I’m back! Well, someone tell me that they've missed me. It's like pulling teeth around here.

I'm suntanned and slightly burnt in places (my knees for a start) and relaxed to the point of being chilled. Well, it was very hot over there and England is cold in comparison.

Both Himself and I agreed it was one of the nicest holidays we’ve had, the week went past so quickly and it’s been ages since I’ve laughed that much. So what can I say about Scally? Oooh lots of things but you’ll have to wait as this holiday blog will take a couple of days…..

Oh, OK, she was wonderful. Just like she is on-line. It was so strange; it didn’t feel like it was our first meeting - more that we’d known each other for years. She went to a lot of trouble to make us feel comfortable and ensure we had a great time. And she’ll probably shout at me for writing this as she’s a very modest person, who doesn’t like a lot of fuss made of what she does to help others. Tough! I’m hundreds of miles away again so she can’t thump me now and her memory isn’t that good – no, honestly it isn’t - as you’ll find out later on, so if we do go back again she’ll have forgotten all I’ve said.

++++

We had a good flight over. The plane wasn’t full and no one sat by the side of us so we got an extra seat to ourselves, we just pushed the armrests up and it was like sitting on a sofa.

Our flight landed ten minutes ahead of schedule and we stood around the carousal waiting for the suitcases, the first of which came off early. So we just had to wait for the other one then. We waited and we waited …. more and more people collected their luggage and left until eventually just one bag was going around and around. It wasn’t ours of course. Then the carousal stopped. Yep, that’s right – one suitcase was missing.

Of course this was the first time we hadn’t got a rep to ask for help, so I wandered over to the security guard with the big gun and the mean look in the eye and asked what the procedure was for lost luggage. I had to report it to the Ryanair office just outside departures, she said.

Now this is me remember; you’ve read the blog it can’t come as that much of a surprise. Nothing I ever do is that straight forward, as Scally found out for herself last week, which will teach her to be nice to me. I found the Ryanair office no problem. It was easy to spot; what with the 400 odd irate customers forming queues in front of it I couldn’t miss it. They’d cancelled a flight at short notice and everyone had to be issued with new tickets – they weren’t happy campers.

So I sent Himself off to locate our taxi driver – Scally had arranged for him to pick us up and he’ll probably never forgive her for it. We got to know him quite well over the week. And I rang Scally to tell her what was happening. It was really funny to actually speak to her; she does have a slight accent. Of course I was stood in the middle of an airport – surrounded by irate people – and my accent was a bit more pronounced at the time too. She couldn’t understand a word I was saying.

Anyway I eventually managed to tell her what had happened, in between laughing that is, God help me if I ever lose my sense of humour. I think I was in shock because I shouldn’t have found it that funny. She told me to get a telephone number and she’d ring later that evening, just get in the taxi and not to worry. Well OK, I always do as I’m told.

Off we set - the taxi driver chatting to us and pointing out places, he really was very friendly. Pulled up outside our hotel and unloaded the cases carrying them up to the door. Right – time to ring Scally again. I’d looked around but couldn’t spot her, so where was she? Sat in front of the hotel she said, waiting for us.

No she wasn’t.

I must be around the side of the building she said, walk around and she’d look for us. After a few minutes of us both looking for each other it became obvious that we weren’t at the same hotel. So she rang that poor taxi driver again and he came back and picked us up – this time we went to the right hotel and actually got to meet her.

So we drank the welcome sangria that she’d brought and I checked out what we’d got in the cases. Well our clothes were in there, which was a plus. The other case contained the swimming costumes, all our shoes, toiletries, my Gameboy and games (shock), hairdryer and straighteners and all of our underwear. The only knickers we had were the ones we were wearing.

So we had to go shopping, at least most of the things in the case were easy to replace – poor Scally, nothing could have prepared her for having to spend a week with me. And you’ve got to admit that there are only certain friends that you can ask to help buy your knickers. Who’d have thought you could bond with someone over a pair of drawers?

And this is where I’m stopping for today, dinner time is over and I’ve come back to work to find I’ve got to sort out a disciplinary as a member of staff has been falsifying her timesheet and mileage. What a thing to come back to, that is one part of HR that I don’t enjoy.

Never mind more tomorrow.