A Chaotic Prelude to Adventure: Manchester Edition

Just after the Christmas holidays I dutifully emailed all my students to notify them that I would be on holiday over the Easter holidays. Explaining that it was a significant birthday treat, a trip of a lifetime to India!

Every so often I would rise this with the Students, reminding them to organise their time prior to my holiday with this in mind.

Of course….working with mostly younger students, all vision impaired and most with some degree of neurodiversity, this was not destined to end smoothly.

The week or rather the last fortnight was a blur of demands, stressing over their deadlines (sometimes more than them!) The non-stop pace of my days running up to this trip can only be described as relentless.

To be honest all the students had been incredibly grateful, asking how excited I felt about the holiday. But because it has been so busy I haven’t had that build up of excitement. I haven’t had the time to think beyond things like APA referencing lists, discussing the importance of intersectionalty, sponsorship presentations, etc etc.

By the time I finally escaped and reached Manchester Airport at 1.20, I felt elated to be heading off to warmer climes…especially not having to look at my laptop for 2 whole weeks. Bliss!

Then came the realisation.

No purse.
Not in the bag. Not in the car. Not anywhere except, presumably, sitting smugly at home. A perfect start.

Just when I thought I’d cleared the worst of it, bag drop delivered its own little gift:
“You haven’t signed your passport.”
A scolding. Because of course.

On top of that on the way over I was getting frantic messages from a taxi driver waiting for us at Chennai Airport. Where are you?????? Then a phone call, ‘Where are you????’ Wearily I said England, of course!!!! Why couldn’t he understand that we hadn’t boarded our flight, it was pretty simple. Until….I looked at my emails and I had put the wrong date. So, the rest of the journey was then spent trying to get a driver for the right day and right time, but not before I blocked the original driver, to save anymore embarrassment on my part.

We haven’t even left the country yet. I want the rest of the holiday to go like clockwork or as near as.

On a positive Terminal 2 has been spruced up.