Awesome pickup, awesome flight and food and that’s where it ends.

Flight arrived 1hr late so missed the connecting flight however Emirates new after this weeks downpour that all flights were delayed or cancelled, but still transported you to Dubai where it was your responsibility to sort it yourself by queuing for 9 hours to rebook your flight along with hundreds of other passengers and 6 checkout staff. The people just kept surging so you couldn’t move.

Next flight to Singapore is in 3 days, so we would arrive after we are due to depart to Bali. So rebooked from Dubai to Bali in 3 days, can’t get a hotel voucher from Emirates since compooota says no, you should have been given a voucher when they rebooked your flight. So now booking our own, oh and we also have no luggage, won’t get it before we leave Dubai so it’s having a holiday on its own.

Amazingly 12 hours after we landed, Emirates posted a backdated “do not travel alert” showing the time before we were due to set-off, in full protection of the company, even though they advised hundreds of flights to take off for Dubai. Oh I can see a formal snotty complaint coming.

So awesome it is not, no clothes, delayed flight, incompetent staff, no currency. We are tired and smell. Still slightly better than some who have been in the airport 3 days.

And now the Dubai Savoy, well it’s a minor step up from a DaysInn (only just), with spectacular views of a main road and a supermarket car park.

Still off we go to explore downtown Dubai and buy another pair of undercrackers, I’ve been wearing these 3 days and they only have one more turn left in them.

Hello Britain we want you to move from dirty nasty orrible fossil fuels to clean sustainable electric. So where does the electric come from eh?

Buy an electric car, get screwed by the fact if you want to charge it at home you need to pay over £1k to get an over priced plug installed.

Charge it remotely and hello £0.85 per KWh to charge a car that does 220 miles (so 66.6Kw x £0.85 = £56).

Insurance, oh right sorry we don’t insure electric cars so bugga off and pay more.

Basically, maybe in 30 years the UK may be ready, just not today

With the flu!! After almost a month in December of colds, laryngitis, hacking cough and tiredness I was relieved to be feeling fab by 23rd Dec. Sadly it was not to last!

By Boxing Day evening both Dad and I had come down with the dreaded flu! Mr Fogg and I had to cancel New Years Eve out (no 6 course taster menu, boo) and we had a quiet night in complete with a heady dose of paracetamol, lemsip and more paracetamol, washed down with ibuprofen and endless tea. Although I was determined to have champagne, which we did, and we managed to watch the fireworks.

After a shockingly bad night. Think zombie roaming the house with a hacking cough, I really really needed to go get some fresh air. I managed a slow short walk down the lane and a picture of a tree. Whoop. back to sofa again though and more paracetamol and more hot tea.

It’s been a pants start to 2024 but things can only improve!

That’s it road trip over and one of the least amount we have travelled (in the car) of 663 miles (not counting the two ferries.

This morning up and out from the “NOT Shangri-La”. Since this “hotel“ is closer to the airport, even though we ended up actually driving back past the actual Shangri-La (how does that work Mrs?). Just putting it out there that the Shangri-La was closer, cheaper, nicer, with better food, you can swim in the pool with Mr Doobie and you don’t get woken at 01.30am when the next door occupant spends 40 minutes shouting at the top of her voice to her partner stood next to her in the hall way!.

So what have we seen, a fraction of Canada, but so much more to plan and see, and next time it’s an RV trip around (especially since Mrs Fogg now has a Bear Bell to carry).

Next stop Gatwick (dirty ans chaotic in comparison to Cancouver airport).

Rather than do the usual visit in a big city of streets and shops we opted to hire cycles and tour around Stanley Park for the day. It was awesome!

The hotel gave us a voucher and we were a 14 min walk from the cycle hire place where we picked up bikes with baskets. We followed the cycle paths around the Sea wall and it was great fun.

We cycled 17.87 miles in total starting at 11:15 and dropping the bikes of at 16:15 – so 5 hours exactly. Stanley park is huge and we got lost a couple of times but the cycle paths are just fantastic and really easy to ride on. What a great and different day.