Into the New Year

Monday morning we got repacked, wrapped up some more presents and set off for the South. We stopped for a bit of lunch and exchange of presents at John's brothers and to pick up John's Mum, before heading for Ashdown Park in Sussex for a couple of nights break for the three of us. AP is a sister hotel to Luton Hoo, where we got married so we thought we'd give it a try, the only problem with sister hotels is that you can't help making continuous comparisons. The building itself has had a varied past including being a convent and a training centre for Barclays. Worried by Rachel's memory of spartan rooms when she was working there in her graduate training programme I upgraded our rooms which turned out to be very large and comfy though a bit chintzy and tired. I had asked for rooms close to the main restaurant and without too many stairs so that Isobel wouldn't have to walk too far but somehow that got lost in translation and we ended up about as far away as it was possible to be, up one flight of stairs and with an outside trip if you wanted to avoid a further 3 flights of stairs! However, it was a lovely hotel (with proper baths) and the food was really good (here at least they beat Luton Hoo). Times must be hard in the hotel business and we certainly got a good deal of two nights b&b for the price of one as long as you took dinner. This was clear in the small savings - hardly any toiletries or teabags and only one canape each with the preprandial drinks!
Tuesday we headed to Tunbridge Wells for a bit of shopping - something of a carbon copy of Harrogate or Cheltenham (standard Spa town shopping experience!) It worked for me though,despite parking challenges and a lot of hill. I was particularly delighted, when discussing my IT illiteracy with a man half my age in Curry's Digital, to be told that if I was really the IT idiot I claimed to be then I was a good looking one!
We'd enjoyed watching a special programme about the making of 'Not the Nine O'Clock News' the night before - I can't believe that it's the 30th anniversary of the programme. Despite being a topical programme of its day I didn't think the humour had dated at all but then it was my era. We bought a full set of the programmes on DVD in the BBC shop in Tunbridge Wells so we can continue to enjoy it in Abu Dhabi. So along with some new episodes of Cranford (clearly not written by Mrs Gaskell) and a set of Taggarts given to us by Rachel and Andrew we won't be totally reliant on repeats of Midsomer Murders and the occasional film on Orbit Showtime!
There is a general election coming up in the spring so I've requested our postal votes, though whether they'll be time to post them out and back once the date is announced seems unlikely. In Manchester my left wing vote should still count, though a Tory government is by no means certain. However, The Guardian, did put a positive spin on the likely outcome by reminding us of the counter culture and creativity generated in opposition to Margaret Thatcher and the 18 years of Conservative Britain - including Not the Nine O'Clock News, Spitting Image and Brit Pop, so maybe there is something to look forward to! I was amazed to see the unrest in the public services which everyone is desperately trying not to liken to the winter of discontent. I can't really comment from my far away position but I do want to remind people of what state the public services were in in 1997, with decaying hospitals, school buildings anc chronic underfunding in so many areas. Times are hard now, but then they are everywhere - even here there are sad tales of redundancies, especially for people with partners or family working in Dubai. Anyway enough pollitical ranting and on with the story of our lovely family break.
On our final day at Ashdown Park we were joined for lunch by John's son Matthew and his mother which was great. Matthew seems to be enjoying his year abroad in Granada as part of his degree and looked very well. He is planning to come and stay with us in Abu Dhabi in February when his exams finish which should be fun.
We headed back to Leysdown for the night in order to take John's Mum home and for some shopping in the morning as she doesn't have a car anymore.
New Year's Eve we set off back North, stopping at Rachel and Andrew's for a lovely New Year's Eve meal and more champagne - I don't know how I'm going to manage without my 24 hour champagne fix once we go back to normal life and work and how I'll cope with only one meal a day rather than the 2 or 3 which we've been manfully putting away over the holiday. If I can get any clothes done up by the time we get back it will be a miracle!
Having seen the New Year in we headed back to Manchester on Friday morning to get ourselves prepared for a crack of dawn return to Abu Dhabi on Saturday morning. I had reckoned without the fact that shops in the UK do occasionally shut and most of Manchester was shut on New Year's Day so I was unable to stock up at Boots and M&S with the necessities. We do have both shops in Abu Dhabi but they just aren't the same thing at all! However all was not lost, Pizza Express was open for a last fix!
Cases packed we headed for Manchester Airport at 5.30am and the shuttle to Heathrow. Whilst we've been away there was a terrorist attack on a plane to the US with an extremist with explosives in his underwear. I wasn't sure what difference it would make but nothing much seemed to be in evidence - although they clearly entered our details in incorrectly when we dropped the bags off in Manchester so, John in particular, kept being stopped for passport checks and they were reluctant to let us onto the Abu Dhabi flight at first. They now charge a pound for a plastic bag to put your gels in, which is not only daylight robbery, but environmentally unfriendly as they come in plastic bubbles. For some reason you have to go through security at Heathrow if you come off an international flight onto a domestic one but not the other way round. Clearly they only trust security at UK airports. It hampers the purchase of duty free and toiletries, especially as no-one seems to know what the rules are and Boots were not keen to sell me some hay fever spray in case it got confiscated. Thankfully no-one suggested that we take our underwear off and we arrived onto the flight in one piece with everything still with us.
Club World in the daytime is such a luxury - champagne, nice wine, comfy chairs and an interesting film. The food is not as good as Etihad and they'd run out of John's choice of starter, but overall it was a great experience.
We arrived half an hour early to a taxi queue and rain (no chauffeur service with BA!) but it felt really warm after the minus temperatures of the past few days.
Back in Abu Dhabi after a wonderful trip to dear old blighty and a new chapter with a new job and a new year to contend with.
Once again, if anyone is reading this, I hope that 2010 is a good one for all of you and that you have lots of look forward to.