This week, has been a bit more eventful, I went to Oslo on Monday, for a quick overnight trip, it was definitely a case of planes (2), trains (1) and automobiles (2). Alan was out there on business and had been invited to dinner at the home of a guy he does business with in Oslo, I was invited along too, which was fab and we were joined by a couple from Finland who we have met before.
Our hosts live in a lovely apartment and they took us all up to the roof with frozen Margueritas to see the view of the Fjords - It was stunning
We sat down to dinner and our starter was something very unusual and we had to guess what it was. Now I have a cheese phobia so was worried I was going to get cheese, but I wasn't prepared for the starter. It was......................wait for it....................raw whale meat!!!
Well apparently this is a great delicacy in Norway and it is a real honour to be served with it. It wasn't the nicest thing I have ever tasted, but we were very honoured to be given it to eat as it is only served on special occasions.
Our hosts were just lovely, very welcoming and we all rolled off into the night full of alcohol and whale meat.
I had travelled to Oslo on my own and had to travel back to Edinburgh several hours before Alan. On the first plane from Oslo to Heathrow I was sitting next to a guy who spent the whole journey reading aloud from the Koran and switching his mobile phone on and off, now I don't wish to be racist etc but I was crapping myself. I was convinced he was up to no good, especially since he had a bag on his lap with a compass on it which he wouldn't let go of. Of course being English I sat there and said nothing, the fear of embarrassment over being mistaken about it obviously outweighed my suspicions that he was up to no good -gah!!! Poor guy was totally harmless..................doh!
The drama continued on the next leg of my journey, flying from Heathrow to Edinburgh. We were coming into land and suddenly the pilot pulled the plane back up into a steep descent. The engines were making that high pitched "impending doom" noise and I almost wet myself with fear.............arggh!!
The pilot comes over the tannoy and says "ladies and gentlemen, as you can see we've just had to abort our landing into Edinburgh, we shall give you an update in a few minutes"
OH MY GOD, I'm thinking, bloody hell are they counting the wings?The engines? Has the landing gear jammed/ fallen off? I'm going to have to adopt the brace position and probably die in some hideous fireball and be on the 6 O'Clock News!!!!
It was the longest 2 minutes of my life and again we all sat in our seats being terribly calm reading our books (well I was bargaining with God at the time I think).
Anyway the captain came back on and re-assured us that we'd hit a bank of cloud and he couldn't see properly to land, its very common apparently and we'd be OK and were heading back down again.
I have NEVER been so glad to land in my life.
So after all that drama, I went to a fundraising "Pamper Night" for the Maggies Cancer Centre at Le Monde in George St. It was organised by my lovely friend Fiona and compared by the gorgeous camp comedian Craig Hill , he's a hoot.
Being me, I had offered to stand up and say a few words about the centre, since I used it when I was having treatment and it's fab.
I thought long and hard about what I was going to say, but it all went out of my head, I was faced with about 150 ladies and a microphone (oh good, Karaoke!!! hee hee!)
So I just told a little bit of my experiences at the centre and how re-assuring it is to visit, and there were a couple of ladies who shed a wee tear. Afterwards a few came over to thank me, it was very humbling and after a few glasses of wine I was boring everyone to tears with my "cancer story" - what am I like?
Yesterday, I went to have my hair cut and coloured for the first time in a year. EEEKK!! I now have this kinda "burgundy" hair colour, I don't think Alan is keen, but I am going to live with it for now...................only me eh?
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