Tuesday 29 November 2011

T minus 38 hours...

Wow, what a whirlwind the last few weeks have been. I've got 38 hours to go. 38 hours before I'm getting on a coach and heading off to the ALPS! Things have been a bit hectic. Back from visiting my Dad in Portugal. Metro ski and snowboard show with War and Piste. Freeze festival with War and Piste, such amazing fun, totally sick and rad (yes, I did just write that). http://warandpiste.com/index.html for those of you wondering what that is. Seeing friends and family. Then things took a turn, you couldn't make this stuff up, seriously. This weekend was meant to be the last big hurrah with all my friends, but it went slightly awry. I had an appointment on Friday with an ENT consultant, he put a telescope thingy up my nose that then dangled down my throat - felt pretty grim. The upshot of all this was that he wanted me to come into hospital on the following Monday to have a biopsy of my adenoids. Yeah, that kinda put a spanner in the works. I had literally every day planned and there was lots to fit in. So I had to forego seeing some of my oldest and dearest friends on the Friday night so that I could get most of my packing done because on Saturday I had plenty to do. 


Just to add to my last minute stresses my car failed the MOT and I needed to go get two new tyres put on, so off to the breakers yard for a couple of part worns on Saturday morning and back to the garage for the re-test, passed, yay! Then into town to find a costume for my leaving do - the theme was T. Back to the house to sort out stuff. Non-stop, go, go, go! 


My leaving do was fantastic, my friends made such a big effort, they came from far and wide and I feel so honoured to have such amazing people in my life. There were tigers, truckers, Mr. Tickle, Teen Wolf, Titania, the Trotters, a tampon, the three Trines and many more! It was awesome, it got messy and the next day was a very hungover day.


I said goodbye to some people on the Saturday and Sunday, now I know I'm only going for 5 months, and I'm only going to France, it's not like I'm moving to outer Mongolia for 3 years but it's still sad to say goodbye. What I was surprised about was how certain goodbyes felt very different to the way I thought they'd feel. I have some friendships that have really only blossomed recently and those goodbyes felt harder in a way than some others. The one goodbye that I thought would really affect me, didn't, not the way I thought, it was weird.  Maybe that's because there's only so many times you can say goodbye to one person and everything that that person means to you. Funny thing the human psyche, how emotions and thoughts don't always play out as you expect them to. 


Anyway, that was a brief deep and meaningful interlude. Back to the nose/throat story. The hospital on Monday, anaesthetist put the frighteners up me massively explaining the risk to me with my asthma and the start of a cold, said he was unsure about proceeding but because I'm leaving on Thursday they were going to push ahead with it. Told me this would be the time I'd be most susceptible to a chest infection, which is the last thing I need to take with me to the mountains! Anyway, I had the biopsy done, results come next week but the consultant has a gut feeling all is OK. When I came round from the anaesthetic I was so concerned with what I'd say and what utter drivel I would talk but I surprised myself by being remarkably coherent. I know someone who said something about telling her husband to get some logs, and the recovery room nurse said the best one she had was a woman who had to feed her chickens and apparently went to get out of her bed. Today my throat is feeling pretty sore, but the ice cream is helping! Haagen-Dazs Pralines & Cream, mmm. A side effect of the intubation is that the uvula takes a bit of a beating and today it's swollen and seems a lot longer than usual, so long and dangly in fact that it's making me gag. It's pretty gross. So long as I'm quiet it's all good. Me being quiet is strange. One of my friends said she could tell I wasn't talking much cos my text messages were even longer than usual! Ha!


Last bits of packing to get done tomorrow but I'm pretty much there (I hope!). Should only need a few hours of mucking around. Got to get the car cleaned up and cleared out. Get my room sorted, looking neat and tidy. Then final drinks with a few friends tomorrow night. Getting a lift from a friend up to Wimbledon on Thursday which is where the coach is departing from, yay, didn't much fancy the train up with a suitcase, boardbag and rucksack. Massive bonus.

How do I feel about going away? Excited, apprehensive, on the cusp (of greatness or failure, don't know which yet?!), shy, out of my comfort zone, adventurous. A whole mess of feelings. I've been practising chalet menus (that have been well received by friends) but haven't managed to cook it all so I'm nervous about cooking. I'm concerned everyone else will be 12. I'm afraid I won't cope with everything I have to do. I'm afraid of failure, I always am, always have been and when I was younger I would always sabotage myself, might as well fail before even really trying. But without sounding like a twat, I've not really failed at anything I really wanted to achieve in the last few years - certain things like my environmental science degree and my teaching qualification. I have a t-shirt that has the word underachiever on it and over the last few years a few people have commented on it and said I'm anything but, I don't really see it, I'm not an over achiever, I just want what I want. The point is, I want to do well and I'm afraid I won't, it worries me but all I can do is try my best, at everything - cooking, hosting, drinking, partying, snowboarding and everything in between!!!

OK, last thought for the day, over the last few months people have asked me "what do you do?" and I answer with "I'm going to France to be a chalet host", because that's what I'm going to do, that's my adventure. Why is it that the very next thing that comes out of their mouths is "what will you do when you come back?" Why? Why ask that? It's annoying to me!!! I don't know what I'm going to do after that, when I come back, if I come back? All I know is that I want to focus on this next adventure and I want to enjoy every second of it, live it while it's happening, because it'll be over in the blink of an eye and next April/May I'll start wondering what's next, but not until then. So if you see me out and about and I tell you I'm going to be a chalet host in France then just congratulate me.

Xx

Popular Posts