24 December 2010

Christmas Eve

So I finished up for Christmas today.  Only had one driving lesson between 12-2pm and it went quite well I think.  In fact I was meant to have a driving test first thing in the morning followed by this driving lesson, but when I woke up this morning I got a text from my pupil saying the test was cancelled.  I called him to ask how he knew so soon and he said the test centre called him around 7:30am to tell him his 9:37am test was cancelled due to icy conditions.  Not too surprised it was cancelled but very surprised the test centre called the pupil as I was expecting to call them on his behalf since English is not his first language.  After speaking to my pupil I went back to bed.  Yep, I could have gotten up and went to the gym but I was pretty tired and struggled to face the coldness outside.  So I was thinking... would this be my last gym session?  Not quite.  Cos I will still get to workout next week at some point.  Either at the hotel when I'm away on my wee trip or at Greens if I get snowed in and cannae fly.

Wee trip

It just dawned on me last night that my wee trip is only a few days away.  The flight is at 11:35am which means I should be at the airport at least an hour beforehand, but might not know if my flight is going ahead until possibly on Monday morning when I will check the flight status online.  Oh my!  There are reports of snowfall this Sunday and Monday (Boxing Day and the 27th December) but I hope the snow doesn't affect the trip.  However it also makes me question, what if I got out there but can't get back in on time for New Year?  Haha!  Ok, might look funny here, but I don't think it will be quite so funny if it really happened.  Cos although I have the week off work it doesn't mean I want to be away from home that long.  Haha!  Guess what?  When booking the flight and the hotel I only took the insurance when booking the flight, but didn't take it when booking the hotel.  Cos I was thinking the flight insurance should/ would cover the hotel stuff as well.  Now I'm a little doubtful cos I am not sure if the flight insurance will cover all cancellation related changes if the weather causes my flight to cancel.  The worse case scenario would be if/ when the snow hits us again and my flight is cancelled.  According to the airline website I can get a refund if the flight is cancelled.  That's fine, without or without insurance I should get my money back.  But what about the hotel?  Well I contacted Alpharooms to ask what would happen if my flight got cancelled due to the weather and here's their response:

"In normal circumstances, any cancellation within 14 days of travel would incur a 100% cancellation charge, however due to the weather situation in the U.K at the moment we are trying to remove or reduce charges wherever possible.

If your flight is cancelled, please let us know as soon as possible. We can then contact our supplier and let them know you will not be arriving. Should they offer a refund then of course this will be passed onto you, however please be aware that if the hotel/supplier charge for the cancellation we would have to pass these charges onto you."


So I've to contact them on Monday morning if my flight is cancelled and just keep my fingers crossed that if I cannot make it over there I will get some sort of refund for the hotel.  But I wouldn't hold my breath because it would be very spectacular for the hotel to refund money after a booking but hey, you never know eh.  Anyway, I wouldn't want the flight to be cancelled cos it would be more hassle than anything else, but I'm also scared in case I get stranded there and not make it back for New Year.  Nooooo!!  But having said that, I did take the first step in getting myself ready for the trip and I went to M&S and got myself some Euros.  Not much, just £100 worth.  Should be enough to last me for the first day over there.  And I'm sure the rest will sort itself out.  Now travel money is sorted, it's just a case of waiting to see if I can fly away :)

Ready for Christmas

It's Christmas Eve now and I've done all my shopping, written all my Christmas cards, wrapped all my presents, made sure my admin is all up to date.  I will be leaving all things driving instruction related from this moment onwards until I start back again on Monday 3rd Jan.  I wonder how long this can last though.  Lol!  Pupils are bound to call me at some point to ask stuff or reschedule etc.  One thing that I cannot avoid is my office, which I require to get me around even when I'm off.  And I still need to clean it as well.  Haha!  I'm looking forward to this week off.  It's so much different from the two weeks off when I was snowed in because then I had to call pupils to confirm or cancel lessons and had to constantly check the weather forecasts etc.  Now I can truly lay them all aside and just enjoy myself.  Looking forward to time off without being on edge.  Hopefully not more ranting.  Haha!!

So what's planned for this Christmas?  Well I will get up tomorrow and get all spruced up before getting Nick and bringing him over to our house.  We shall have brunch together before we hang out and possibly open presents, watch Christmas tv or possibly a movie, or play card games, or arm wrestle, or sing and dance.  Gonna have a big dinner I hope and get stuffed on turkey and lots of veg.  Will try to have an early night because we plan to hit the Next Boxing Day Sale on Sunday morning. I think the stores open at 6am so we shall try to go there as early as possible (the early bird catches the worm!) before coming back to pack and send Nick off to the airport.  Guess it'll be my first of two trips to the airport, so at least I will get an idea of whether my flight can take place the next day =)

Ok feeling really tired now.  Gotta go guys.  Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!!  =D

No comments:

Post a Comment