Insomnia, Libraries, and Loose Ends

Last Workday Feelings

As yesterday marked my final day at work in 2025, my Out-of-Office notice simply stated that I would be returning in 2026, without specifying a date. It made yesterday feel like the start of a weekend, which it wasn't, but your mind tends to play tricks on you. Then, I’ll be channelling Brian.

That feeling had one benefit: I wasn't too bothered by the nighttime insomnia that affected me more than expected. By the afternoon, I was barely able to concentrate or stay awake. I had to ask to leave early, and it still took another 90 minutes to exit the office.

The Mandatory Training Dilemma

At home, I enjoyed a good lie-in, but I couldn't shake the thought of the mandatory training I had to complete before the year ended. I needed to get it done quickly before genuine holiday feelings set in. However, I must admit, I have commitments to certain social events that prevent me from leaving Manchester soon.

I planned to finish the mandatory training at the central library, which has a large reading room. The downside was that if you don't arrive early, you might not find a socket for your laptop. When I finally found a socket, it wasn't working.

Back to the Office

Soon, I was struggling, but I got halfway through the course before deciding that heading to the office would provide everything I needed to complete my tasks for the year: connectivity, lighting, comfort, familiarity, and ambience.

Colleagues were surprised to see me back, especially since I had already said goodbye most of the day before. Brian guessed I might be the last to leave, as I had arrived just before 3:00 PM. I didn’t pursue that conversation, since he could easily have asked me to leave the office before I finished.

Mission Accomplished

I completed the mandatory training on Agentic AI and scored top marks in the assessment, then did another Health and Safety course that wouldn't be due for another month. I seized the opportunity to do it now, and it was best to get it out of the way.

I can now effectively close for the year. Any activity or study from this point onward can be undertaken at leisure, without the pressure of deadlines. As Brian prognosticated, I am the last one in the office. It also means I won’t have to return until 2026. What a wonderful year it has been.

All that jazz around Cape Town

Reminiscing and Remembering

I returned from a short holiday in Cape Town just over five weeks ago, where Brian and I had a wonderful seaside apartment in Bloubergstrand with amazing views of Table Mountain and Robben Island.

The last time we were in this area was probably about six years ago, when we boarded a tour bus to visit wine estates in Paarl and Franschhoek. Bloubergstrand presents one of the best views of Table Mountain; you see the table as it is, which is why an area of Bloubergstrand is called Table View.

On one of the beautiful long walks on the beach, I did get sunburnt on my lips, the front edges of my hands on the side of my thumbs and forefingers, and the tips of my big toes. I could not believe that at barely 19° Celsius, as winter was coming to an end, I could be that susceptible, but there I was.

All That Jazz

Cape Town city centre is about 15 kilometres from Bloubergstrand. We could have ventured onto the MyCiTi buses but stuck with Uber rides. For church, we found a multicultural, international Pentecostal church that was both welcoming and exciting. The coffee makers exhibited skills on a par with, or even better than, Starbucks quality.

One of the many highlights of our time together was discovering that Chicago, the musical, was playing at ArtScape. We booked tickets and attended, where we were feted for our dressing and some patrons asked to take pictures either of us or with us.

During the performance, a gay couple behind us were the better part of a nuisance, singing along to the songs to the point of irritation. We did not complain, but at the end, they both came to say hello, apologised for being noisy, and then gave us their programmes on noticing we had not bought one. You never know what comes from keeping your cool.

Tested by many things

Just doing it

I decided not to beat myself up for the fact that July presented no prolific blogging activity even as I split the month between celebrating my partner’s birthday and holidaying, out of which I took the time for intensive study to do a Microsoft test.

After I did the AZ-900: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals entry-level test which I had been putting off for so long until early June, I began studying for the AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator test, though this was not until I had completed all the course work on the Microsoft Learn website, even though I had handsomely passed the test. I did initially think I would finish that track before I travelled to Cape Town at the end of June.

Recovering self and purpose

Events and issues scuppered that plan, I lost my uncle, my contract was ending, and I was preparing for the trip to Cape Town to celebrate Brian’s birthday and spend the month together. The first few days left me slightly indisposed even as I discreetly planned for his birthday. Visiting Cape Town in the southern hemisphere’s winter might have me considering if I need the flu jab as we do take it for the winter in the northern hemisphere. Winter in Cape Town is like a mild spring to a summer day in Manchester, they are closer to the tropics than we are.

After his birthday, we did a few things, and moved accommodations and I found that I had some free time to do some study which required discipline and concentration as there was a lot of material to cover. Beyond the theory, there are the hands-on labs and then getting used to doing requisite tasks towards achieving goals or requirements borne out of typical case studies.

As I learnt and understood much more, I believed I had gained enough confidence, maybe folly to book the AZ-104 test in cape Town, a few days before my return to the UK. The more I thought I had covered everything, there was much more to do. A YouTube video signified the test in its current format with its current syllabus would change on the 28^th of July. I was now running against the clock to get it done.

Upset to messed up

I found some practice tests and subscribed to an annual membership of Whizlabs, this exposed some areas of serious weakness in my grasp of the concepts and the detail, that needed urgent addressing if I had any hope of scraping through the test. Progress in gaining the requisite understanding of the weak areas was slow.

The test was booked for Tuesday, the 26^th of July at the Prometric office in Cape Town, I checked in the shared workspace and was working towards taking the test at noon, when at 9:38 AM, I received an email from Prometric Vue, the test provider that they could not offer the test and I had to reschedule. Their scheduling system lagged the reality of what they intended, as I spent the next hour with an agent trying to sort it out. In the end, I had the test cancelled and booked a new test date for the next day at another Prometric test centre of the 4 in Cape Town.

The morning’s nonsense left me a bit messed up, I did a walk from the shared workspace home and back to clear my head before I could pore over the material towards the test the next day. Meanwhile, my Whizlabs profile got corrupted that I could not review test attempts and it was not working on my Android devices at all. Thankfully, the CEO contacted me to connect on LinkedIn and that gave me access to the technical team to provide a temporary account whilst they fixed the issue.

Facing up to it

On Wednesday morning, I had a niggling thought that I was about to undertake the test with the barest minimum grasp of the material. Yet, the truth is I had put in over 4 weeks of work along with my experience, and my confidence was taking a hit as Brian assured me that I will do well. At the test centre, I was met with both nonchalance and officialdom, both of which I put down to getting what you pay for in a different kind of setting. The test costs $55 in South Africa, £113 in the United Kingdom, and $165 in the United States. It would appear South Africa has the lowest cost, as most other African domains pay $80.

I was stripped of everything including my walking cane I had to ask if I would have been allowed to use a wheelchair. Then short of being patted down, I was asked to upturn my sleeves to see if I had secreted away cheat sheets of something. Heck! I have been doing vendor certifications since 1994 and this was the first time I was so violated. I surmised, it came with the territory and calmly went into the test room to begin the test some 15 minutes ahead of schedule.

Tested by the test

I did not get a hang of the interface when I was presented from the first question with case studies. I could click on the case study body and requirements but did not realise I had to click on the Question box at the top to return context to what I was to answer. I was close to panicking mode. When I eventually worked out how to do things, I had two case studies, with 9 questions and 32 minutes gone out of 90, with 45 questions to do.

Halfway through I scared myself into thinking I had already failed the test. With 10 minutes left, I had 12 questions to do, they were point-and-click multiple choice questions that I got done with 2 minutes to spare. I marked one question for review, answered that and could not wait to end my ordeal that when presented with the 54 questions to individually comment on each, I passed on the opportunity and closed the test.

The relief of passing

My heart beating at rates it should never reach, the test result came up and I had passed, not glowingly, one section required work, others were rated at average understanding and one at the level of very good. I would not deceive myself into thinking having passed by the skin of my teeth, I was through, I am going to study the material fully again and this would be necessary for the next stage AZ-305: Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions for the Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification.

However, after this, I did give myself the time to do other things, especially with Brian and time to myself. There is a good feeling and sense of achievement, the quest to challenge oneself to ascertain, validate, and certify the knowledge and expertise one has gained. I suppose that is the pleasure one has in the work one does.

Cape Town reflections: To the point of embrace

With every hope to do

A time to reflect on my recent journey to Cape Town, for this visit for a rendezvous with Brian had been in consideration from the time I returned in mid-January 2021, but the pandemic with its many waves and Coronavirus variants kept everything at bay.

As the year drew to a close, I had at least two essential things to do before I could plan to travel, my biannual consultation was already scheduled for the last week in October and coming due in the second week of November was my vaccine booster shot after which it looked like there was a clear way ahead to plan for the break.

I planned on a 6-week break and had diligently informed them at work about my plans for which a stand-in was recruited for my time away and this gave me the opportunity on approval to book my holiday from the first week of November and the countdown had begun.

We ploughed ahead regardless

Meanwhile, our daily conversations continued, in the morning and the evening as we planned what we were going to do along with the prospect of getting married. It looked like the whole pall of the pandemic was being put behind us until just in the last week of November, the Omicron variant first sequenced in South Africa though from what transpired was already prevalent around in Europe and the US, led to the putting of southern African countries on the UK red list without even knowing much about the variant.

This could have kiboshed our plans, but I reckoned that since I was going to be away for 6 weeks, enough knowledge and understanding of the variant would have helped put some in reconsideration into the knee-jerk reaction in the Global North. Besides, the whole idea of spending 10 nights in sub-standard quarantine hotels did not appeal to me.

Anyway, I kept my hopes up and continued with my arrangements, renewing my travel insurance, helping my stand-in bed-in, taking my Fitness to Travel PCR Test and I was ready to go. My journey to Cape Town was smooth and in just two legs, the first from Manchester to Paris and the newly reinstated Paris to Cape Town leg, arriving just after 22:28 on the 3^rd of December, but without my baggage in tow.

Bags on a merry-go-round

My baggage did not make the transfer between arriving from Manchester to taking off from Paris, and though we arrived late in Paris, I literally had to rush to the departure gate, the transit time was another 24 minutes longer than the scheduled connection and still, I was not reunited with my baggage until Sunday afternoon. The baggage itself took the Manchester – Paris – Amsterdam – Cape Town route. I should have been given Airmiles for that too.

At first, I thought I would need to stay at an airport hotel overnight because of the pandemic restriction curfew, but that was not an issue, travellers were allowed to make that journey to their accommodations. I had arrived in Cape Town safely and was in Brian’s arms that night, that was all that mattered besides the troublesome issue of my baggage somewhere on the planet.

Coronavirus streets on my mind - LII

On the advent of the pandemic

In a way, I want to reflect on my experience of this Coronavirus pandemic; it has been troubling, difficult, and long. If I dwelt on the incompetence of my government that has marshalled and shepherded a death rate still unrivalled amongst its peers in Europe, I would find myself a misfit amongst other things, but I have to think for myself and those in my immediate community.

When the pandemic started, I was first classed in the highly vulnerable cohort and required to shield, but the British HIV Association came out with an update advising that those of us with an undetectable viral load and a CD4 cell count above 250, should not need to shield.

That did not make me any less vulnerable as anyone with HIV is immunosuppressed to a degree, we still need to continue our medication regimes and attend our scheduled check-ups. I had returned from South Africa by mid-January 2020 and within 2 weeks I was down with a water infection that required an albeit short hospital admission and weeks of weakness that took a while to recuperate from.

The choices that chilled

If that illness had happened in April, I would have been asked to stay at home and hope for the best when intravenous antibiotics and two sessions of electrolytes would have been needed to get me back to normal. The thought that doctors had unilaterally placed Do Not Resuscitate on a whole swathe of vulnerable patients on their register to apparently save the NHS sent a chill down my spine.

Blog - Thought Picnic: From chills to thrills in health updates

I for one kept isolated as much as I could, wore a face mask everywhere, avoided crowds and enclosed places. I even took to walking exercises as I longed for the opportunity to return to South Africa to be with Brian and that was not until mid-December. If I had not left in the week that I did, I would have been caught by the lockdown in the UK that fuelled another wave of infections and deaths.

Personal precautions, all the time

In South Africa, we had a lockdown too, with a curfew and an alcohol ban, though we could not visit the beach, we could the parks and botanical gardens which we took advantage of. Everywhere we went, we had to don facemasks, had our temperature taken, sanitise our hands and leave our contact details for track and trace purposes. There was a variant on the loose, but we were not careless about our health and welfare.

The only time we ended up in anything like a crowd was when we had to take fitness to travel PCR tests, for at that time, only one laboratory offered reliable tests accepted for travel purposes. This was before there was a vaccine and when we had not yet been offered the option to take it.

On return to the UK, I had to self-isolate at home for 10 days, but I was invited on the 5^th day for a test that proved negative and so earned an early release from my isolation. All the while, I was working from home and doing my best to thrive, despite the circumstances.

Every measure for safe living

Through this year, I had my first Pfizer jab in the last week of February, the Delta variant turned into a community threat from April into May, requiring another lockdown and in the first week of May, I got my second Pfizer jab. Much as we planned for another rendezvous in South Africa, it was beginning to look like we might not meet until the end of the year.

I had my hospital consultations for HIV in April and October, my annual flu jab and then took my third Pfizer jab or the booster shot in the second week of November. From October, we had decided December was the earliest we could meet again, and I put in my plans for holiday for the whole of December and the first two weeks of January. I would suppose I was granted the time compassionately with respect to my circumstances and the agency has provided a stand-in for the time that I am away.

Much as we are vaccinated, we are not throwing caution to the winds, as the same precautions we observed last year when there was no vaccine, we have observed diligently even as many we see on the streets seem to care nothing about the pandemic that has hardly gone away.

Calm in the face of turmoil

Just a week before my departure from England, South Africa and neighbouring southern African countries were placed on the red list that required any returnees to the UK to take up exorbitant hotel quarantine for 11 nights regardless of vaccination status, it could have scuppered our plans, but as my absence would be for 6 weeks and we were still learning about the Omicron variant, I felt that things would change during that period. I had to field many enquiries about my plans, but I remained calm and sanguine.

I changed nothing about my plans and flew out on the 3^rd of December, I am glad to note that the red list has been completely depleted from this morning and it is my hope that no radical changes occur for the rest of my sojourn here. Despite what the governments in many countries think they should be doing regarding this pandemic; I think they should be giving us advice and full information about the state of the pandemic.

Not getting too smart about it

However, I think it is now down to personal responsibility to take the utmost and particular attention to one’s health, to get vaccinated, to take precautions, and to navigate out Coronavirus streets with moderation, common sense and every safety measure to avoid contracting this virus.

Much as I cannot understand the inclination for vaccine hesitancy from the unlearned, talk less of those in the health services, I can only wonder how they expect to fight a virus with a naïve immune system, but each to their own, I know, I need vaccines against many things and some I cannot take like the yellow fever vaccine because it has a life though attenuated virus.

We are making the best of the time we have together and that is also for our health, our wellbeing and most importantly, our mental health too.

Blog - Quarantined in my self-isolation

Doing what we had to do, for love

The shifting sands of planning

When Brian and I kissed goodbye on the 14^th of January 2020 in Johannesburg, nothing could have suggested we would not be meeting up in a couple of months. Then the pandemic came with the associated different levels of lockdowns and restrictions, we hoped but could not plan for anything.

Meanwhile, as it ravaged the UK putting us at the disadvantage of being one of the highest risk countries and so slamming the door on possible travel and leading to another month-long national lockdown, by which time we were in December.

As I had been anticipating a rendezvous from September, I had already hinted at work of my need to travel with the possibility of getting married when we next meet. I had considered taking two months off, but after looking at the options the 11^th of December was the best departure date with the prospect of the whole of January.

You can weather turbulence

Between negotiations from just the Christmas break and lobbing two weeks off the end of January return, we settled on a 5-week break and I was out to meet Brian who had arrived the day before in Cape Town on the 12^th of December. With hindsight, if I had not left the UK when I did, the cost of travel would have gone up almost 50% and another week, the new restrictions will have cancelled everything.

Whilst we were away, new strains of the Coronavirus were discovered and spreading more contagiously in the UK and South Africa that the world began to shut their borders to visitors from those countries. New lockdown measures were instituted with restrictions to movement, alcohol bans, curfews, with limited tourist activity and incremental measures to halt the spread of the virus just as vaccinations were being rolled out in some countries, the UK apparently taking the lead with the government thinking they had found a talisman to cover for the unmitigated and unnecessary loss of life numbering over 70,000 at that time.

Our things over other things

The swirl of events around us would have left some in a state of panic with the threat of abruptly shortening one’s holiday. I was of the mind that we would enjoy every moment we had together of 35 days and cross the bridge of when we needed to return to our respective homes when the time came. That is how we played it and had a wonderful time full of the expectation that we would soon be meeting up again.

I returned home yesterday just about 27 hours from door-to-door and Brian should be home in Bulawayo by noon tomorrow. Our story continues with an exciting chapter we have already begun to write. In our prayers, we know that dreams do come true.

At breakfast on Saturday, I wrote this short poem.

My heart is clouded in a mist,
With the heaviness of what'll be missed,
I slept beside you many times at night,
I woke up refreshed to kiss you in the light,
Now we are about to wave goodbye,
Each moment was a gushing high,
Love, It won't be long,
For this is not wrong.

My heart is clouded in a mist,

With the heaviness of what'll be missed,

I slept beside you many times at night,

I woke up refreshed to kiss you in the light,

Now we are about to wave goodbye,

Each moment was a gushing high,

Love, It won't be long,

For this is not wrong.@Brian07j pic.twitter.com/K3YfKMOHKX

— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ 🏳️‍🌈 #European (@forakin) January 16, 2021

Something has been postponed

Escape town now

When we arrived in Cape Town, we noticed a number of businesses had already closed for the year from the 13^th of December and would not be returning until the 6^th of January.

Some somehow endured another week of work before closing, but it seemed everyone was ready to down tools and put their feet up for 2019. I guess we got a deeper sense of disappointment when our friendly place for breakfast was closing from noon on the 21^st until the 7^th of January.

This became concerning because we wondered if there’ll be places to go out to, if everyone was abandoning the rest of 2019. Then a food market that I expected to be open had closed from Christmas Day. We get it now, just we are done with 2019, others were too, and that desire will not be postponed.

Playtime Cape Town

Walking around the V&A Waterfront in that first week too, we could not help but notice sparse promenades and restaurants bereft of patrons. I had to ask and was told by a waitress that custom was considerably down compared to the year before. We also thought there was a difference between our September/October visit and just before Christmas.

It would appear the Christmas week did pick up, the church was full that we ended up on the last row, the communion organised for us to take it at narthex in the back rather than at the bema near the altar. This probably confirms why Hotels.com showed there was a 95% occupancy for this period.

Out and happy

Our visits to the V&A Waterfront now seem to be more vibrant and livelier, the views of the Table Mountain awesome as ever, with or without the tablecloth of billowing clouds. Camps Bay is traffic chaos, though for a walk in the chilling waters of the beach and that trek to Mouille Point, we would have done enough to want a Uber rescue.

In all, work and busy has been postponed and the holiday feeling will be held back no longer. It speaks to why we could find no tables for Christmas lunch that I had to cook. We can’t persuade ourselves enough about going out for New Year’s Eve, not that we haven’t tried.

We are having a wonderful time here, it’s so good to spend this time with Brian in this city we love.

Courtesy of the William Kentridge exhibition at Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town.

Bucharest: The other journey of a case

I remembered

Last night, I picked up a pencil and recalled from memory 11 items I had packaged into my baggage the night before for my Easter holiday.

Whilst the list was not exhaustive, I was surprised I could remember when I got each of the items, where I bought them and how much I paid for them.

Worse still, it was the feeling that I really could not put a price on losing any of the items even if I was compensated with the full cost of replacing all of them as new. There is a whole experience that goes with getting things, the time, the place, the emotion, the joy or otherwise that cannot be relived along with the wear or tear that comes with that thing being in your possession.

This is what is called sentimental value, and I do not think anything can replace that, however, something might help accept the loss.

A man and his case

That however was part of the run of emotions that engulfed me with a prospect that I might never be reunited with my luggage again.

We left home together yesterday, as I made a note of the numbers on the rotary number locks of my case and had it checked it at the airport weighing just less than 12 kilograms.

The check-in clerk tagged the case and attached a “Priority” label whilst informing me that my case would be transferred onto the connecting flight in Paris where I had a stopover for the onward leg to Bucharest.

We left Manchester, 30 minutes behind schedule and when I arrived in Paris, the transit desk said my connecting flight was also delayed and that my baggage will definitely make the connection too.

Waiting in vain

At Bucharest, I stood at the carousel for almost an hour until the last piece of luggage was taken, mine did not show and so I went looking for the Air France – KLM baggage handling company. It was there I learnt my baggage did not make my flight and that it will be put on the next plane to Bucharest. Another assurance came; it will be delivered to my hotel at night.

Eventually, I found out when I took my phone off flight-mode that I had received an SMS Text Message that my baggage did not make the flight. Though I do wonder what the “Priority” tag really means. Giving you a sense of importance at the check-in desk whilst your baggage might suffer God knows what in transit.

Lodging a complaint

I filled in a “Property Irregularity Report” (PIR), there was nothing irregular about my case, it contained my personal effects and things you were not allowed to carry as hand luggage.

The PIR has a reference, your name, details of your itinerary, a coded description of the piece of luggage and the tag number. My baggage did not arrive and the handling company appeared not to care that much about it as the lady said, my case will probably arrive in the morning. I had to calm myself down.

Since I booked my ticket through KLM on their website and then changed it with the help of a KLM Customer Service Agent, I visited their website to make a complaint where I could not find a number to call. I posted a lengthy comment on their Facebook page and also tweeted at them on the advice of my best friend.

The helpful and the unhelpful

The Facebook response was more helpful whilst the Twitter account appeared to engage me before they decided it was none of their business, because the PIR was created in the name of Air France. Now, Air France and KLM have the same parent company, they are a merger that is more than a code-sharing arrangement apart from the fact that they are core members of the SkyTeam Alliance.

It saddens me that corporates are quick to cash in on your custom but are quicker to shirk responsibility when some customer service is required of them.

However, the KLM Facebook page provided a link that allowed me keep a trace on my baggage, it showed the originally intended flight and then the rescheduled flight and the route it was taking. I was able to use that information to determine the flight had arrived in Bucharest.

On its way

About 90 minutes after the flight arrived in Bucharest, we were already in next day territory, I received an SMS Text Message and email from Air France that my baggage will be delivered to the address of the hotel I was staying at. When I filed the PIR, I also provided my home address and there was a danger if the baggage was not found in 2 days, it will return to the UK.

This morning, I went down to the hotel reception and my baggage had arrived, the rotary number lock combination had changed from what I set it to when it was checked in.

I do marvel at the wonders of technology today, the way we were able to keep tabs on my luggage whilst it appeared to be lost in transit and the way the system eventually worked to get us reunited.

Some advice

Yet, there are lessons to learn from this interesting ordeal.

·         Never place items of high sentimental value in your cargo hold luggage if you can avoid it. What you do not have to travel with, you really do not have to travel it. If in doubt, leave it out.

·         Always take out travel insurance that covers your luggage because airlines have very limited liability, even though your baggage was entrusted to their professional care. There are many hand-offs in the chain, anything could happen. Airlines will probably advise you to contact your insurance company than have you commence a compensation claim against them.

·         Never put your essential medication in your cargo hold luggage, get a doctor’s note if you have to along with your prescription and have that in your hand baggage.

·         With the restriction of fluids on flights, you might want to get travel packs for toothpaste, morning goods and cosmetics to take through security.

·         Most importantly, knowing what to do when you lose your baggage is the greatest path to peace of mind, what you know, gives less of a bother.

Now, let’s discover Bucharest.

Bucharest: Now where's my luggage?

Exploiting a chance meeting

Svelte she was with a gait that looked like she could give Naomi Campbell a few tips on how to traipse the catwalk, as she went before me. Two Louis Vuitton bags and a few other luxury label bags, you knew she was a lady of the world very few would ever see.

We were alone in our section of the flight, with nothing to read but the airline magazines filled with materialistic displays enough to depress you if you dared assume the lives portrayed were any more perfect than yours.

I had overheard she was Romanian, and though I was sitting behind her, I felt the best thing to do was to chat to her and get a few inside tips on what a first time visitor to Bucharest should do; as in places to see, the restaurants serving Romanian fare, and much else.

Making do with making conversation

I could say, if she walked into a Romanian tourist office needing a job, on the conversation we had, she was a shoo-in, a worthy ambassador of her country, I aver. She scribbled 4 pages of notes into my book, with what I should do on a first visit and then on consequent visits if I do return.

Meanwhile, I shared my knowledge of the five most important words you should know of any language, in Romanian – Yes, No, Hello, Goodbye and Thank you, she was impressed and then some old-school financial investing ideas with her as I learnt that she was a car industry executive who also has her own business and jaunts between Paris, Bucharest and Dubai where she has a pad each.

It was quite unusual for our flight that for the length of time of travel, there was no in-flight entertainment and somehow the cabin crew forgot to order the dailies beyond the first brush of them not willing to take my coat and cane to stow away.

Something to complain about

At the time we were served our meals, an entrée of salmon with al dente crudités, hake with carrots and potatoes and a strawberry tart dessert, we were informed that we were literally guinea-pigs for this new menu. Thankfully, they did not ask for my opinion afterwards, but when it comes to hospitality, whilst Air France and KLM have the same parent company, the crew on KLM titled flights are a class apart from their counterparts.

It was a hop from Manchester via Paris to Bucharest, the connection was shortened because we left Manchester 30 minutes behind schedule, the flight from Paris was also delayed, so I did not have to sweat my connection, but when I eventually made it to baggage reclaim at Henri Coanda International Airport and the last piece of baggage had left the carousel, I learnt, my luggage had been left behind in Paris.

There is some hope that it will arrive tonight, else … let’s not blow a fuse yet. I am in Bucharest and I intend to enjoy myself, it might include a visit to the male version of Victoria’s Secret to get a change of underwear.

Holiday Snaps: Location still serves vocation

Tribes in the sun

Location, they say, is everything. This could not have been more evident than in my recent visit to Playa del Inglés on the island of Gran Canaria.

Much as this part of the island offers hotels, sun, sand, mostly in dunes and the sea, there are sections around the place that are tribal, clannish or native.

We are left in no doubt that the Germans frequent this island more than other nationals considering the number of signs in German compared to English, Dutch or Scandinavian signs.

Whilst, many other nationals do visit for the sun and surprisingly we met up with Americans who had somehow found this out-of-the-way European sunshine paradise, it is was something of a surprise to me.

Traces of places

When it comes to night life, there are places to go where a lot is going on. I could not however fail to notice that beyond these central places that the tourists throng, some enterprising and entrepreneurial spirits had thought to attract custom to other places in town.

These new places I found were considerably better in standard, facility and variety compared to the crowded places that proprietors could not care to maintain or update. However, they have so much footfall that they cannot be bothered to differentiate themselves from competition to attract more clientele. Complacency had set in.

Whereas, these new places strive to convince us that they are close to the centre and in the process miss out on providing the critical detail that might persuade people to visit their premises.

Failing to listen

I took it upon myself at one such venue to state that the instructions given for their location were not clear and sometimes confusing. The indications use referred to a building that had a name spelt top-down rather than from the left to the right as most of us read words.

My friend, new to the island had more recognition for the building name that had the word spelt horizontally from left to right rather than for the building name spelt vertically, prominent as it appeared to be, but I could not get that point across to the owners, rather, I was pushed back as being probably stupid.

Missing the essential

You then wonder if their market research despite the quality of the product took cognisance of that minor detail of getting people to come or whether it had any strategies for persuading people to leave the beaten paths to the less well-travelled places.

Yet, with owners who appear to know too much that they cannot appreciate a simple observation from a customer concerned enough to make a point about the directions to venue, there is no wondering why despite how good and fantastic the new places are, not many are venturing beyond the central hubs of activity.

They’ve created paradise in a desert and expect people to leave the comforts of tried and tested venues for an unknown. Unknown, they would remain until they rethink the whole scheme because they present no competition as at yet to force the popular places to improve, upgrade or make attractive offers to customers.

Holiday Snaps: Nowhere near a post-racial Europe

Mythical curiosity

Maybe to my mind that is the case, but there are possibilities that I have been in places where I am probably the only ethnic minority for miles.

Now, it does not bother me, though there seems to be an exotic and sometimes erotic quality to my presence as curiosity and myth collude in a bizarre setting of becoming the cynosure and object of interest.

This can be comfortable as in where over 40 Turkish school children gathered round me for a photograph in the amphitheatre of antiquity amongst the ruins of Ephesus to where some young men with other interests appeared to sit with me for a picture but had their hands in all my empty pockets.

Keep your valuables in your hotel

I am the wiser to know that when going out at night never to take anything of value with me, the list of those things includes passport, wallet, lots of money and most particularly my mobile phone.

The mobile phone which can be replaced is a lot more valuable than we realise, it contains address books of contact details and information that cannot be easily retrieved as pictures and certain utilities or application settings too important to be without as banking apps, navigation tools and so on.

This became evident last night when a lady, I used that word loosely, got herself so inebriated that she became a victim of opportunistic crime. She lost both her money and her mobile phone to one of the many who look for the vulnerable to exploit. Spurting out expletive after expletive would not have changed the situation and the more she railed, the less it made it to help her, I was saddened for her sake.

No one should be a victim of crime, whether vulnerable or not, yet, one cannot absolve the victim totally from blame if a few precautions were taken as leaving valuables in the hotel and drinking sensibly. The phone had much treasure pictures of her daughter, but thieves are not people who place any value on anything we hold dear. The phone would be pawned off for a pittance just because, I’ll leave it at that.

Impressions about black people

Back to what I began with and I have not written about this before, the fact that regardless of how open and free Europe appears to be, we are nowhere near a post-racial society where stereotypes, prejudices and ascribed attitudes define how people are viewed.

I cannot count the number of times I have been approached by people who assume I have hard drugs to peddle. The idea being that mainly what black people do, they do not have conventional careers or professions but live on the edges of society fully involved in some sort of criminality.

Where you wonder do you begin to tackle this rotten misconception and image of people of my race, many of us, honest, decent, upright and hopefully respectable members of society and the communities with which we work and live?

Fuck Off!

So, this Swedish couple approached me, the man sat beside me and then asked if I had smokes to sell. When I responded in the negative, not only was he displeased, he intoned, “Not good.” Basically, he genuinely expected me to be peddling drugs and never expected me to be doing anything otherwise, it was obvious he approached me because of my race rather than any other factor.

Somewhere in his preconceptions, that is what we did. The slight and gravity of disrespect seething with insidious racism was compounded by the fact not an apology was offered for this effrontery of atrocious stereotyping.

I was half-angered and I am minded to blurt out an uncharacteristic – Fuck Off! – When next I am approached for drugs. Not my kind of expression, but it would be more than effective in helping such idiots realise than we should be approached with great caution, if the intention is to belittle us with association with criminality rather than quality of character and better assumptions of status and achievement.

We are nowhere near a post-racial Europe, even for those of us with a very high self-esteem and well-developed sense of self.

Holiday Snaps: Loro Parque, Tenerife

Tripping to another island

The day trip to Tenerife is now a constant feature of my holidays to Gran Canaria where I have the choice of visiting Loro Parque or just doing a tour of the island.

The port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife is just a 70 minute boat ride from Puerto de las Nieves on the north-eastern coast of Gran Canaria, but this all takes a lot out of you.

I felt going to Loro Parque was essential especially for my friend who was having his first package holiday at a seaside resort. At least to prove the point that there was more besides sun, sea, sand and sometimes sex.

We had already visited Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the capital city of the island of Gran Canaria and between fable, legend and truth, gone to the Christopher Columbus house purportedly resided in, which is now a museum. The view is that most trips to the New World as it then known passed through the Canary Islands.

Off to Tenerife

For Tenerife, we got a wake-up call at 5:15AM having been out most of the night, we were somnambulists for the hours that followed. Though we had planned for an early breakfast at 5:30AM, we had no stomach for such.

The shuttle bus to take us to the port arrived around 6:20AM and the sooner that I got in my seat, I attempted a half slumber and for the journey between Playa del Inglés and the Las Palmas, the chaperone allowed us some peace to catch some shut-eye.

I noticed a few changes to the scheduling, the trip was better planned, we were given hints to what shows to see and the best order to maximise the usage of our time at Loro Parque. The ferry was an hour earlier and it also meant we returned in enough time to make dinner back at the hotel.

Our chaperone was a chatterbox extraordinaire, he switched between 4 languages with ease and repeated his advice in as many ways possible that the stupid would be highly enlightened, yet there were times I wished I had travelled with my ear plugs, for I was on the verge of telling him shut up for a nanosecond and give our eardrums a rest from the din.

The shows

The sea was calm, the journey easy and we were at Loro Parque just before 11:00AM, and we made for Orca World where we were to see killer whales in performance. Though the show as to start at 11:30, the arena was quite full some 15 minutes to the start.

The orca whale is really not a whale, it is a dolphin and yet apex predators. These creatures are huge and could measure up to 6 metres long.

The handlers do not get in the water with the orcas as they do with the dolphins that are much smaller or even the lion seals.

Though Loro Parque was created for parrots, parakeets, cockatoos and birds of that family group, it is essentially a zoo, but one of significance for the rarity of the animals, their conservation efforts and the documentation that accompanies their exhibits.

And then

We attended the orca and dolphin shows, but decidedly missed the sea lion show, at the dolphin show, I learnt something new, how to determine the sex of dolphins and what to do if I encounter a beached or stranded dolphin.

The service at the publicised restaurant for which we had vouchers for a discounted price for a set meal was perfunctory to the point of almost appalling.

The waiters at Patio del Loro looked like if they smiled they might have a terminal cardiac arrest, even I could not wish a smile for them, lest it became an emergency. I left a tip, well the tip was, please find ways to smile. As for the bill, it was not a penny more and not a penny less than what the bill said.

Much as literally every venue in Spain displays the WiFi free logo, nothing is as annoying as to find that the service is poor to the point that you could not connect. My view was that Loro Parque did not add enough capacity to handle the crowds that throng the place. I would rather they did not have the service than have signs everywhere and yet not deliver.

Holiday Snaps: Dressed to shock

Returnees’ paradise

One of the things that keeps me returning to this hotel on Playa del Inglés is the same that keeps the majority of custom coming, service.

Service, friendliness and going completely out their way to be helpful and wonderful. There is very little staff attrition, most of the people I met here where I first lodged in this hotel 7 years ago are still here. It was incidental that I noticed that even the bellboy has a car, they invest in their people.

Dining friends

Dinner is some sort of ceremony, everyone is dressed up in a fashion, it is not formal, but beach wear is not considered appropriate. Men are expected to be in trousers and ladies are expected to put some effort to it.

We are allocated tables for the duration of our stay with an option to change if we do not like our dining neighbours. Our neighbours were German and after a few days with their command of English and my smattering dollops of German we struck humorous and engaging conversation about our days, our food and much else.

Both he and her were not just well attired, but exhibited a quiet class and sophistication to their demeanour. My friend many times commented that they looked like love birds.

Malfunctions of dress

On other tables, some ladies seem to have brought a wardrobe that really should have been locked shut. In some cases, it was a strap or a bra pad smidgen away from a catastrophic wardrobe malfunction.

Strangely, I have not taken time to observe the shoes, but the dresses and the hair were jaw-dropping incredulous that words of disdain would spill out in a torrent if one were not slightly reserved.

Exciting taste

The food was rich in variety, with many healthy options and the obligatory dessert; ladles of ice-cream, some boiled fruit and then lashings of liqueur. The ice-cream softens kick of the liqueur and hence makes it easy on my palate.

Now, beyond halfway through our holiday, we are probably beginning to wind down for our return home.

Holiday Snap: A granny for a penny

Getting busy doing holiday

Coming into our fourth day of holiday, we have been taking things quite easy, but it is about to get a bit frenetic.

There are many things I would like us to do, but the shortness of this break means we have to choose what to do and what to leave to another time.

Already, we have been booked to go to Tenerife which is a 70 minute boat ride from Puerto de las Nieves on the north-eastern coast of Gran Canaria, this is to go to Loro Parque and what a long day it would be. The bus picks us up at 6:10AM.

For a pound and more, these fakes

Meanwhile, we have concentrated on Playa del Ingles, a walk up to Yumbo Centre where the shops stock imitations and counterfeits of brands names made to look like original and properly sourced products with such sweet-talking merchants who would at a whim sell their grandmothers at a discount if it would leave them with a coin of currency richer.

On Saturday, we went to Maspalomas and walked some 3 kilometres up the promenade from the lighthouse to Meloneras where the competition from the somewhat isolated restaurants was brisk and almost aggressive.

Food cooked with calumny

In a stretch of hardly 100 metres we were accosted by waiters selling their fare so well by disparaging their competition. Our hands were filled with restaurant business cards that by the time we reached the end of the promenade, the last card handler quipped that the cards of the other restaurants were bigger, but in his restaurant, the plates of food are bigger, the quality fresher and much else.

It was all too much for me, I hate having food forced down my throat and most especially bargain food. When we turned round to walk back, I could not run the gauntlet of that crowd again, we walked that part in front of the restaurants on the beach. Phew!

Then Sunday, we headed for the beach negotiating the dunes following the red-marked pillars. It takes just about 30 minutes to make it to the beach from our hotel. For the very first time, I did get my feet wet in the sea, I might get more wet next time.

Holiday Snaps: A haul of perfidy

Getting sorted

We finally broke away and the holiday we had been preparing for arrived just in time. It was quite a struggle of persuasion with guile to get my good friend of 30 years to agree that we need to spend some quality time together away.

Something substantial beyond the times snatched on the phone or when we met up for short meals whenever our paths crossed in London.

Reticence and reluctance is what I have to tackle as hurdles and this time I had the full force of the elements as I wanted us to go away for two weeks to one of my haunts that I had spent 100 days at, a place where at the reception, I am welcomed, “Mr Akintayo, welcome to your second home.”

And finally

I had not been since December 2010 and I was quite looking forward to it, my friend however, was wishing I had forgotten or some other circumstance would crop up that it would never happen.

At best, he wanted to go away for a week, at worst, a week’s holiday for me was no holiday that in the end, I booked 11 nights, and yet, I almost did not hear the last of it because 10 days was the halfway point, as if you could go away from 10 and a half nights, anyway, this is for the record, because, it would be referenced when next I need to tackle reticence and reluctance towards getting away.

A pedantic inconvenience

He arrived from London, we had a quick meal at my apartment and they made off to the airport. Though he would not believe it, I do suffer a few privations when I go on holiday alone, but when with company, I try to ensure there is nothing, if anything to complain about.

We first encountered the facetiousness of a Thomson Holidays check-in clerk who was particular about my hand baggage weighing 6.8kg when it should according her be just 5kg, we lightened my hand baggage by transferring some things into my friend’s luggage.

I later did a search on the baggage restrictions of Thomson Holidays and found that the weight restriction applies to checked-in baggage, but it is dimensions that applies to hand luggage. If there is a rule, it is unwritten, but enforced under duress at a point where one does not have the means to argue the case with evidence. I was not pleased.

Through not thorough

We fast-tracked through security, though I noticed there was no rigorous border checks either on our way out in Manchester or at our point of entry at Las Palmas de Gran Canaria airport.

Not that our fast-track was anything like it, two families with kids ahead of us were as disorganised as you could have a troop of people that the normal paced security checks seemed to go through briskly.

Then we settled in the airport lounge for the less than two-hour wait for boarding. Though boarding seemed to happen on time, we were held at the gate for another 20 minutes and it was 30 minutes beyond schedule before we took off.

A haul of perfidy

The safety announcement appeared on the screens on the backs of the seats we faced, it was a girl probably lip-syncing the safety instructions with other kids demonstrating all the safety procedures. It was funny, entertaining and well, serious too.

The screens then returned to a repeating cycle of holiday offers besides which we suffered sensory deprivation for almost 4 hours unsure of where we were, how much long our flight was or if there was anything to observe even if it was a night flight.

When I asked the air hostess about getting some entertainment on my screen, she said it was not a service offered on their short-haul flights.

Now, that threw me because a typical film would run for two hours or thereabouts, the flight from Manchester to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria was of a 4 hour 10 minute duration.

Checking Wikipedia for the skinny on flight lengths, short-haul flights last less than 3 hours, medium-haul flights up to 6 hours, long-haul up to 12 hours and ultra-long-haul flights are over 12 hours.

Then the definition becomes obfuscated that a short-haul flight can be limited to 500 miles (800 kilometres) or for UK Treasury purposes, it is an absolute flight distance of under 2000 miles (3600 kilometres).

Then, I realise the subtle technicality that Thomson Holidays has liberally adopted for the purpose of passing off the required Air Passenger Duty £138 per passenger as a discount amongst other things. The distance from Manchester to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria is just 1,877 miles (3379 mile). The travesty and perfidy of it all.

Yet more time

I had arranged to be picked up from the airport rather than take the Thomson Holidays shuttle service which from past experience has me delivered to my hotel last, after travelling round Maspalomas and Playa del Ingles discovering where all the luxury hotels were.

Yet, it took well over an hour for our luggage to hit the conveyor belt because we arrived when luggage handling shifts changeover, something I thought could be better managed with an overlap so as not to inconvenience passengers at the end of a long flight that kept them at the airport beyond 1:00AM.

We got to our hotel just before the crowds arrived, were booked in and basically, the holiday has begun.

Rest, relax, rejuvenate and recuperate.