Fishy o'clock

I think I found my new favourite place where I want to live in the UK.

That's Cheltenham. Posh place you see :) All the shops are there plus loads of greenery. Can we move now please? (ok now I spent an hour looking for jobs :D I don't know what level though!?! Obvs I don't want anything less than assistant manager but higher jobs look so intimidating)

OK back to the topic of this post Cotswolds

We went to Cheltenham, Bourton-on-the-water and Gloucester.

Choosing Cheltenham for our base was perfect as it has a train station and good transport links (30 min each) to the other places. And in the evenings we just walked around town, so much life! People everywhere. Wow is this what it feels like to be in a proper town? :D So unlike Aber where it's pretty much dead on the streets at all times. And you know what? It doesn't feel like it's that much bigger than Aber you know. Just more of everything else that you really need! Perf. Or maybe we only saw the centre :D But that's the important bit anyway, innit?

Bourton-on-the-water was such a lovely little little town where everything seemed to be revolving around the river where there were oh so many ducks :) Mesmerising. And they are so brave coming to take food from your hand even! (obvs special duck food that you buy from the shops where that money goes to an animal charity)

This little town has a few attractions too! The first we went to was the model village of the town, which also had a little model of that model village that had a model of the model village and so on. I found it genius! To be honest I was expecting the houses (made of real stone!) to be smaller, but the reality was so much better than I had expected :)

But the best part of Bourton-on-the-water must be the Dragonfly maze! OMG an actual maze where you can't cheat or see where you're going! At one point we were going round the same routes for about 5 times in a circle! I was already thinking what would happen if we genuinely won't find our way out?!? If I'd scream loud enough would the ticket lady come and help us? :D We did though find our own way out. Eventually. To make it even more interesting it had a series of clues to figure out the final answer and find the dragonfly. We somehow only missed one clue and spent ages trying to work out how to spot the dragonfly.

The clues were pictures on the ground that you had to put in order. The first three were:

1. A picture of a fish
2. A picture of an oar with a y in front
3. A picture of the clock showing 11.10

That it where it all went wrong for us! We pondered for a looooong time about it, and I told Mr. Special that it's not just a fish but what kind of fish is it?! He said no one will know. Well I did (in estonian). Clearly fishy o'clock is not the right interpretation of the first three clues... Later on there were monkeys (found on the wall) and caterpillar (did not find) mentioned. We were there for ages trying to figure it out until we gave up and went to ask the ticket lady for help. Turns out I was right! HA!

The clues were supposed to read: Place (plaice the fish duh) your (y oar) hands (clock) on the monkeys and stand on the caterpillar (freaking Mr. Special even looked on the floor to see if there's anything there) and wait! Turns out there were little buttons on the monkey tiles that made the frog open it's mouth and reveal the dragonfly.

That was the highlight of the trip! I love mazes now! Proper ones I mean! Where else can I find one?

The next day we went to Gloucester on a double decker like a boss! :)

And the reason we went to Gloucester was:

Have you seen any trolls in the dungeons lately? No? What about the girls's bathroom?

The one Hermione is crying her eyes out?

Get it?

They used the Gloucester Cathedral halls to film Harry Potter! 

And I've been there!

Best stained glass I think I've ever seen

Look familiar?

Yes I now have a near identical photo of myself :D

It is free to get in and a personal! guide is free of charge as well and I think we were lucky enough to get the best one! :) And his surname was... wait for it... POTTER! He took us round the cathedral for nearly 1.5 hours! At the start he said a usual tour would last about an hour on average. Why ours was so long I don't know :D He said we looked VERY interested :D no we didn't ask a hundred and one questions all the time and about everything, we hardly asked any questions at all (and when I did he didn't even answer, maybe he didn't hear me :D) He did 98% of the talking. And all I can remember is that Cromwell wanted to destroy the cathedral and half of it is/was sinking: the walls aren't straight!

Nonetheless he was such a lovely fella and knew everything that had happened there!

Then we went home.

Ttyl ;)

Jazzz...

Shoulda Woulda Coulda

The girls trip to Portugal was honestly the most anticipated trip for me so far. I've always wanted to go somewhere with a group of friends and this year finally there was someone else who said lets do it! So we organised the hell out of it. Booked a lovely apartment and lots of activities. It was going to be amazing! It was the only thing I would think about a couple weeks ago.

And guess who didn't get to go!

Yes, ME!

For the stupidest reason ever! I didn't have a valid passport or Id card! ARGH.

Last I checked I had two. Just in case. So what happened?

A week before the trip I discovered my Passport was soaking wet :O On the table with no apparent reason?!?! A closer inspection brought light that there was a small tiny tiny 15ml! Glass cleaning spray next to it that had cracked at the bottom. Not on top of it. Next to it! There was like a cm distance. And my passport was soaked through! Done. It wasn't that important to me at that point because the expiry date was due soon anyway and I had my ID card to travel with. No biggie. 

Then on Friday I wanted to check in for the Monday flight and went to get my card. It wasn't in my purse :S It wasn't on the cupboard I sometimes put it. It wasn't in any of the pockets of my clothes. OMG! Where is it?

''

We looked EVERYWHERE! As the last place I know I definitely had it was the Adele concert we started phoning the hotels up. One hotel gave us hope! YAY They asked immediately that it was a femail's ID card? (Mr. Special was phoning them). Hopeful right? They asked us to call back a couple of hours later as the cupboard which it's in is locked and the manager will be in later. Ok, so we waited impatiently to get the go ahead to book train tickets to go and get it during the weekend.

That's when it started going downhill. We phoned again, they wouldn't let us talk to the manager and instead now said the head housekeeper had the key :S What kind of a manager does not have keys to an important cupboard like that? And why wasn't the head housekeeper in today then? We pondered over it and decided that no, we're not going to wait another day to get information so we called a third time and finally got through to the manager who then told us that ooopsie it had been posted second class to you weeks ago! Meaning it should've been in my postbox weeks ago. But it wasn't. He also explained that they're normal policy is to contact the owner before posting anything but they didn't!!! Why didn't they phone us to ask our opinion???

By that time it was too late to phone Royal Mail to inquire what could be done to possibly find it. And it was also too late to get a speedy passport done for me because of the weekend. 

Fast forward to the Monday 3PM (my flight was 8PM), I get a call that it is still in the initial post office BECAUSE and wait for it:

there was NO F***** STAMP put on it!!!!

Are you kidding me? Literally? Who would do that?

Seriously it has all been a close call because if only:

• I would've noticed a couple of days earlier I could've done something to save my trip
• The hotel could've told us immediately that it was in the post without fucking us around

Is this a proper time to say FML?

What have I done so bad to deserve this? 

Thanks Karma

Shall we try again next year while I just waste the precious holiday days sitting at home? Please? I promise to check my documents every single day then!

Ttyl ;)

Jazzz...

Eurolate

Soooo.. knowing me writing about something that happened two days before is Amazeballs. Wow so quick. The truth is I'm just afraid that I'll forget all the emotions (like I always do).

Yes I'm talking about Eurovision. This year it kind of came and went so quickly I didn't even have a chance to blink, or to pick my favourite song or anything. Oh it's eurovision week? Thanks for reminding me Ems.

I did though find time to sit through all the shows. Am I getting old or is it getting more boring by the year? Literally by the final I couldn't remember any of the songs :D Now that I think really hard I can bring out 2 that I liked: Austria and Cyprus. The first is cute the other is hot hot hot :D

Dare I mentioned the dreaded Estonian entry? I actually liked it in the national selection final, wasn't my favourite but my ears didn't bleed also. And what the actual **** did they do? What was that? That was not the song we chose? That "inviting" hand gesture... oh god... was not so inviting after he'd done it 24958million times!!!!! And that card trick??? Was that a trick? I didn't get it. Did it go wrong? or was that what it was supposed to be? I'm not surprised we didn't get through, not one bit...

The changes in voting we're actually a success, there was more tension! Although at first we thought sure thing Australia is going to win, they were so far ahead. And then boom! Wow! Me likes it :) I did enjoy Ukraine's song and message and HAHAHA to Russia!


Til next year, if I remember.

Ttyl ;)
Jazzz...

Follow Me Eye Candy

Oh yeah I finally read a book! :D Shame on me really, there used to be a time when I got through a book a week and now... I remember starting on last summer :D still haven't finished. But I love buying new ones and luckily the train takes about 7h from London. And I started reading. Wow. Yeah. Go girl. Amazing!

The book is called "Follow me" and is about an aspiring journalist who ends up in a police task force to catch the hashtag murderer. A murderer who boasts about his deeds on twitter and also gives clues for the police to prevent the next murder(s). I think it focuses too much about the journalists personal drama, especially the secret she shares with a long lost bestie who now is a police officer. That seemed a bit... unnecessary? uninteresting really...

And continuing with the hashtag murderer theme. I found a tv show called Eye Candy where this hacker is working with the police cyber crimes unit to find a serial killer who is also stalking her. The tech things they do their are like whoooow. I might need to tape shut my webcam now...  

Speaking about high tech. Should I be ashamed I can't really use Excel? I mean I don't really need it right? Obvs I learned all the basic features in school but never used them so forgot.

Ttyl ;)

Jazzz...