Thursday, June 21, 2007

Breadmaker & Back in Bangkok

Oh I had such a lovely time in the UK. Husband asked me what was the highlight and I thought for a minute:




... and then I said: ‘All of it. The whole week was a highlight’.

********

My friend in Manchester said ‘We’ve got some presents for you and the kids, but they aren’t very big’.

My sister said on the ‘phone ‘I’ve got some presents for you and the kids, but they aren’t very big.’

It was nearly time to go so I repacked my bag. I put everything on the bed: all the books I had bought (I was careful, honest, I only bought 10 or so) and the Soft and Gentle (four large cans), the Tampax (three large boxes) , the Rennies (6 large boxes), the Resolve (two boxes) and the two pots of ‘Options’. It didn’t fit in my case.

My friend, the High Priestess of Punk-chew-ation coughed and said ‘breadmaker.’ Mmmmm, there was a breadmaker in Kent at my folks; I was carrying it back to Bangkok. I couldn’t understand why the space that had been created by 7 pairs of ‘crocs’ I’d bought from Bangkok wasn’t enough… I had to buy a bigger suitcase. I packed the new suitcase and I repacked the breadmaker, which I planned to carry on.

At Heathrow I gave the lovely check in woman my passport, she giggled and said, ‘Is this really you?’ My new suitcase was three kilos overweight and my breadmaker was too big to carry on. ‘That’s okay’ I said, ‘I’ll check the breadmaker in too.’ It was 7 kilos. ‘You’re only allowed to check in one piece of luggage’ she said ‘and you’re only allowed 23 kilos in total. I’m supposed to charge you £120 pounds to check in the breadmaker. I don’t have the authority to change this – only my manager does.’

‘So… uhm, can we try your manager?’

Lovely, gorgeous check-in woman and her unseen (but no doubt equally delicious) manager waived my fee.

Phew.

10 comments:

Jen said...

What a brilliantly eclectic array of goodies to unpack in Bangkok!

There's something of the English eccentric about lugging a breadmaker all that way :)

x

Caroline said...

Sounds like a great week.
I am so pleased to have met you and my pens all work ;-)

x

Jenny Beattie said...

Jen
Oh, that's slightly alarming. 'Eccentric' was the word I used to myself about my parents after seeing them this/last week. If it isn't totally disloyal, I may blog about them. I took visual evidence with my rubbishy camera.

Caroline
It was a lovely week. And really great to meet you. I'm very glad the pens work; they really are tasteless, though, eh?
JJx

Unknown said...

The joys of expat life........you didn't mention tea or other staples of life??

Jenny Beattie said...

Oh god, Liz. I didn't have any room for teabags. I had lots of vegetarian food (which I love, but my family hate), and wonderful roast lamb at my parents, and a fab Greek meal with my sister, and bizarrely a south east asian noodle meal with my friends in Manchester: testament to HOW fabulous SE Asian food is, because I can't get enough of it.

Lucy Diamond said...

Hope you fitted the Marmite in, too??!

hesitant scribe said...

Glad you got back safely - and with the breadmaker! Well done you!

Jenny Beattie said...

Lucy, Hurrah, we can buy Marmite here now! Only since we moved here, though.

Lisa, Hello my love. Only by the skin of my teeth, did I get that damn breadmaker here! Now, I just need to find out where to buy the right flour...

Jon M said...

Yay for lovely, gorgeous check-in women everywhere. It was great to meet you JJ!

Helen said...

Hi JJ - great to see you 'back'. I agree with Jen . "English eccentric lugs breadmaker to Thailand". Fabulous.