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So a few weeks ago my son told me he didnât want to speak to his Grandmother any more. As you may or may not know, my mother lost her mind a few years ago and said and did some awful things to my little family of three. We cut her off completely at that point.
We let her back in with very low contact after she sent me a sincere apology letter. Well, it was sincere but she still laid part of the blame on me because I hadnât told her something. What I hadnât told her was none of her business, which she still doesnât get, and insists that if Iâd just told her she never would have done what she did.
So a few weeks ago she and my step father and Adam and I had a live chat on FaceTime*. My mother lamented that she hadnât spoken to us in months (since Adamâs birthday in June) and why couldnât we speak more! I didnât answer her and ended the chat a bit later.
I then said to Adam that I know he wanted to talk to them more, but it took so much out of me to be civil that I didnât know if I could. He then asked why we talked to them at all then? And I said for him. My mother may have been and continue to be a crap mother, but she was always a fantastic grandmother. The kind of grandmother I wished I had had but never did.
We dropped the conversation then. But the next day Adam said to me that he didnât want to talk to Grandma any more. I asked him if it was for me? Because thatâs not how this works, he doesnât protect me, I protect him. His reply? âWhy would I want to talk to someone who treats their children that way?â
No flies on my boy! So I sent the email telling her that I was cutting her off. For good this time. And I did.
Except that I canât find the part of this blog where she subscribed to it! Itâs like somewhere in the last 15 odd years WordPress has removed it!
So my mother is reading this. She can even comment, if she wants.
But she doesnât need to. Because I know exactly what she did when read that email.
She blow air upward from her mouth, slumped into her chair and said âSheâs finally turned Adam against me. Always so much drama with her!â
Or words to that effect.
But it wasnât me, Shelley, who turned Adam against you. That was, and is and always has been all on you.
And itâs still none of your business.
*Arthur C Clarke foresaw the end of long distance charges in 2001. He wasnât too far off.
Man, back in the early 20th Century they knew how to name things!!
In any case, I have passed through my recent depression and anxiety storm. Not easily, of course, as they never give up without a fight, do they?
I wound up being off work for five weeks. During that time I spoke to many GPs and saw a psychiatrist (I can never spell the word correctly the first time. Itâs a total block in my spelling centres.) I had a very long, over an hour, consultation with the psychiatrist, which is miraculous. Youâre usually lucky to get 20 minutes!
Anyway, she listened to my entire history and to all the things that have been happening in the last 2 – 3 years. Things like the estrangement from my mother, my step motherâs death, COVID (bloody hell COVID), getting COVID, being diagnosed with sarcoidosis, and my dad dying. Her exact words were âThatâs a lot!â And she was right.
She was also really happy about the meds I was on. GPs had already told me that they couldnât increase any of my meds, as if they did it could cause something called a serotonin syndrome. Itâs a condition that is caused by too much serotonin in your system. Too much of that usually very useful chemical: –
âcauses signs and symptoms that can range from mild (shivering and diarrhea) to severe (muscle rigidity, fever and seizures). Severe serotonin syndrome can cause death if not treated.â
So not a good thing. Maybe I shouldnât have it tattooed on my back with dopamine? 😀
The first molecule is serotonin, then there is dopamine and repeat.
Anyway, increasing my meds, any of my meds, was not an option. As I said, the psychiatrist was really happy with the meds and the doses I was on. Her conclusion? Nothing to do but get through it.
Sounds like kind of crappy advice from a doctor who specialises in this sort of thing, yeah? Except it was actually what I needed to hear. I wasnât instantly no longer depressed or anxious, but at least I knew I was doing everything I could to get through it. Or was I?
See, the other thing that lovely psychiatrist said was that I had never really worked through my sarcoidosis diagnosis. (âScuse the rhyme.) She could tell, and she was right, that I am the kind of person who doesnât just say âoh okay, I have thatâ but that I am the kind of person who says âHuh, what is that?â And starts investigating, and I hadnât done that with the sarcoidosis. I have no idea why but she was right. I never had.
Now, currently, my sarcoidosis is very mild. Even when I flare it is nothing more than a slightly harder cough and exhaustion, which, of course, could be fibromyalgia (which is another word I can never spell). And day to day is nothing more than an almost constant throat clearing cough. Not even constant, actually. Occasional. So I dismissed it as no big deal.
Except it is a big deal. Itâs a life changing, possibly life limiting condition that I will have for the rest of my life. On top of my Fibromyalgia, Arthritis and Type 2 Diabetes. I used to have a trifecta. Now I have a quartet!
So I start looking more into sarcoidosis and started to feel mentally better. I started acting mentally better, which my husband noticed almost immediately. I started knitting more, spending time in my home office *finally* tidying it up, (itâs horrible, it really is, FEMA will fly over any day and declare it a disaster area) and went back to the GP for *something* to let me sleep.Â
Because that was also a big issue. Bad sleep. As in canât fall asleep before 12, awake at least once a night (getting older is hell) to pee, not falling back to sleep after that for at least an hour and then up at 7, at least during the school year.
All of the sleep aids Iâd been given, which included Ambien among others, made it impossible for me to function the next day. I was offered melatonin but the one time I took it I woke up with a very bad headache. The GP gently suggested that might have been something else and that I should try it again. So I have been,
And itâs been working. At least to some extent. I definitely fall asleep faster. I usually wake up at least once a night for the toilet (see above, aging) but I do fall back to sleep almost instantly. Iâve even woken up a couple of times just before the alarm went off!
So Iâm back to work this week and have actually been in my office three of the four days I worked. I worked from home one day, which is totally okay with my boss and my company. I got lots done in the office and I came home from work nearly every day not totally exhausted! Wednesday I had to even tell myself to stop because I felt like I was raring to go and knew that I would pay for that later.
I also realised, as I started to feel better, that Iâd been feeling rotten for more than a few months. Probably from before I caught COVID, which I consider the point of Everything Going To Hell. Why I, or even Simon, never realised it is beyond me.
So, hereâs todayâs Teeâs Tip of The Day:
If you canât seem to do what you used to do? Figure out why that is. And donât assume itâs just because of all of your current conditions. Could be a new one! Could be a worsening one! Try to find out, mmmâkay?
And learn how to spell psychiatrist and fibromyalgia without using autocorrect!
And it hasn’t been a good year. Well, a good 6 – 8 months, really.
Back in November, I got COVID. And then I got a cough that wouldn’t go away. Then I got a chest x-ray. Then I got a CT Scan. Then I got a referral to the Regional Respiratory Clinic. Then I got an Endoscopy. Then I got a diagnosis: sarcoidosis. Sarcoidosis is an autoimmune condition that usually affects the lungs and lymph nodes. For the record, when your GP says “There’s something in your lymph nodes that doesn’t look all that sinister” it’s still not very comforting!
For the most part, my sarcoidosis leaves me alone. But then Things Happen that make it flare. Recently that has included an emergency root canal, an emergency root canal part 2. Root canal part 3 didn’t make it flare. Who knows why?
In March of this year, my dad died. You might recall that he had dementia. I’m not sure I ever wrote about my stepmother dying, but she did, in August 2021. Totally unexpectedly. She was actually found dead on the sofa when no one opened the door and the police did a welfare check. She was Dad’s carer, so my sister and brother had to find him a place to live, which they did.
In any case, he’s been living in that place for just about 18 months, chugging along, not really changing. Eating his hot dogs and watching his game shows.
And then, on 10th March, my brother and I got a text from our sister; Dad is refusing to eat. She was going to go over to the living place the next day (a Saturday) to discuss hospice. Then we got another text. Dad needed oxygen overnight. I’m going over right now. Then, a few hours later, they don’t think he’ll last the night. And he didn’t.
And his death hit me hard. Harder than I thought it would. I thought I had done my grieving after the first time he had no idea who I was on Skype. I apparently hadn’t.
Going on from there I realised my mental health was deteriorating. For the first time in over 20 years, I was fighting depression and major anxiety. I asked to increase one of my meds and was told no. So now I’ve been referred to psychiatry and I’ve been off work for the past two weeks and will continue to be off for the next two. I have my psych appointment this Wednesday. Which is a miracle.
And that brings me to today. My Dad’s 86th Birthday. First one without him being somewhere in the world, even if I hadn’t seen him or spoken to him for years.
Happy Birthday, Dad.
Dad
17th September 1937 – 10th March 2023
PS That emoji up there, which is ‘disguise’ looks *exactly* like my dad.
We celebrated with dinner out last night and today, in the sure sign of a long marriage, we went to the launderette because our washing machine is broken! The repair people are waiting for a part so it wonât be fixed for another week or so.
To quote a friend: in sickness and in health, in good machine and bad. đ
18 years is a long time. And the 21 years weâve nearly been together is even longer, obviously. So much happens in 21 years:
Moved to Belfast
Got married
Got a job
Got diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes
Had a baby
Started a company
Got diagnosed with fibro
Moved to a house
Bought a house
Started a new job
Survived a pandemic (so far) (no, itâs not over)
There were other things, of course, but those are the highlights.
And itâs had its ups and down, highs and lows. Iâve been dealing with my chronic pain, we both had to get through some lean years, and Simon has also had some health issues.
But, at the end of the day, what gets us through? Each other. Knowing that when we reach out to the other, theyâll be there.
I spend a lot of time on Reddit and other sites, reading other peopleâs requests for help. Sometimes I reply, I sometimes I just mutter to myself. But an overwhelming theme, it seems, on these posts, is people who are coupled but donât have each otherâs back.
So my one piece of advice for a long and happy relationship, whether spouses or partners or whatever you call your state of coupledom? Be there for each other. Take care of each other when needed. Fight if you have to, but make up well.
Okay, you probably didnât ask, but Iâll tell you anyway.
Staying up late started during the pandemic, when we were all locked down. I was literally losing my mind because my family was in the house with me all the fucking time. I used to go to my office, which was empty except for me, just to have some time to myself.
And that didnât always work because landlord would be around and Iâd have to be polite. I hate being polite when I want to be alone.
So I started staying up late on Friday nights, as Saturday has been my lie in day since before the world ended. Saturday mornings our groceries are delivered, something that has been happening since long before the pandemic.
And Simon is the one who puts them away. He just always has been. And these days Adam helps. So Saturdays I have always been able to sleep in.
Then, Simon stopped being able to sleep in at all. He is, without fail, up between 0400 and 0600 seven days a week. Totally sucks for him but works great for me as now I could sleep in on Sundays too!
Lest you think me a horrible person who deprives her husband of sleep, he knows that he can wake me at any time if he needs me. And he has if heâs been up since 0400 and Adamâs been particularly needy (Note: this doesnât really happen any more, since Adam is a teenager and does lots of things for himself!) he would wake me up to take over.
And he gets to wake me at noon on Saturday and Sunday so he can have a nap. He naps like a champ. Me? Iâm up half the night and sleep all morning. I almost never actually sleep when I go to lie down after work or whenever.
So, I stay up late.
Really late. Itâs 0211 while Iâm writing this on my iPad. Iâm just beginning to feel tired.
And, in case your wondering, I do still take pills to help me sleep. And keep me asleep. And on week nights (except Thursdays now that I donât work on Fridays) I take them around 2200ish. And Iâm usually still up until at least midnight.
I have spoken to my doctor about this and heâs reluctant to change my MAD MEDS (TM) since they mostly continue to work. I do have sleeping pills I can take if I really canât sleep, but I donât take them very often.
So what do I do while Iâm awake? I watch my shows, e.g. Criminal Minds. Iâve lost count of how many times Iâve watched that from beginning to end. But itâs at least 10. Itâs my âIâm too tired/overwhelmed/in pain/etc. to watch something new or something that needs my attentionâ. So I watch Criminal Minds.
I watch other shows sometimes too. Newer shows. Iâm currently working my way through Moon Knight. But I find that takes a lot of brain and paying attention power, so Iâm watching it slowly.
I also really like the Chicago Shows. Med, Fire and PD. We are finally getting them at once so I can actually watch the crossovers in the right order and everything!
Oh and NCIS. Love me some NCIS. Oh and 911. Both of those! Oh and SWAT!
And while I watch things, I do other things. I crochet or knit, I play games on my iPad or iPhone, and tonight? Tonight Iâm writing this blog post.
So what games do I play? Puzzles and merge games almost exclusively. Crosswords, Picross, jigsaws, Scrabble with various friends, things like that.
The featured image on this post is a jigsaw puzzle I just completed earlier tonight. I really liked this one because I swear I could feel the velvet as I digitally put the puzzle together.
A truly great thing about Appleâs Family Plan is that it includes Apple Arcade and Apple Arcade keeps getting games Iâm already playing, but I can play them 100% for free! Like the puzzle app where I did the puzzle above.
Itâs called Jigsaw Puzzle+ and you can get it in the regular App Store but then you have to pay for extra puzzles. Now that itâs in Apple Arcade, I can play any of the puzzles and thereâs thousands in the App. If you like jigsaws, I highly recommend it. (No, thatâs not a paid commercial, Itâs just my opinion on the app!)
And I also have six merge games that I play in turn. They are: Merge Manor, Merge Mayor, Love and Pies, Mergeficent, Travel Town and Cat Condo. Again, not a paid advert. I highly recommend all of those if you like Merge Games.
Adam said to me not too long ago âOh I get it, you go to a new Merge Game when you run out of energy!â And that itâs exactly! I find merging to be very satisfying and very low brain power and I love that!
So, I stay up late. And watch TV. And play mobile games.
In case you’ve been under a rock, let me tell you that the Supreme Court of the United States decided to overturn Roe vs Wade. That’s the decision that made abortion legal in the US in the 70s.
So now, abortion is illegal. Or, well, what it is that is that it’s up to each state to decide. And if a state decides to make it illegal, it’s also up to them to decide how to prove an abortion took place and what the punishment will be. Texas began this bullshit with a law, that passed, making anyone getting or helping someone get an abortion be able to be sued for, at a minimum, $10,000. SB8 is evil. Texas is even more evil.
I don’t get how anyone I know can live there. But I know several people that do. If you’re reading this, tell me what makes Texas so great that you can live there.
And I am so angry. Not just at the Supreme Court for doing such a fucking stupid thing. But at all of the people who voted directly for Trump or voted for a third party candidate with ‘Anyone other than Hillary!’ as their rallying cry.
See, I don’t think they really meant that. I think they meant ‘I don’t want to vote for her because someone told me not to and there is no way Trump will get elected. She’ll win anyway.’
You stupid fuckers. This is all your fault.
You let a narcissistic, bullying, rapist lead the United States of America. You let that orange coloured waste of space appoint two Supreme Court Justices. You are 100% culpable in the January 6th Insurrection*. I blame each and everyone of you for what is happening to people in the US.
So don’t fucking do it again. This September, vote for the people who will actually save the US. I don’t care if you hate them. I don’t care if your religious or otherwise leader told you they are the devil themselves. If they are a Democrat? Vote for them.
You know what? I personally don’t like President Biden. I think he’s actions over the years towards women are problematic as hell. But the alternative, four more years of Trump? Would have been 10,000,000,000 time worse.
Better the devil who is not trying to take away basic freedoms from half of the population. Because that’s what making abortion illegal does. Takes away the ability to plan our own lives and our own health.
See, the thing is, pregnancy happens outside our control. People with uteruses are raped and molested. Birth Control fails or is sabotaged. Condoms can break. If pregnancy was within our control, we wouldn’t need IVF or ovulation kits or anything like that.
And sometimes foetuses develop badly. So badly that they can’t exist outside the uterus. That can sometimes lead to miscarriage but not always and medical help is needed to save the mother. What if a uterus having person has cancer and gets pregnant? Can you imagine what chemo might do to a foetus?
Ectopic pregnancy is when a fertilized egg implants in the fallopian tube rather than the uterus. If it is not removed surgically, in other words, through an abortion? The person will die. The fully grown, functioning member of society. Of course, the random bunch of cells that have incorrectly implanted will die as well. But that seems to be the only part the GOP and other conservative assholes care about.
People keep crying ‘But it’s against my religion! You must respect my religion!’ Guess what? Having abortion illegal is against my religion.
In Judaism, when a person with a uterus is pregnant, that foetus and that person are considered as one. The foetus is considered part of the pregnant person. And so if that pregnant person’s life is in danger due to having the foetus inside of them? The foetus goes. There are already challenges being raised in Florida by the Jewish Community. Making abortion illegal is against our religious beliefs and, therefore, against the constitution.
I have been wondering how those people who are happy about the end of Roe V Wade are going to feel when a person with a uterus that they love finds themselves pregnant through rape, molestation or even the failure of birth control. Oh wait, they’ll mostly be fine. Because in reality, this isn’t the end of abortion.
It’s the end of safe abortion for anyone who isn’t a rich, white, cis, het person.
*Of course, Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife Ginni Thomas actually helped plan the thing. I’ll leave that for another post.
Thanks to the ACLU of Georgia Facebook page for the Featured image.
So back at the beginning of 2020 I decided I really needed to stop thinking about swimming and actually swim. So I signed up for a swim membership at the Better Centre (Better now runs all of NI’s leisure centres, more or less) and started going after work.
I also signed Adam up for swimming lessons. He hadn’t wanted to do them for ages and then swimming was part of PE at his school and he realised how much fun swimming is! I think he asked me in the beginning of 2019 if he could take lessons and I tried to sign him up but things kept happening and it didn’t happen.
But when I signed me up for swim membership, I signed him up for swim lessons. On Sundays at 0915. UGH!
And then, of course, PANDEMIC!!! So I didn’t get to swim any more and neither did Adam.
And then, the pools opened! For about a month!
And then, the pools closed. For about three months.
Now they are back open and Adam is back to lessons and we both love it.
I am not fast. I have no real technique. But I managed to go back and forth for about 45 minutes 1 – 2 days a week and Adam and I go to the Family Swim on Sunday afternoons and play.
Now, part of the reason that I have no technique is because various things hurt at various times on my body. This includes a brand new hurt in my left knee (yay?) and the inability most of the time to move my left shoulder in a circular motion for backstroke/crawl.
So I do some breast stroke. And I do swim on my back, but use a frog kick like breast stroke but upside down.
So I plod along, in the slow lane, and I enjoy it.
And then I heard laughter the other day. I was just coming to the end of a lap at the shallow end so I stood up and looked toward the laughter.
And two girls there immediately looked away from staring at me.
If they weren’t laughing at me? They sure the hell didn’t act like it.
And here I am, 52 years old, mostly not caring what other people think, but that laugh, from two twenty-somethings hurt.
See, I’ve been laughed at for my athletic ability all my life. Last picked for teams when I was a kid. People laughing at the way I ran during the track and field module in PE. Even the things I was sort of good at, like doing floor exercises for gymnastics, people would still snicker at the fat girl trying to tumble.
Fuck them, I thought to myself, I am here, in this pool, doing these laps despite being fat, disabled, mentally ill, and tired all the fucking time.
I am not swimming for those petty little girls.
I’m swimming for me. Because it makes my joints feel better. Because I enjoy it.
So if you are a twenty something girl who swims at the Olympia Leisure Centre and enjoy laughing at fat women swimming the next lane over? Fuck off to fuck off and then fuck off again.
If you’re lucky, you’ll never have any health issues.
And if you’re not and wind up with some? I hope the twenty somethings who are swimming the next lane over don’t laugh at you. Because it’s mean.
Like everyone else right now, I am working from home.
And Iâve been reading a lot from people who have never worked from home before, never mind worked from home while sorting out childrenâs schooling.
And Iâve seen a lot of âtreat it like a regular dayâ sort of posts. There is no way of treating lock down like a regular day is going to work for anyone with or without children at home.
Sure, you can get up at your usual time, wash, put on makeup/shave, and dress in âworkâ clothes. But you canât do the school/daycare run. You canât stop and have a chat with the barista at the coffee place. You canât even chat in the break room with your coworkers about last nightâs TV watching!
And those are the things that mean you donât actually work the whole time youâre at work. Letâs say you work 8 hours a day. You have an hour for lunch, so you need to fill seven hours.
I have never met anyone who works seven hours straight. No matter how busy or important they are.
For one thing, Iâve never been in a meeting in my nearly 40-year career that didnât start with at least 10 minutes of bullshit. How is everyone? Did everyone see Jim do that thing in the break room? ::laughter:: Anyone going to The Who concert on Friday? Bill, did I hear youâre off to Milan for your holiday? Etc etc etc.
And Iâve been at meetings with people from my fellow Admins all the way up to Chief Executives and Chairmen
of the Board. Thereâs always chat. In fact, back when I was pregnant and working at The Northern Ireland Science Park (now Catalyst) I had to pop into a high-level meeting to bring our CEO some papers. I was just going to sneak in, give them to him, and sneak back out. Ninja is actually in the Personal Assistant job description.
PA Ninja!!
But I was stopped by one of the people in the meeting, a member of one of the governing bodies of The Science Park, who interrupted the head of her department to ask me when I was due and how I was feeling!! NB: sheâs also the one who I had on the phone a few weeks before who asked me âDid I hear that you are with child?â which was definitely the quaintest way anyone asked me that question!
Even if you donât have any meetings during your day, you are spending some part of your day chatting with your co-workers. In my current office and desk location there is probably at least an half an hour a day of golfing talk. Maybe a half an hour of children talk. Sometimes longer of TV show talk. So thatâs what? One and a half hours right there? It may not be that length of time in a row since a phone will ring, someone will get an urgent email, or someone will come over to see one of us. But itâs easily that long over the course of the day. So now thereâs only 5.5 hours of actual work being done.
Even when I was an hourly worker at Target I wasnât working every minute of my shift. People would stop to chat with me, Iâd stop to chat with people. Iâd take at least five minutes of every hour to just sort of stare into space!
Of course, the real issue is company expectations. During normal times, companies absolutely should have the expectation that if you are working from home you donât have children to care for. But reasonable ones still donât think you are going to sit at your computer for eight total hours. That way lies madness.
The emails that my company sent out when they announced WFH for all said something like âyou are expected to be available and working during your normal working hours.â âAvailable and workingâ. I, personally, take that to mean ready to jump if someone needs me but if my kid needs me, he comes first. But remember, Iâm an office manager, who currently has no office to manage. So itâs actually pretty easy for me to keep an eye on email/Teams while I am doing other things as I have access to them on my phone, my iPad and a computer.
When things are normal I never have notifications on for either of my devices, unless Iâm going to be away from my desk for a long stretch sorting something out, then I turn on notifications for Outlook and Teams on my phone.
While my whole office is WFH I have notifications on 24/7. I rarely get anything on either but it was a good thing they were on when one of the officeâs computers stopped working completely and IT couldnât do anything remotely so they pinged me and asked me to go to the office and reboot the machine. On a day I had taken off. Which was absolutely fine. Itâs why my notifications were on. I am only one of five people who have complete access to the office when itâs locked and the alarm is set. And Iâm only one of three people who have access to get into the office and access to our comms room.
During that same trip to the office I looked over our servers and found one on the edge of collapse (there’s lights on them that indicate status; I am not a server whisperer) so I reported that to our server team and went back the next day to replace the server.
I need to be available right now. So I am.
But I am also helping Adam with school work, keeping the house in some sort of order (oh man do I miss my cleaner!) and doing all of the other things I do when I’m at home. With, of course, help from Simon who is also working from home for the duration.
So what’s my point? My point is that you are not superman. Or woman. Or kid. You’re just you. And you can’t do it all.
Let me start this by saying Vicki, Kelly, Lyndsey and I had an amazing time in Glasgow this weekend. We ate and drank and talked and laughed. We shopped and saw comedians. We stayed up way too late and slept in not quite enough.
But it almost didnât happen.
Originally, our flight back was at 1050a. Perfect time to get us all back and into routines with our children and back to work and school on Monday.
Then I got an email. Your flight is now 810. Groan, but okay, good to get back early.
Then during the week another email. 1300. Which was find for me, Lyndsey and Kelly, but Vicki was supposed to be at work. So I called FlyBe and asked them what we could do. We could take a partial refund, so fly to Glasgow without a return, we could take a full refund, so cancel the trip, or we could leave at 1.
So I gather my ladies and we talked about it. (Okay, we did it on Facebook Messenger. Donât pick nits!) Vicki was adamant she would just cancel her bit because she had just started a new job and didnât want to mess them about.
However, the lady she works for is very nice and when she heard she said sheâd cover until we got back to Belfast.
So we were off!
And then FlyBe started canceling flights. On the Wednesday they canceled Belfast to Glasgow morning flights. More panic. Was the whole thing being canceled?
Then I realized they were having trouble with early morning flights but they hadnât canceled any at the same time as ours on the Friday.
And then it was Friday and we were on our way!
Now, I checked us all in online before we left on Friday and printed our boarding passes.
We had all agreed weâd only bring small liquids so we didnât have to check any luggage. And we all got on the flight fine. Remember that. Itâs important later.
We then proceeded to have an awesome weekend in Glasgow. Too much junk food. Too much alcohol. Lots of laughs and gossip and serious talk. The perfect Ladies Weekend.
So we head home. And I try to check us in via the App. Which tells me a new app is coming soon and to use the website. Except the website would only issue boarding passes to be printed. And we had no printer. So we all said âOkay, no problem, weâll check in at the airport.â
We get to the airport and go to check in. I check in fine. They get to Kelly, and she canât get her bag into their stupid metal bag measurer so she takes some stuff out and puts it into a plastic bag with her hand bag and then it fits.
Then Lyndsey. Manages to squeeze it in.
Then Vicki. Who knows there is no way it will fit into that stupid thing. And tells the man that it fit on the way over so whatâs the problem? No pay, no boarding pass, go over there, itâs ÂŁ40.
Now Vicki had put some of my stuff into her bag as I bought way to much, so I paid the fee. I wasnât happy and I started Tweeting that I wasnât happy.
So we get to the gate. And they announce that if you donât have an approval sticker on your bag, come measure it. So people queued up. And then the FlyBe staff realized they had no way to take money so they waived all of the fees.
So we paid for Vickiâs bag and no one else (well one other person who had checked in at the desk) had to pay?
Then I really started raising a stink on Twitter. And was told it was policy. And that they couldnât speak to others with their bags. And then they stopped answering me when I pointed out that every person who was suppose to pay at the gate got off scot free.
Then there was an incident after we boarded where one of the Flight Attendants was very rude to one of us, but thatâs not my story to tell and it has been sorted anyway.
And FlyBe still wonât reply to my comments about their horrible procedures.
And suddenly their app is updated.
And Iâm still out ÂŁ40.
So my advice, to all is to not fly Fly Be (or Easy Jet, who apparently have done the same thing) unless you club together to pay for one case to be checked before you get to the airport so that you all can put your shopping in it on the way home.
And this blog post is going to be turned into an email to FlyBe.
To the highest person I can find an email address for.
And I am not the least bit surprised they have had to be bailed out.
