Part of my application includes letters from people close to me, that isn’t my girlfriend, so the obvious choice for me is my Mum. Mum knows me better than anyone else I could ask, and I’m so close to my Mum, and always have been.

Moving away from my family and friends has been really tough, but if I’m honest, moving away from my Mum has been the toughest, for many reasons. She’s always been the most incredible Mum, my best friend, someone I can open up too, cry in front of, rant at or share any other emotion with, without judgement or prejudice. I had also been her carer for years since her medical retirement, not 7 days a week, but for short or long stints, when necessary. Through all of this over 28 years, moving away was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, without a doubt, not just for me, but I know for her too. So to ask my Mum for a letter of recommendation or similar, to aid me in my immigration to Canada was pretty difficult.

We Skyped this morning, and Mum read through a draft letter she has put together for me, and I just cried. Knowing how much this hurts, and how hard it is living 5000 miles apart, my Mum, to this day is till the most supportive person you could ever imagine. She wrote the most heartfelt letter, supporting me, my relationship with Shelley, and me building a future in a different country, and it just means the world that she feels that way.

I feel better for writing that, the emotions have calmed now, hehe. Back to work I guess.

P.S. I’ve become so bad at blogging, but with work going nuts and immigration procedures on my back, time has been so precious. I’ll get back into it as soon as things calm a little

I arrive at the airport just before 6pm, thinking that I would have plenty of time to join the check in queue and still spend a couple of hours wandering around the departure lounge, browsing the numerous delights that was bound to greet me.

I got to the Air Transat desk to find it was baron, completely empty, other than a small amount of litter sitting on the floor and a hard faced woman wandering behind the counters, looking for something.

“Excuse me”, in that English accent they know and love, “Could you tell me where check in is for the Gatwick flight?”

“Gatwick flights check in at the Thomas Cook desk” replied the, now even harder faced woman.

I was on an Air Transat flight, but they do loads with Thomas Cook, and share some flights etc, especially to and from Toronto, so this seemed reasonable to me. I grab my case, and off I wander. The Thomas Cook desk, not only was it also baron, but there was so litter, or hard faced searching woman. Dang.

There’s more to this part of the story, but I’m going to skip past the bit about, upsetting the bald guy who was chatting up the airport official, and conclude this section by saying that, me and my blase attitude that didn’t contact the airline ’24 hours before departure’ I missed the flight, as it had been re-scheduled and left at 5pm.

Every flight, I have ever taken is checked, checked and quadruple checked over and over. But for some reason, I just didn’t check this time.

So, I get back home, phone Canadian Affair (Canadian branch), to speak to a condescending young lady, who informed me that ‘they don’t offer refunds, or alternative flights’ and that it is my responsibility to ‘contact the airline 24 hours before the scheduled flight time’.

In a North American vs English style debate, isn’t it supposed to be me, being condescending?

I need to book another flight. The next flight they had available to Gatwick is Friday 22nd, which means missing the Stag weekend, and being late for the wedding the following weekend, so no, thats no good. Air Canada could get me home, the same day for a reasonable £1800, British Airways wanted £1100 for next day travel, again, no, thats no good.

Air India, flight at 23.30 (at this point it’s 19.30) via Flight Network, £400ish….. Website crashes, reload, wait…………. crash, reload, wait………… I called Flight Network, got through to someone within about 5-10 minutes and after a little communication breakdown, lots of spellings of names and addresses etc, I got an Air India confirmation number, with the promise of a ticket number to be emailed within 15 mins. I also received strict instructions to call back if I hadn’t received my ticket number within 15 minutes.

I was weighing up his strict instructions, and lack of confidence I received against the 5-10 minute phone queue and the fact it was now 8pm, and I dialed Flight Network again 10 minutes after hanging up from the first phone call. 5-10 minutes later, the call is answered, I spell some details and get transfered through to the guy I originally spoke too (it was a little more long winded than that actually), and while I’m on the phone, he sends over the email which is happily downloading to my iPhone (3G). Hang up, shoes on and I’m back in the car on the way to the airport again.

Arriving at the Air India check in desk (Toronto Pearson, Terminal 1), was like something from the Virgin Atlantic TV adverts (just less red clothing, less blonde hair and thankfully less strutting about), but an array of happy, friendly, attractive men and women. I was greeted before I even got to the check in queue, the next guy sorted my passport sticker thing out, and directed me to the check in queue, although they had every check in desk open, so the queue was invisible. Straight to the desk, a few minutes actual human conversation in between the formalities and I’m in – it’s like something I’ve never known before, ever.

There’s very little to report between checking in and boarding the plane, other than security going into the Air India gate was huge. Bags get searched, laptops turned on, and another metal detector wand guy makes you stand like a tree and twirl for him. These extra security measure weren’t being done at any other gate (that I could see), concerning or reassuring?

Initial reactions to the plane were good, very very good. After travelling Air Transat and Thomas Cook budget flights for the past 4 flights, this wasn’t difficult to achieve, but it wasn’t a comparison thing, it was a good good plane. The interior decoration was a little unknown to me as far as plane interiors go, but just great. Carpets & seats where purple and gold (yellowish) and there was an incredible mood lighting type thing going on inside. The main lights in the ceiling would go between yellow/white (standard) to purple, red, blue, green depending on the time of day/night, whether we were eating or not etc. It was cool.

The seating was specious and comfortable, with pillows and soft large blankets. The TV’s were large, touch screens with one in each head rest complete with a massive collection of films, tv episodes, music albums, games, flight maps and exterior camera views to choose from. There was hours upon hours of watching/listening entertainment from both the Eastern and Western worlds.

Food & drink was both good and regular, and the service that went with it was spot on. I will say I was on a half empty plane/flight, which I’m sure aids the quality of the service, but with a full plane, I think it will still be pretty darn good.

OK, I’m good to wrap this up now – I landed 15 minutes before Heathrow closed on 15th April due to the volcanic ash floating over the UK following the volcano eruption beneath the Eyjafjallajokull (ay-yah-FYAH’-plah-yer-kuh-duhl) glacier. I picked up the rental car, sat on the M25 for a couple of hours then continued home, arriving at 5pm GMT

FIN

So today, I got up and headed to the hospital I’ve seen many films, where hospital gowns have been worn, whether for comedic effect, or just because, but I didn’t expect it to be compulsory, to have to get undressed and wear one of these ‘do up at the back’ gowns. But:

So $320 later, it turns out that my theory of a pulled muscle, was far from the truth, and in fact I have slipped a disc in my back, which is pushing against the sciatic nerve causing the pain, Yay.

Thankfully, thanks to trusty Doris, I had good comprehensive travel insurance sorted before I left, and I should be able to claim my expenses back soon.

OK, pharmacy for me, to pick up some narcotics – it’s not all bad.

OK, I have only just discovered this website, after finding these videos… The jist of it is, you visit chat roulette, you start you cam, and the website randomly pairs you with someone else’s webcam, and you chat, you skip, move on or play the piano at them, as this guy does.

We both took Friday off work (her actual birthday), which meant we could head out for drinks and dancing with katherine on the Thursday. SugarDaddys was pretty much as I expected, pants – although to be fair, I wasn’t in the best frame of mind Thursday evening, following my rant earlier that day. In any club, I’m usually first on the dance floor, and last one off, but Thursday I was done by 1am, and keen to leave.

Friday was great, I got to treat The Shell to a mug of coke in bed (hopeless romantic), while she opened cards and presents – then we went for a massive breakfast at Cora’s to help settle the stomach, following the nasty nasty tequila from the night before. We hung out for the afternoon at home, before shopping to try and find Shelley a dress. We failed. Never the less, we dressed ourselves up, and went out for dinner and drinks with friends. The Green Mango has such good food, well the one dish that I stick too, because I’m a Weiner, is dang good. And the Crooked Cue pool hall/bar afterwards was pretty cool, nice and chilled – happy days for everyone.

We didn’t do much on Saturday, other than I ruined Shelley’s birthday surprise, by putting my foot in it. In the evening, when we went for a Greek dinner at Astoria, mmmmm, Greek food We went with The Shells parents, brother and his girlfriend. Shelley has the best family, they are so lovely and sweet, I love spending time with them.

From the restaurant, me and The Shell headed to B&B’s for drinks and games until the early hours, when I almost fell asleep at the table, and we decided that it was probably time to head home. Although as soon as I got home, I found a second wind, and decided to talk at Shelley until after 4am. Actually, the clocks went forwards, to 5am.

Sunday, surprise day – Well it should have been. I had booked tickets for a play, for me, Shell, her brother and his girlfriend, My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding. It was so funny. Only my second play and first musical, and I think I’ve been crazy lucky on both occasions to find such funny shows.

Go and see it.

OK, enough now – There’s work to be done, lots of work to be done so I’m gone.