Greetings All,

Yes its that time of the week again. Hot after the last tale, it has been an interesting week, with little of it actually spent in Sfax,  or even off the coast of Sfax. Instead, the early part of the week was spent in airport lounges or in the air as I made my way to and from Belfast. 

 Sadly, this means you will be subject to my latest rant about the incredibly annoying Air France. But at least I did manage a brief stay at home and got to drive the new car.  Now, I am back out on the Flotel off the east coast of Tunisia and being entertained by tales of my dog loving Commissioning Manager, more of which later.

Trials and Tribulations

And so to the trials and tribulations. I flew into Sfax last Sunday and managed to catch the Ireland v England rugby game on TV.   (Ireland beat

England 19:13) let’s just say, this got the week off to a really bad start. On the upside some kind person had donated a case of John Smiths bitter whilst watching the game. It went down very well and helped take the edge off England getting outplayed yet again. It also helped with the post match commiserations. Hence,  it was a slightly hungover, dyspeptic me that got up at 04.30am on Monday morning to catch my flight to Tunis. That really is a horribly early start which I definitely didn’t appreciate. Why so early?  I recently lost my work secretary. She has landed herself an excellent opportunity in London with the European parliament, but their gain is definitely my loss. Sahla was always extremely efficient when it came to organising my travel arrangements. In her absence I got one of the logistics guys to sort the arrangements out for me. He is obviously an early riser.

It didn’t get any better.  The driver failed to show to take me to the airport, so cursing gently, I headed off in my own car and in a shocking mood. I was a little concerned about leaving the car at the airport, but on the other hand its well insured!

The Tunis Flight

The flight to Tunis was packed and these Tunisian internal flights operate an interesting system where there are no seats allocated. You just take pot luck. This is made more interesting by the fact that the flight starts in Gabes and so arrives half full. Overhead  lockers are usually full and there is only ever aisle seats available. These are usually next to large Tunisian women in flowing skirts with large handbags. They do a mean glower these ladies when you try to sit next to them. So being British and polite doesn’t work. Push and elbow to get the best seat possible is the key.  Sadly, I was feeling a tad delicate, so off my game. But, it’s a short flight and I was able to ignore the glaring lady next to me and arrived in Tunis by 07.00 hrs in plenty of time to check in and tackle the Air France desk.

Much to my surprise everything went very smoothly. In fact, the whole way back to Manchester was easy peasy. The flights were all on time, I was travelling light so no problems with baggage.  In fact, I arrived in Manchester early, got my hire car with the minimum of fuss and was feeling pretty good. This didn’t last as I took the wrong slip road coming out of the airport and ended up going around the Manchester ring road system. Still, it was a nice hire car to drive. I was earlier than expected and soon found the right road, despite my underwhelming navigational skills. So, after a less than promising start, all went swimmingly well.

Belfast

I spent a very pleasant night at home with my darling wife, made all the more pleasant by the fact that it was unplaned and unexpected. It was another early start the following day, but the ride to Manchester airport was relatively painless. Time for a coffee and Danish before catching my (on-time) flight to Belfast City.

Chatty Chap

At the other end, I was met by a very chatty driver from FG Wilson, the company I was here to visit.  We had a bit of a wait for my two collegues

from London to arrive, so I bought more coffee and another danish and we sat and discussed all kinds of stuff. The changes in Belfast since the “Troubles”. The relative merits of Toyota vs any other car, ( He was a real Toyota enthusiast). Why England Rugby are so bad.   It was all fascinating stuff and the time flew by. Eventually, it slowly dawned on me that the other two were not going to arrive. A few frantic calls confirmed that they had left England, but the plane I expected them on had long since arrived and left again, with no  sign of them.  Of course Belfast has two airports…………… Yup, I was at one, and they were at the other, wondering where the hell I’d got to.

Once we worked this out, we set off in our respective cars to FG Wilsons offices in Lairn. I quite like Ireland I have to say. I’ve always liked the people and the countryside is beautiful. Now that they have stopped trying to blow each other up, I think I could happily live around there. If my liver could take the guiness.

The New Car

The weather in Ireland was great. Clear and sunny if a little chilly. FG Wilson are right on the coast and you can see over the water to Scotland just over 18 miles away. Amazing. It tickled me to think I had set off by car in Wales to catch a plane in England to fly out to Ireland where I was now looking out over Scotland.  Ours really is a small country. 

The meetings went remarkably well and in half the time I expected,  I had closed out all of the remaining issues or had an agreed way ahead. Summing up all my will power, I turned  down offers of Irish hospitality at the local boozer and headed back to the airport and an early flight home. I wasn’t trying to be unsociable, There was a new BMW Z4 to play with.

BMW Z4

 I made it back home to discover Wifey and small boy sitting in the new car playing with the toys. We now have Wifeys entire address book programmed into the Sat Nav system. Small boy was a bit disgusted that the TV monitor didn’t work, but that was my fault as I didn’t specify the TV function. We were all very impressed by the pop up sat nav’  however. I have yet to pair my mobile with the blue  tooth preparation in the car and have also got to get to grips with the Sound system. Why you might want to get a cathedral effect surround sound in the car does baffle me a bit. Non the less its toys to play with. Wifey had left her car in Chester so I drove her to collect it and wow. What a lovely throaty roar from the new engine. And the road holding. Oh yes, I can see we are going to have fun with this. It was very cold, very dark and rather snowy, but it seemed rude not to put the top down at least once just because we could. So down it went, and very quickly, back up it went too. But at least we know it works. So, on the whole I think we both approve of the new car, or Sarah as Wifey has christend it. Her? Anyway, I look forward to playing more when I arrive home later this month.

The Return

After pausing at the local pub to proudly show off Sarah to my genial local landlord, (where I have to admit the top was up and down like a yo yo much to his delight!) I ran out of excuses to drive around. Reluctantly, I put the car away and went to bed for yet another early start.  And so begins another tale.

Got to Manchester Airport early the next morning and was checked in all the way to Sfax with AirFrance. “However”, said the girl at the desk, “your plane is delayed, so please relax in the lounge and we’ll call you when its ready”. OK. Given the tightness of my connection in CdeG, I was concerned that I would miss it and was all for going home and trying again the following day. “Don’t worry Sir” she said.  All the flights are delayed, so your connection will be held up for you.” I really should know better.

My 08.00 flight eventually left Manchester at around 11.15. We arrived at CdeG at 13.10, spent 20 mins waiting for a bus to collect us from the parking stand and so arrived at the terminal at 13.35, I hr and 10 mins after the scheduled departure time of my connecting flight. ” Non, monsieur” said the stewardess, ” your connection is delayed and you weeel mak it!!” Cobblers. 

Security and Flowers

I tried to get to the gate but was refused entry at security as the time on my boarding pass showed gate closed at 12.10. I tried to explain that I had

been assured the plane was delayed and hence the gate wasn’t closed, but no. I had to go the transfer desk and get the boarding pass revalidated. So, with no option I did just that.

The transfer desk was surrounded by a scrum of around 200 people. The weather in Paris was attrocious. Heavy snow had closed the airport and there were loads and loads of cancellations and delays. So in that very British way, I joined the business class queue and waited. And waited and waited and waited. 2 hours later, I was about fourth from the front and my sense of humour was wearing thin. This was when the French pillock behind the desk, stood up, put on his coat and left. His shift was over and so we were no longer his problem. Around 15 minutes later a supervisor made the mistake of showing her face and was nearly linched. On the up side, she did bring some flowers to brighten up the still empty desk.

I for one felt so much better when the flowers arrived. NOT.

Fast Track

When somebody did arrive things seemed to speed up. The previous guy was averaging 20 minutes per query. This one got it down to around 10 mins. So after nearly three hours of queuing, I got to the front. At which point a French family pushed past me clutching their boarding cards and complaining  loudly that they had been waiting for nearly 20 minutes and their flight was due to go in 2 hrs and this wasn’t good enough. I smiled indulgently, waiting for the harriden behind the desk to tell them to get back in line. But no, she took their tickets off them and proceeded to start working on getting them fast tracked.

This was where my sense of humour snapped. I tried in my best schoolboy French to point out that I had queued for 3 bloody hours and my plane had gone around 90 minutes earlier. I also accused them of cheating at Agincourt, suggested their mother was a camel and vowed never to eat garlic again. All I got in response was a very gallic shrug and a look that suggested they couldn’t care less. The American behind me was a bit more forthright and vowed to get his son, currently on duty in Iraq, to detour via Paris on his way back to the States in his F15 and bomb the pinko Froggy commies,  And I hope he does.

Delayed Again

The outcome of all the queuing was an offer of a free night in Paris and a flight the next day, in time to miss  the connection to Sfax. There is only one flight to Sfax per day. My patience had given out so I refused,  saying I needed to be in Sfax by no later than 10.00am the next day. This apparently was impossible. So I was put on the next flight to Tunis that night and  told to sort myself out. From their point of view this meant that I was going to have to pay for my own accomodation overnight in Tunis and sort my own travel to Sfax. This after already having paid Airfrance to get me to Sfax, which they had failed to do.   Of course,  BG took care of all that for me, but that’s not the point.  I ended up walking away from the transfer desk fuming gently. Not so much as a toothbrush. Having not expected to be overnighting anywhere, I had no option but to go and buy some toiletries and a razor. 

We British really ought to make for of a fuss about these things. I bumped into the American chap who had been behind me wandering around the shops in the terminal. He had complained long and loud about the appalling service, making heaps and heaps of fuss. As a result he was clutching a restaurant voucher. A business class ticket on an air canada flight to Philadelphia, ( he had been cattle class on American Airlines to Washington). A voucher for 100 Euros to spend in the Paris Boutique shop. And  an overnight kit, courtesy of Air france. Bloody marvelous.  I should have threatened to bomb them too.

Back in Sfax

For what its worth, my first action back in Sfax was to write a  curt note to Airfrance telling them exactly what I think of them. This was  followed by the cancellation of my tickets for my next trip home with them. That’ll teach them.  Instead, I am flying with BA via Gatwick and returning with Monarch via Barcelona. Now I wonder if I can arrange a stopover there….hmmmm. 

Finally, back on the platform. I hadn’t realised that Bill my commissioning manager was such a dog lover, but it appears he is. He has been telling me about his latest purchase. An american crossed labridore/poodle mix, apparantly entitled a Labridoodle!!! This is going to compliment his current dog which is a cross between a poodle and a cocker spaniel, known as a cockerpoo. I’m sure someone can put me straight on this,  but he is having me on,  isn’t he?  If not, I want one.

Until next week cheery bye for now,

Graham