Prince Caspian is a pretty good book, not very like the film apart from the basic story. There is no romance between Caspian and Susan and no rivalry between Caspian and Peter.

Anyway, there I was, on one train then the next, head in my book, wondering if Prince Caspian would beat Miraz and would Aslan come back and help by waking up the trees. There was a lot going on, you know?!

I got to Gatwick and took the shuttle from the South Terminal to the North, head in my book. I got to the North Terminal and looked on the arrivals screen. Danda’s plane had landed and the baggage was in the baggage hall. He’d be about fifteen minutes yet. I might as well chill for a few minutes.

There was a Costa coffee next to a doorway and a sign saying ‘UK arrivals’ above it. Well, I thought, he is arriving and we are in the UK. That must be where he’s coming out. I grabbed a bottle of water, sat within view of the doorway and got reading.

Then Danda called.

“Hi, have you landed?”

“Yeh, where are you?” Danda asked.

Now I’m a girl who loves doing surprises. I love them! I think that’s why I love Hide and Seek so much. And that’s why I said, “Just reading on the sofa.”

“Ok, I’ve just come out so I’ll be ages yet.”

O, he’s only just come off the plane so he’ll be a little while yet, I thought, whilst burying my head in my book again. Still, no-one had come out of the gate I was sitting by, which I thought was a bit wierd. I gave it another ten minutes, then thought something was up. I got up and walked to the arrivals screen and suddenly saw it… The international arrivals gate….

Ah, UK arrivals meant arrivals from other flights within the UK… Not just that we are in the UK. Of course we’re in the bloody UK. As if they would have specified where we are!? Hmm… Top dunce points to Laura.

So I needed to be at the international arrivals gate, not the UK arrivals gate… To be fair, they’re not that far apart so it’s not like I was miles away but I was all taken up with Prince Caspian so I was oblivious to it all.

I stood outside the international arrivals gate for a minute but felt something was wrong. There was no-one coming out. I had to give up my surprise fun and just call Danda…

“Danda, where are you?”

“I’m just on the bus to the car park to pick up the taxi. Why?”

“I’m standing at the international arrivals gate….”

“No! At Gatwick? You’re there?”

“Yes, I came to surprise you but I’ve missed you.”

“O no! Let me get the taxi and come back for you. Where exactly are you stand….. beeeeeeeep.”

His phone died. I called back. Nothing. Just the answerphone. Again and again. Eventually I just had to go out to the road and hang about, hoping he would be able to find me.

So for ten minutes, I stood there, in front Gatwick airport, stranded and unsure whether I’d be picked up.

That’s right, I came to meet Danda at the airport and I ended up stranded, waiting for Danda to pick me up.

Well done, Laura. Well done.

*He found me quite easily and I invented a cover story about having just been at the toilet when he came out the gate. It made me sound less stupid.

A Valentine’s mix-up

Yesterday, I finished work at 3pm and decided I’d potter into town and get some ideas for Valentine’s Day. Unusually for me, I didn’t have anything planned. Now I’m a girl who loves to plan a surprise. Any occasion. I’ll get started on plans months in advance. I love it.

So Valentine’s Day was on the horizon and, for some unknown reason, I just didn’t get round to planning anything. I’m ok at last minute so it wasn’t a major problem but I was a little surprised. That’s why I decided to wander around town for a while looking for ideas yesterday. I thought I could form a plan whilst seeing things to get inspiration. 

I went into the fancy, preppy Jack Wills and perused the sock section. I visited Molten Brown and smelled the many shower gels. I looked at the photo frames in Zara Home, the jumpers in Crew Clothing and the books in Waterstone’s. Eventually, whilst wandering around M&S, I decided on a nice pair of pyjamas (that I will inevitably steal and start wearing within a week) and, remembering that it is just Valentine’s and not a full on birthday or anything, restrained myself enough to just decide to buy some chocolates to go with the pyjamas.

I headed straight for my favourite chocolate shop. It is called William Curley’s and is a haven of chocolatey goodness. It has won awards. It runs chocolate cookery courses daily. Its chocolates are flavoured with the delicate tastes of Scottish heather and Richmond Park honey. It is phenomenally good quality. I always put a little something from William Curley’s on the side of birthday gifts.

Danda called while I was on my way there and asked me where I was.

“O, just in Waitrose,” said I, sneakily. For I am very sneaky sometimes. “I’m getting us some dinner.”

“Brilliant. I’ve been at the garage all afternoon. The gears on the taxi broke. The mechanic just got finished and I’m driving back. Do you fancy going to the cinema tonight?”

“That sounds great. Call me when you get here.”

I hurried to William Curley’s, for I would have to get home and hide the presents before Danda got back or it would ruin the surprise. Turning into the little lane, I started to imagine what chocolate I would pick for him. I pushed open the door, stepped into the shop and looked up…..

…. At Danda!

There was a moment of recognition as we both realised what had happened. He was at the till paying and just suddenly said, “Get out!” pointing wildly at the door, at which I turned on my heel and fled, laughing uncontrollably.

O well. There goes the surprise! And now I have to think of a new plan for the chocolate part of the present, as I obviously didn’t get any. Maybe a hug will do?

Danda and the truffle book

Danda has a friend who like truffles. A lot. Danda’s friend spends a lot of time thinking about truffles and talking about truffles and experimenting in the kitchen with truffles.

One day Danda decided to get his truffle-loving friend a surprise. He couldn’t think what surprise would be best. A jar of truffle honey? A stick of truffle butter? But these were all things that he knew his truffle-loving friend probably already had, or could get quite easily.

He thought and he thought. And then he remembered that his friend loves books and reading. Perfect! He would get a book about truffles. Amazing.

He scoured Amazon for something suitable, coming up with a lot of chocolate recipe books. He cursed the day someone decided to call a ball of chocolate ‘a truffle.’ Then he came across a few truffle books, of the right type of truffle. Books about the story of the truffle, books about cooking with truffles…. Books, books, books.

And then Danda realised it. He didn’t have an Amazon account. His friend had sometimes ordered things using her account, for him. But he couldn’t very well ask his friend to order her own surprise.

So he took down some names of truffle books and went into a book shop the next day. They didn’t have the one he wanted but said another of their stores had it.

‘No problem,’ said Danda, to the helpful sales assistant in the bookshop. ‘I will go to the shop in Kingston tomorrow, when I get a chance.’

That evening, he saw his truffle-loving friend and she was holding a box with freshly delivered truffle butter in it. She looked very pleased with herself.

‘O, you and your truffles,’ Danda said affectionately.

‘Yeh, they smell amazing,’ she said. ‘And guess what else? I’ve just ordered a book about truffles online.’

‘O, Laura!’ said Danda, for indeed I am the girl in the story. ‘You’re so hard to get a surprise for.’ And with that, he sunk into silence, to make a new plan.

As yet, there is no new plan. I’m such a surprise-ruiner.

Whoops.

An inconvenient birthday

About three years ago, I was in my final year at uni and my dissertation was due three days after my birthday. I was planning to let my birthday go by and then celebrate when my dissertation was finished.

I’d had a bit of a bust up with my flatmate, which consisted of her telling me that the flat was too messy and me agreeing but saying I couldn’t do anything about it at the time as my dissertation was due. I was therefore holed up in the library the majority of the time, trying to avoid more confrontation.

I had been to America the previous month, doing research for my dissertation, so it was really important to me that I did well. I hadn’t eaten or slept properly in days. Or changed my clothes. I just needed to get it done.

In the midst of all this, a friend said to me, “O, let’s go out for dinner for your birthday.”

I was like, how oblivious can you be? I’m clearly way too busy right now. Just hold off until the weekend and then I’ll be free.

In the nicest possible way, I kind of said, “I’d prefer not to.”

But he was insistent. “Yeh, let’s go for dinner for your birthday.” Another friend was there, looking at me expectantly.

I then kind of tried to say in a nice way, “Ok, but it needs to be really close by so that I can come straight back to the library.”

But no! He wanted to half way across London to Paddington. What. On. Earth! This is ridiculous. And really annoying. Why would you go all across London when there’s plenty of places for dinner near uni and you know I’m busy.

“It’s a great little place which does Lebanese food.”

I’m sorry, pardon? Lebanese food? You’ve brought me all the way across London to a random little restaurant, right in the middle of working on my dissertation and not being in a good mood after having a bit of an argument with my flatmate…. For Lebanese food. I mean there’s nothing wrong with Lebanese food, its nice, but it’s not like I’m a well known Lebanese food lover. Italian, yes. French, ok. Thai, I’m there. But never in a million years would I choose a Lebanese restaurant myself.

“Just go into the pub next door for a quick drink while I make sure everything’s ready in there.”

What. On. Earth. I need to eat and leave ASAP. I don’t need to be hanging around ‘having a drink’. I was on the verge of saying, “Thanks for the effort and everything but I’m going to go now. I’m trying not to offend you because I see that you’ve made loads of effort but I have to do my dissertation.”

Anyway, I go into this pub with my other friend, while the organising friend goes to the restaurant. We go in and there’s a bar upstairs that I’m told to go to as it’s quieter.

Up the stairs I go, into the little bar and….

“SURPRISE!” shout a load of my friends. I look into the room, see everyone looking at me and walk off…..

Not the traditional response, I realise. But really now… A party all the way across London, three days before I’m due to hand in my dissertation, my final peice of work for my degree, the culmination of three years of hard work. Really?

I sat in the toilet for about 20 minutes assessing the situation while another friend convinced me it would be fine. Eventually I chilled out a bit and rejoined the party. And it was lovely. Of course it was lovely. It was fabulous to see everyone in the same place. And I had a great time after managing to force myself to forget about the deadline. But I’m not going to lie, it was extremely badly timed.

The same friend who organised it also got me a nice dress (to wear to the party, but when he tried to convince me to wear it, I gave him a look that said I was not pleased). A few weeks later, I decided to wear the dress somewhere. I put it on and it was faaaaar too big. He had bought me a dress two sizes up from what I wear. TWO sizes up! How can you guess a dress size which takes someone from an average size to a definitely quite large size?

You know sometimes when you’re like ‘Are you EVER paying attention when I speak or do anything?’ That was how this incident felt.

How does a person sitting in a library day in day out for about two weeks, three days away from handing in a peice of work which really matters to her, make you think, o I’ll throw a surprise party right before her hand in date?

And that is my one and only experience of surprise parties! No-one else has thrown one for me since. I think I know why…

From Rome with love

I know you’re all hanging on the edge of your seats, wanting to know what happened yesterday.… Aren’t you?… Are you?

Anyway, I went to work. At twenty past nine, I got ready to make a phone call to Danda to come for breakfast. And then I got a text message from him. A text message which threatened to ruin everything.

It said ‘Problem with taxi. Got to go to garage. Call you later.’

NOOO! This was not allowed. It wasn’t part of the plan and therefore it was not allowed! My wonderful plan started to crumble around me. I called Danda and he was like, ‘Yeh, I dunno how long they’ll keep it for. Hopefully they can just fix it quickly.’

I acted as casual as possible. ‘O… But I…. Er .. was really… Er… Looking forward to breakfast at the deli with you. O well. As soon as you know something, give me a bell.’

So I walked around, trying to kill time and not freak out. The plan, the plan! If he was stuck at the garage all day waiting to get it fixed, I’d have to tell him over the phone and get him to leave the cab there and come straight to the airport or something. Panic, panic.

Finally, at about ten to eleven, Danda said it was fixed and he was on his way to meet me for breakfast. So, an hour and a half behind schedule, he arrived.

The plan got under way. I faked a story about having breakfast cooking for him and to wait a mo while I grabbed something which came for him from Amazon. It was, of course, the book which had the message in about the surprise. So he opened it and was like, ‘O did you order this for me? Thanks. It looks great.’ And he put it down on the table, without looking inside.

‘Does it look interesting?’ I said, trying to encourage him to flip the page over. He did and found my message eventually. Lacking his reading glasses, he read my message as, ‘Pack your bags, we’re FRYING tonight’ (instead of ‘flying’). As in, a fry-up. Or a stir fry. He thought I was telling him I was making him a stir fry for dinner.

With a little help from me, it dawned that we were going to Rome. And we were going in a few hours!

A flurry of packing, repacking, checking in online and organising parking ensued. We got to Gatwick airport with two hours til the flight and waited around while we were delayed by another hour or so.

We finally arrived, called our contact man and navigated the train system, getting out at the stop called Colosseo, being greeted by this….

Amazing. It’s at the bottom of the road we are staying on which, by the way, is well known as the Gay Street of Rome. We found that out when we went into a little cafe to get something for dinner and everything had ‘bear’ written on it. Posters, flyers, shops. Apparently ‘bear’ is the nickname for a gay man in Rome. I got a wrap with cheese and truffle and it was phenomenal. I have decided it is my mission to eat as much truffle as possible while in Italy.

Today is colosseum day. Will take lots of pics and report back.

P.S. Danda wants you all to know he was blown away and thinks ‘it’s the best surprise ever.’

Wierd dream I had last night

I’m feeling a bit low on inspiration so I’ll just tell you about a wierd dream I had last night.

I was just going about my normal business in the dream and everyone was talking about this place. It was like a little town underwater in a lake somewhere nearby. And people lived there.

I went on a day trip there, or something, I’m not sure. Anyway, I was there. Just walking about, getting stuff at the underwater shop etc. There was a funny glass dome thing over some areas of it so you could walk about as normal. But then there were parts where you had to go out into the water to get to the next building. I was still walking fine, there didn’t seem to be any problem of me floating off or anything. It was more the inconvenience of having to hold my breath. I wasn’t even getting wet. Just having to hold my breath.

Then someone said to me that I should move there and live there all the time. I was really really gutted because I love where I live now. I was being such a martyr about having to move there. I was getting all teary and going ‘I’ll really miss everyone and everything but ok, I’ll move to the underwater village.’ I remember that I was emotionally torn by this decision but I knew it was the right thing to stay there.

Mental. I wonder what mixture of things I watched on TV or talked about for THAT to have come up in my dreams.

Also, I have a secret that I’m dying to tell you but I don’t want to spoil the surprise on the very small, very unlikely chance that the person who the surprise is for might read this. So you’ll just have to wait.