Saturday
I’m sitting in the dark of the junk room at home, sheltering from the bitter cold outside. The central heating is on flat-out, the curtains are closed, and the soundtrack from the movie “Hackers” is pumping out of the computer speakers. “Cowgirl” by Underworld is playing.
Miss 17 has been keeping me company for the day – the rest of the family are visiting inlaws. I spent the majority of the morning ironing clothes into a bag ready for the trip to Frankfurt, Germany next week. The rest of my packing is somewhat minimal – a work laptop, a kindle, my work phone, passport, wallet, and wash bag. Oh, and the various chargers for the electrical things. That’s it.
I’m already wondering what automated nonsense I will face at the airport – the last time I travelled, Lufthansa had tried really hard to remove humans from the process entirely. I always think of the scene in “Up in the Air” (the George Clooney movie) when I’m at the airport – particularly the scenes where he advises the girl with him which queue to get in at security. I’ve been there. I’ve seen people blatantly ignore the instructions, and get strip-searched as a result. It’s always their own fault.
Ten minutes ago there was a knock at the door. The peace and quiet has been disrupted by the return of Miss 12, Miss 14, and my other half – full of news, stories, and carrying a belated birthday present from my brother-in-law. I now have several cans of cider to carry me through the evening ahead. Winning!
Inbetween writing this, I’m scrolling through Amazon Prime Video, choosing TV shows and movies to fill the tablet with in preparation for next week. The hotel TV in Germany is fine – if you’re a German speaker – I am not, apart from the obvious “getting by” phrases that everybody learns – “hallo”, “guten morgen”, “guten tag”, “danke”, and so on. Without really understanding what I’m looking at, most prime-time TV in Germany appears to be game-shows involving middle aged men in glittery suits, female models with impossibly long legs in short skirts, and canned laughter.
So far I have downloaded “Taxi”, “The Only Living Boy in New York”, “Dogville”, “Broken Roads”, and “Seamonsters”. I tend to search out quiet, indie movies over blockbusters. I don’t follow the crowd at all.
Anyway. Time to go and make some of that cider vanish.