Flight Fiasco

Last Thursday I thought everything had been sorted. Man was I mistaken! On Friday morning when I got to work it turns out that the booking which the previous evening I'd been assured had been confirmed had been cancelled! I called Emirates again and after a lot of insisting finally got to speak to the supervisor. She assured me that she would look into it and by early afternoon it appeared that I had a confirmed booking - at least that's what I thought. 15 minutes before my class was due to finish - while we were watching Star Wars, which is this term's DVD - I was told that there was an urgent call for me from Colombo. Although I had a confirmed booking, it now turned out that because the booking had been made in a different booking class the fare was going to be much higher and because it was now more expensive than a direct flight to London with Sri Lankan I would have to pay any difference because I'd 'chosen' to fly out of Newcastle. I was furious and after after looking at flights online I decided on Saturday morning to take matters into my own hands, booking a flight online and sending an e-mail to the powers that be in Colombo telling them to credit my bank account with the full amount! I'll probably be in trouble now for not following procedure (the British Council loves procedure), but I was so tired of not knowing what was going on that I had to do something. I haven't heard anything since then, but am sure there'll be lots of e-mails waiting to be read when I go back to work on Wednesday.

So, I'm now flying Sri Lankan to London, which in some respects is good because it's a direct flight. I now have to fly back from London though, so I had to book a flight from Newcastle to London (sorry Philip! - didn't want to do it, but couldn't face the long journey by train to Heathrow via central London) which I'll have to pay for out of my own pocket. It's been so stressful not knowing what was going on that it's a real relief to actually know when I'm actually leaving.

Dhanushka is out this evening - doing the flower arrangements for some wedding. He was out last night as well as he decided to go and see the first evening of the Perahera. I was going to go, but by the time I got home I was too tired - needed some time at home.

This morning I went into town with Dhanushka for breakfast and came home via the pool. As I didn't have a weekend to speak of last week it's been great just to spend some time at home - catching up on e-mails that needed replying to. I actually fell asleep this afternoon, which is not surprising given how exhausted I've been - only meant to have a 20-minute nap! I also got my tax return sorted out in Australia, which is something I wanted to get out of the way before I leave for the UK. Tomorrow I have to start looking at the pre-course tasks I'm supposed to do - don't want to leave everything until the last minute - according to what I wrote in my application I have good time management skills!!!

Yesterday we had monkeys in the garden. I could hear the neighbours' dogs barking and was wondering why they were barking so loudly. When I looked up - was lying on my bed reading - I saw a monkey staring at me through the window. They're real pests and can be quite dangerous - luckily I managed to get downstairs and shut the sliding doors as it would have been chaos if they'd got into the house. Never a dull moment in Kandy!!!

The photo is one I took last week when Dhanushka's Mum and her friend were here - heading to the temple to offer flowers. I love going to the temple in the evening - a very peaceful way to end the day.