Again! Sorry about that. Things are very much in the “do work, go home, wake up, do work” pattern for a while now.

I’m on to my second visitor in a week with Nic flying in on Monday morning. On the same day, Delphine departed after a short stay on her way back to Nice from Paris (and Bruge, and Brussels, and Berlin…). Nic’s opted for the “stay at ground level and paint things” course of action during her visit. Delphine had a go at snowboarding on one of the nursery slopes and after a day of trudging up and sliding down hill managed to stand up for most of the time. She did damage her thumb slightly with an awkward landing, but on the whole she departed uninjured.

On Sundays I’ve started “repping” one of the buses home from the airport. This is a great chance to chat to some of the guests and is usually quite relaxed as there’s not often more than a dozen people heading to Chamonix on the last flight. This week, however, there was quite a delay. One of the planes coming in with passengers booked with one of our competitors had a pilot who… let’s say “didn’t have much experience”. Or he was blind.

Essentially, he would prepare to land, start to descend, chicken out and fly up and round again. This caused a backlog with all the other flights as well. While I’m all for equal rights for the “differently-abled”, hiring a pilot who needs to land a 150-seater aeroplane using nothing but his sense of touch is pushing things just a little too far. The passengers, when they finally arrived, were in good spirits. One even commented that “you have to pay for rides like that at Alton Towers!”

The only downside to the Sunday work is that I can’t catch any of the footie that’s televised which means I miss the Boro game next weekend. I do get to catch what promises to be a dull encounter against Villa the following Saturday and an inevitable trouncing by ManUre two weeks after that. Jolly-ho.

Coming up, I have visits from Giuliana (I hope) from Turin; Esther and friend from Amsterdam; Viv from back home; and Leah from back home (again!). There’s also a “possible” regarding Sharon and a friend of Noah’s from Israel. I just realised that every one of my visitors is/will be female. I’m going to get quite a reputation here!

I’ve also started planning my summer out. I have a couple of weeks to spare over June around the festivals, so I’m thinking of doing the Baltic states as well as (maybe) Berlin and Warsaw. Somehow I need to get an updated passport as I also want to go to Vietnam again and I only have one spare page in my existing document. However, I’m not going to be in the UK for long which means I might have to resort to the pricey “appointment at the passport office”. A 10-year, 48-page passport on a same-day service is a whopping £123. Ouch.

And yes, I know I still haven’t posted any pictures…

The vacation planners are much interested to provide all-inclusive vacation packages of the different travel agencies. You may enjoy the fantastic as well as romantic resorts of the world if you are guided properly by the travel guide. You may stay for a while in the travel lodge of the different airline companies in airports.