Tag: holidays

National Holidays Coach
Posted in Travel

End of an Era

Posted on by Evallone

So in the very week that I was gearing up to write about all my previous travels, the company I have travelled most through has gone into administration. Farewell my beloved Caledonian Travel.

Specialist Leisure Group LTD

Apparently this company owned Caledonian Travel and its sister company based in England, National Holidays. I was not aware of all the other companies and I’m very sad and sorry for all the shop workers, hotel staff, and behind-the-scenes staff who’ll now be out of work. The shop front for Caledonian Travel was a wee local post where you could go in and book your holiday in person. Bare in mind that I’ve travelled with them for so long that back in the day there wasn’t a facility to book online, in person was the only way to do it. To be fair, I always went in anyway. It was great to chat with the staff and just have that personal customer service experience to make the holiday process that bit more exciting. At one point I was booking and going on so many holidays that some of the staff remembered me!

The times they are a-changing

I promise I am going to cover all the holidays one at a time but to set the scene, the very first Caledonian Travel trip we took was in 2008 and it was a 14-day coach tour to Italy. Then I did it again in 2009 and 2010 alone. I also did a mini cruise to Bruges with them in 2009 prior to going to Italy, it was only 3 days but just to make sure I could travel myself at 20. There was a gap for a bit when I got a flat and was perpetually skint, but a quick cheap weekend in Liverpool in 2011 helped. Pater treated me to a mini cruise to Amsterdam in 2012 as a wee treat for getting into university. Then the unholy trinity (Mater, Pater and I) did the whole Italy trip in 2013 (first time for mama) which was insane and great. Since then I’ve not been back to Italy with them but I’ve done Belgium and the Netherlands, and a fairly disappointing trip to York (the hotel was hellish). And now I’m sad that I won’t get to do these trips anymore, I never got to Paris nor Ghent or Antwerp. I know flying is faster but I love the whole ritual to coach travel; stopping in Gretna for a pit stop, arriving in Hull and boarding the ferry, getting the meal deal and eating until I’m bursting at the buffet and hanging out in one of the three bars on the boat, or going to the cinema. Unless another bus company starts running these trips then no way is it cost effective for me to travel to Hull and do it as a foot passenger.

Like I’ve said, coach tours are pretty much the reason I saw so much so young and on a tight budget. I met so many wonderful, crazy, interesting people on the tours that I wouldn’t have if I’d flown. We all became a tight-knit group, especially on the 2009 trip but given that I was about 30 years younger than most of the others I didn’t really manage to keep in touch with them, but I’m sure they remember me as the baby. I do hope there is a way to continue the coach trip tradition… that can survive Corona and Brexit.

Anybody ever travelled with Caledonian Travel or another company? Who prefers coaches to planes? I didn’t fly until I was 24 and I’m still freaked out by it!

e x

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Posted in Health, life

Happy New Year! 2019!

Posted on by Evallone

Best wishes to all for the new year, I hope it started well and the resolutions haven’t been scrapped already!

I had such plans for starting 2019, being super organised, eating well, sleeping well, and getting a ton of work completed early. But I got ill on Boxing Day… and I’ve been out of it since then.

It began with a sore throat I assumed was related to the bottle of prosecco on Christmas day, but I’d ate loads of dinner so I shouldn’t have felt badly. Then I became worse as the time went on, achy, headaches, fever, shivers, and the dreaded sinus attack. I’ve also spent the last six days not being able to smell or taste anything, which makes eating chore-like and definitely not fun. I even resorted to eating Jalapeños out of the jar, but unable to smell nor taste them.

I seem to finally be a bit better today insofar as I can sort of taste again, but my energy levels have plummeted, I tried to organise some books and paperwork, then had to lie down for a half an hour feeling woozy.

I don’t do ill well. If something afflicts me from the neck down, I’m okay because I can still use my head and get on with other work or study; but getting a cold or a sinus infection ruins everything… All I’ve been able to do is read and nap a lot.

Just wanted to check in with you all, I hope everyone else is staying healthy, we’ve got some year ahead of us!

e x

Posted in Education, Musings, rant, work, Writing

Blogoversary!

Posted on by Evallone

So it’s around a year since evallone.com happened and I’m thrilled with how my little site has developed in that time. Initially pre-domain name it did start as a blog of a recent graduate trying to find decent work in this pre-apocalyptic world, then evolved, backtracked and evolved some more!

Tomorrow marks a year since I got that fresh out of uni job which lasted all of 10 weeks. I am not ashamed to admit it as I’m much happier in my current job of seven and a half months! I never spoke in great detail on here about what happened in the last job, but since I’ve hardly heard from anyone since I left, there’s little problem if I were to speak about it, but that’s for another time.

The current purpose of my blog is to give me a platform to display all my creative tendencies and to rant. I’ve much in the pipeline, but have been fighting with time to get on with actually writing blog posts. I did go on holiday to York a few weeks ago but I’ve had a hell of a time trying to edit and upload the pictures (I shot them all in RAW and it’s been a while…) Alas, they’re coming soon along with the written-at-the-time blog posts. Check out my photography page as I’ll be posting plenty of additional pictures there.

I spent much of yesterday desperately clinging onto reality after a rare night out on Saturday. I’ve questioned my mortality, my age, the unstoppable passing of time, why I peaked at age 3, and my appearance. So today I got up, my food tasted better than in months, I slept better than I have in quite some time (with lots of wild dreams) and have a plan for today and the next wee while. My course starts back in October so that gives me several weeks to work my way through the reading list (as best as I can, cannot afford many of the books) and trying to really embrace the opportunity this course and year will give me. I know all too well from this past year just how fast time goes, so I need to try and enjoy every single minute of it.

I’m rambling now, I know, but I’m abuzz with ideas and the need to just read for a solid amount of time. I just needed this to break the ice a bit, and I promise I should be back to regular updates from now on.

Thanks for this last year of support!

e x

Posted in Books, Education, Fitness, Health, Late Nights, life, Musings, Shonda Rhimes, Travel, University, work, Writing

Battling the sleepies

Posted on by Evallone

I’m drained. Zonked. Gone.

I’ve had a few days off work just with how the scheduling goes, and had all these wild plans for what I’d do with all that free time. And yet, it’s been cold, stormy, wet, and blah. They probably sound like excuses and maybe they are but I’m so tired. I’ve caught up with some work in short bursts of effort, usually around 1am when I should be succumbing to the tiredness, but when my creativity works best. The rest of the time I just feel like a sleepy zombie.

I’ve been setting an alarm, but when it goes off in the morning, because I know there’s nothing I NEED to get up for, it’s more of an annoying noise that I flip over and end up snoozing for two more hours. It’s a bad habit… probably, but I think I’m suffering with ‘what-the-fuck-am-I-doing-itis’ and for me, hypersomnia is how I deal with it.

Now that I’m pondering it, there’s an element of SAD involved. It happens every winter, except this is the first time in a zillion years where I haven’t been compelled by full-time education to get my arse out of the house. I’ve ordered a sunlight alarm clock that will arrive in about two months -_- there’s no way I can afford a SAD lamp, plus electricity freaks me out.

In between passing out asleep and trying to wake up with strong coffee and Italian rap music, I’ve been reading Shonda Rhimes’ Year of Yes book. It’s amazing! I don’t often read autobiographies/self-help stuff, but her words are so relatable particularly about working hard and living/breathing/eating your own work as a writer. Even the parts about not having everything as a parent/writer/woman, it’s finally a relief to hear someone admitting that they don’t have everything sorted out, that they aren’t superwoman and, don’t have all the answers. She needs help to manage her life, she gets it; she needs help to look after her kids while she works, she gets it. Why should anyone be a martyr to a lost cause without asking for help? I’m hopefully never going to go down that merry road of motherhood but I can understand how certain parts of your life aren’t going to be perfect or even balanced while focusing on another part of your life.

I know it’s bad for your health to be stationary all the time, but as a writer, much of what I do requires that I sit writing drivel onto a screen or into a notebook for ages at a time. And in order to work as I need to on that, I can’t always breakaway to go to the gym and I nearly broke my back on the times I went to the gym and carried all my writing stuff and laptop with me… I’ve seen those girls at Uni, they’ll need traction by 25. I’m too old to put up with these pains though, and thus things slide. Plus, sitting/lying/being still is one of my favourite pastimes. I could pass as a statue.

Alas, alak, we’re nearly in February, still a month I hate but I’m hoping the nicer weather will make an appearance and my mood will feel less funky. I’m planning on doing blog posts on my previous trips abroad. I’ve got so many stories to tell, might as well tell you them. Just need to find all my old photographs as well. First trip to Italy was in 2008 and I can’t even begin to think how many different computers I’ve had since then!

A tarde!

e x