Seeing the World

The flights, hotel and pre-flight airport hotel were all booked some weeks ago.  I’ve double checked the accommodation prices today and there’s nothing to be gained by cancelling and rebooking.

So the well time acquiring of the new BMW means that it will take me down to Luton Airport for a wild night in the Holiday Inn post-match before heading on to airport security, Aspire lounge for a bacon sandwich (hopefully) and flight at silly o’clock on Sunday morning.

I’ve got a few €uros left from previous trips so the plan, for now, is to use those for the bus from the airport, try and do everything on credit card while there and then handover cash again for the return bus to the airport.  Iceland could have been done card only.  Other than those bus trips this could be the same.

Bus station to hotel is a twenty minute walk.  It looks like a straight line and crosses the river.  The bus station is also next to the train station so if I do follow through with my plan to visit Zagreb I’ll know exactly where to start that trip.

Walking tour in plan for Monday morning.  Zagreb Tuesday.  Ljubljana on Wednesday to dig deeper into what the walking tour tells me.  Back to Luton and another BMW blast on Thursday.

Feeling good!

Treating Myself

Under the threat of redundancy, I’d pretty much decided that when the company car went back that I’d have to replace it with a more modest second hand vehicle.

With the inevitability my early death Chris, over a pre-match KFC, threw in the idea of blasting off the planet in a treat of a car.  Let’s face it, as long as I avoid financial ruin before I go he had a point.

So today’s main task, other than checking I’ve got everything in place for tomorrow’s drive to Luton Airport and subsequent flight to Ljubljana, is to empty the contents of the Insignia into either the dustbin or my brand new BMW320i Sport.  And then ring Fleet Services at work and arrange for them to collect my workhorse of a Vauxhall that never let me down.  Except when it allowed me to reverse into a pillar on Manchester Airport’s T3 short stay car park.

The picture above was one of the nice touches the dealer had yesterday.  I also liked the magician style covering of my new car in a black cloth.  And £40 of fuel generously loaded into the tank.

After taking the final hit on my credit card, and being given a demonstration of how to drive and control my dark blue beauty, I headed off into the wilds of the M62.  Alas, it was busy so it not quite the blitz down the highway I wanted.  But it was a start.

It’s certainly a lovely thing to drive.  Quieter than the diesel I’d had previously.  Cornering beautifully, accelerating just that little bit more smoothly than any car I’d driven before.

Only now did I begin to compare the new against the old.  And it’s this point where I realised I rather liked the soon to be auctioned off Insigna!  Not to the point of regretting my decision to return to a Beamer.  But certainly a moment or two where I appreciated some of the layout of what was now lost.

Part of this is down to me being a man.  So the likelihood of actually reading the instruction manual is close to zero.  But I do need to adjust my seat to a higher position because at present half the dashboard information is hidden behind the steering wheel.  Oh, and it’s a bit of a struggle to get my diseased body out of car!

I did learn that adjusting my seat position with controls and levers I’m not used to while doing 50mph on one of West Yorksire’s darkened country roads is inappropriate.  Lever one throwing the back of the seat thirty degrees backwards and lever two tilting the seat to an angle which had me staring out of an imaginary sun roof rather than focusing on the giant Sainsburys truck just ahead.

Then there’s the storage space.  I need to ditch some of the junk that lives in the cockpit with me in old car world.  I’m convinced BMW have a better engineering achievement here than the Insigna, but little nooks and crannies to keep your loose change in, store some tissues and keep your Bell’s palsy essential eye drops handy clearly never entered the head of Fritz when he was putting this beauty together.  And I assume Germans don’t ever drive with glasses cases and disabled badges.  And where the hell do I put my mobile phone now that it’s six points for holding it?

Only one USB socket seems a little mean.  Although Bluetooth means my phone can remain connected hands free to take the three calls a year I get when driving.  I’ve not actually got any idea how to answer an incoming call but the control knob in the centre console does appear to be quite intuitive and may have the capability to Nuke Trump once I’ve worked things out.

The sat nav proved interesting.  “Prepare to turn left” doesn’t mean take the next left turn.  And the advance screen warning I’m used to showing the next manoeuvre is now verbal.  So I’m going to have to listen to what that bloody woman tells me!  Including her “take the A6177 to Ring Road “.  Ring Road is not a town dear!  Although driving around Milan I did once ponder why the hell Tangenziale kept appearing on road signs as surely we must have past it miles earlier!

My toughest adjustment is a return to the handbrake.  I’m genuinely gobsmacked that BMW has these in their most recent 3 series.  I’m used to flicking a little switch and having the car recognise handbrake release by my use of clutch and accelerator.  BMW is still in the dark ages here.  Although I’ll never forgive Vauxhall for using the space freed up by not needing a handbrake to incorporate a useless touch pad where the only purpose was to be accidentally touch it and destroy whatever settings I’d put in place for sat nav or radio.

Theres a lot of adjustment to come.  Not least the seat.  But I’m going to have a blast!

Happy Birthday Bell’s Palsy

My Bell’s palsy is five months old tomorrow.  Well that’s not quite true.  My permanently open eye was first spotted by an anaesthetist five months ago, an hour before my back surgery to replace my dead L5 bone with cement.  She didn’t actually do anything about my eye, and despite me reporting my drooping lip post-op none of the other medics paid it any attention.

Indeed, it took me two weeks to raise the problem with my GP because I didn’t spot that my face had slipped quite dramatically.  The GP visit triggered brain cancer investigations which stopped me driving for weeks.  Eventually, just as I was being sedated for a lung biopsy, a specialist thrust a prescription for steroids into my hand.

Had those steroids materialised when the first medical professional spotted I had a problem it’s possible that the condition could have passed several weeks ago.  But key timescales for correction seem to be four weeks, three months or nine months.  Looks like I’m heading for the latter.

My online research into the condition reveals numerous doctors willing to support facial physiotherapy and the like, but no clinical proof that such exercises make the slightest bit of difference.

Another option it seems is Botox.  That could straighten my face and may have a benefit for the lisp I’ve acquired with the condition.  Perhaps even sort out the tear in my now misaligned right nostril which keeps scabbing and then tearing again.

But Botox won’t fix the condition and it won’t help the right eye blink again.  And, to be frank, I don’t really care what I look like.  I just want my eye to stop being sore and behave normally.

It’s a curse I could do without!

“Press IIP For Ease of Defacation”

Following on from yesterday’s comments on the failings of the typical hotel shower my sister sent me the photograph above from the west London location she spent last night in.

Just in case you haven’t worked out what it is, Thomas Crapper invented a less advanced version of it many years ago.

This incarnation of the flushing toilet is so complex it even comes with its own instruction manual.  I’m not taking the piss.  Indeed, I’m seriously considering adding this to my bucket list!

My favourite direction from the manual reads as follows:

Press IIP for ease of defacation.  Intensive water pulsiaton may help you to have ease of defacation

Wow.  Just wow.  Last I heard she was trying to work out how to flush.

Is Ibis Styles Any Good?

I’ve never stayed in an Ibis Styles before last night.  Ibis seems to be the Accor group’s budget brand whereas sister brands Novotel and Mercure are supposedly a tad more upmarket.  The group also, bizarrely, owns the famous Raffles Hotel in Singapore.  Presumably it’s quintessentially French!

Within Ibis there are a handful of sub brands.  “Styles” seems to mirror Holiday Inn Express in that it offers a basic continental breakfast within the room rate, has  laundry service but seems to be set up for cheaper short stays.  One differentiator is that Ibis Styles hotels appear to have decor relevant to location.  Being near Haydock racecourse I found myself exposed to menus designed like a race card, bedside lamp shades shaped like a jockey’s helmet and various other bizarre items depicting horses, jumps and so on.  It was actually quite bizarre.

So what do you get for your money?  A smooth check in, a spacious enough room, tea and coffee facilities, a shower room and a bed with the thinnest quilt cover I’ve ever experienced.  It was basic.  It was adequate.  And it was marginally less comfortable than my last stay in a Holiday Inn Express.

There is was a 24/7 menu for half decent sounding meals, although these weren’t cheap.  The pub next door looked a better bet for a decently priced meal.

Breakfast was basic too.  Toast, croissant, cereal and yoghurt.  And that was about it.  I was actually quite surprised by how limited the continental breakfast was.

There is an option of paying £6 for a full English, or £3.50 for a bacon roll.  I was happy without and didn’t see any member of staff interested in taking an order anyway.  Or any note on the price card saying how to order.

Checkout was simple.

In the end, the hotel did what it said it would do.  Bed, breakfast and a reasonable level of price compared to neighbouring hotels.  In other circumstances I might have been pleased to have a menu for evening meals and hot breakfasts which might give it an edge over competitors for some stays.

But going back to my comparison with Holiday Inn Express.  Ibis Styles Haydock just isn’t as good as my experience of numerous HIX properties.  Give me competitive costs and I can’t see myself staying with Ibis.  It would need to be a bargain.

While there’s nothing inherently wrong with this hotel, I wish I’d stayed in the similarly priced Premier Inn on the other side of the East Lancs Road.

Why Are Hotel Showers So Bad?

Many people told me they enjoyed reading about my hotel room rant but I omitted what is probably the biggest failing of all hotel rooms across the globe.  The shower.

I’m not really referring to cleanliness, maintenance and general repair.  More the basically flawed design of an item that should be simple to perfect in an industry where 99% of your guest rooms have one.

My obvious example comes from Bratislava when I flooded the bathroom because of a failure to angle floor tiles with any sense.

But what is it about hotel showers that makes on, off, warmer, colder, more power, less power so bloody difficult?  This morning’s Ibis experience starts with turning the shower on.  Two twisty metallic knobs to go at.  There’s a number 38 on the nearest one so I have to lean under the shower head to the furthest knob and successfully turn it on.  Icy cold water hurtles out of the shower head over my angled torso.  Absolutely no way of avoiding this.

Then I want to find my optimum temperature.  Which way do I turn the knob?  I’ve no idea.  But then trial and error is utterly pointless as I eventually establish there are only three settings.  Freeze.  Luke warm and boil your nads into oblivion.

For crying out loud, this is a modern building!

And don’t get me started on “rainforest shower heads” you sometimes get in arty farty hotels.  Seriously, the idea of standing under an Amazonian waterfall has merit in life.  The idea of replicating the experience on a business trip to Bristol is utter farce.  I want to angle my shower head.  I want to adjust the water pressure.  Hell, I want to unhook the thing and point it at the sweatier regions of my body.  Imagining  humming birds fluttering past and piranha eating my toes isn’t really what I’m after before briefing the guys on the latest sales numbers.

And then there’s the shower over the bath.  The previous occupant has left the plug in.  You turn the lever and the tap starts running.  You then lean over the bath to turn what you think is the plug lever to let the water drain and it switches from tap to shower.  You get drowned in that icy cold water again!  Then repeat the comments above about heat control.

In summary, hotel showers are usually a bit rubbish.  And are invariably the worst designed amenities ever invented.  You’d think an industry as big as this would have done something about it by now.

A Long But Successful Day

A day trip to Southport today.  In the evening I’ll be meeting Chris off a train and driving him to watch AFC Fylde take on Stockport County.  As National League North fixtures go this one is massive.

But that’s the sideshow.  I’m meeting my Dad for the first time in over a decade before Chris gets into town.

I think, without getting into detail, it’s fair to describe it as a strained relationship.  While the Christmas cards have been exchanged there’s not been a lot else in recent years.  Perhaps I’ve been guilty of expecting the older participant to commence the work to bridge the gap.  The lyrics to that Mike and the Mechanics song seem poignant.

At the same time as my diagnosis his second wife died.  I held off sharing my news until a couple of days after a funeral that I wasn’t invited too.  It must have been tough to lose a wife of thirty years one week and then discover your son is dying the next week.  I felt somewhat moved when he mentioned “thirty happy years”.  At the same time frustrated at how little we’ve involved each other over those thirty years.

I doubt it will be a day full of reminiscing.  I don’t expect we’ll go over old ground.  And perhaps there’s little point in doing so.  But maybe it can be the start of something acceptable before one of us checks out on life.  That shouldn’t do either of us any harm.

Still Hoping For That Miracle

Initialły they thought I had myeloma.  If there is such a thing that’s something I’ll describe as “nice cancer”.  A five year life expectancy historically but there are huge hopes that the latest pill a day treatments will significantly extend this.

Then they scanned my lungs and changed their minds.  Definitely lung cancer.  Two experts wouldn’t be drawn on prognosis.  The internet was pretty consistent with its 6-9 month survival figure.  Just 4% reach five years.  I made a will and set the ball rolling on making my pension inheritable.  And discovered they’ll levy inheritance tax on it if I don’t survive for over two years!

I researched the possibility that I had bone cancer that had spread to the lung and not the other way around.  That increased five year life expectancy to 20%.  My biopsy dashed those hopes.  But I had a particular type of lung cancer prevalent in non-smokers.  This invited a pill a day treatment Afatinib.  Average life expectancy 32 months.  Nearly four gone.  Five year life expectancy 14%.  Although it’s a treatment that only been around six years so that might change.

At some stage they tell me the Afatinib will stop working.  Well that’s what they say.  Although who knows?  Somewhere close to 14% of users are presumably still taking it five years on.  Who’s to say they won’t die of old age before the tumours work out how to beat the drug?

But when they do stop working the NHS now has another option for me.  Osimertinib.  Well that’s not a certainty.  I need another specific gene mutation to qualify.  But that buys an average of an extra 11 months.  Everything’s an average.  And it’s another drug that stops working after a time.  But I’ll suffer another biopsy willingly if it means I qualify.

Then there’s Bob Berry.  His trial at Manchester’s Christie Hospital sounds like a miracle has taken place.  My oncologist tells me that this is a more invasive treatment than my current medication and is a long way off being ready for the NHS.  But I suppose if I can hit the average survival rates for the first two treatments this one might be ready for me.  Hopefully.

Next, if I’m still alive, comes the assault on bad proteins reported in a dodgy tabloid last week.  That seems further away as a reality.  But if I can stretch out the other options, who knows?

And after that, good old chemotherapy.  Memories of seeing a family friend suffer it for little benefit.  There might come a stage where I simply accept the inevitable is close.  At the moment I know it’s highly likely.  But it doesn’t feel close.  Until then, I battle on.  And travel on.  And try to lead as active a life as possible despite the limitations the illness places on me.  It ain’t over until it’s over.

My Maltese Belt is No More