I am rebooting my ranting and raving. Because I have to. I have been hard done by and I want to complain.
I have missed the stream of conscious drivel that I am very capable of pouring out. I tried complaining on twitter - but it is very specific and very short on word count. I am not smart enough to fully express my outrage on twitter. Although that does not seem to stop Donald Trump, but I digress.
What I am is spitting mad.
Guess where I am not this long Eid (holiday) weekend? I am not in Liechtenstein. And I should be. No really. I am not kidding. I am supposed to be yodeling on the slopes of some great big mountain right now. In Liechtenstein.
One of my lovely work colleagues got married yesterday and I was supposed to be at her wedding. Well when I say I .... that would be me and my boon companion, love of my life, husband, together with our first born son and his fiance. We were going to make it a bit of a family trip. I had set my sights on getting 'kissed as a pricket' at high altitude. I was looking forward to fighting for slope space with goats wearing bells. I was supposed to pick edelweiss and sing songs about the hills being alive with music. I was going to take a huge swig of champagne and shout "prost" at my friend's wedding.
But I am not doing any of those things.
We spend a small fortune on airline tickets and hotel bookings. By the way you have to do this before you can even think of applying for a VISA. So armed with the ,not unreasonable, expectation that wanting to go to Switzerland for a short holiday, over a long weekend in August, when you are gainfully employed and not a 'flight risk', have a respectable bank balance and no criminal record would be enough for the Swiss to welcome us to their country. "We will overcharge you for chocolate, cheese and a small wooden cuckoo clock. Enter here." But no! Apparently wanting to visit Switzerland for a holiday is not a good enough reason to travel to Switzerland. In hindsight we should have used the wedding in Liechtenstein as a reason for the trip but really is holidaying in Switzerland not a thing?
Our visas, that is my visa, my husband's visa and our son's visa applications were denied. So alone, our first born's fiance is acting as our emissary. Only she got to go to the wedding which, to add insult to injury, looked just so special I could cry.
"And did we get refunds on our flights?" Well thank you for asking. No we did not. Thanks Swiss Air. Did we get a refund on our hotel bookings in Switzerland. No we did not. But they will keep a credit for us to use at a later date. Yeah right. You can imagine I am not exactly keen as mustard about the idea of ever setting foot in Switzerland. Switzerland can keep it's pretty cows and ski-lifts and lederhosen and alpine horns.
I reread Heidi for fuck's sake.
I shall now go and have a little lay down and weep.
