Breckenridge Day 4

Saturday 28th January

We had to wake up quite early today so as to breakfast and be ready to check out of the condo by mid-morning. I did find time to take a few pictures before we left. This is the comfy sofa in the living room, with the kitchen behind.


The bedroom, though not large, was also very comfortable


It was not far from the Inn where we are staying for the next 20 days, so we walked over. As I am still not too well, I didn't carry much, so Paul had to do all the running about with skis, boots and suitcases.

Once we arrived, I was able to unpack for the first time since we left home in August. This was a great joy - I have lived out of a suitcase for so long, I had forgotten about drawers and wardrobes.

After lunch, because we had access to a thing called an oximeter, I got my oxygen levels measured. My blood oxygen level was only 90%, which was low and probably one reason I was finding it so difficult to breathe. So it seemed safest to see a doctor, and we caught the bus into the village.

At the doctors, my oxygen levels had dropped to 88%, my blood pressure was high and so was my pulse rate, so I was stuck on oxygen as soon as possible, and spent the rest of the day there, breathing as much oxygen as possible.

The verdict is that I have an upper respiratory tract infection and acute mountain sickness. After 3 hours, I was sent home with various drugs and a portable oxygen cylinder, and later I had to have a machine which sucks in air, extracts the oxygen from it, and delivers it to me through a nasal cannula. This is safer than oxygen in a cylinder. After 24 hours of oxygen, I have to go back to the medical centre to have my oxygen levels measured again.

Instead of skiing in the beautiful weather - and it has been another beautiful blue sky day - Paul has had to spend his morning running about with skis, boots and suitcases, and his afternoon sitting about in the medical centre watching me lie in a bed with a cannula stuck up my nose. Never mind, he should be able to get out skiing tomorrow, though he'll have to come back early so he can come with me to the medical centre again.

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Breckenridge Day 3

Friday 27th January

This has been another lost day for me. I did actually get dressed for the first time since we arrived, which gave me an opportunity of appreciating my returned luggage. I haven't had much opportunity to appreciate it before now - I just got out a nightie, clean knickers and my sponge bag, and that's all I have needed. I am still feeling awful with this very heavy cold, cough, sinus problem and general debility! (The spell checker on this iPad does not like 'debility' and wants to change it to 'senility'. I have trouble with that too...)

At least today I have had no need to regret feeling too ill to go outside. It has been snowing fairly constantly since we awoke, and visibility is limited, so there are not even nice pictures I can take out of the window.

Paul went off to an early ski lesson, but felt unable to keep up and went off to ski some powder by himself. He was back for a late lunch, having decided to give his legs a rest, as visibility was poor. We are neither of us as fit as we were when we left Manchester in August; that's what touring round in buses and cars does for you. Also, of course have done no skiing for 2 years, owing to his ruptured Achilles tendon. We are both feeling the altitude a bit - in fact I get out of breath just walking round the condo. I am far worse than he is; mind you, I'm having difficulty breathing anyway because of the cold and sinus problem. Nevertheless, I am a bit worried by the fact that just standing up and taking a couple of steps causes me to be out of breath. Packing ready to leave tomorrow has been a bit of an effort, needing constant rests. I'll be quite sorry to leave this nice condo, though glad to get away from the clog dancing neighbours.


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Breckenridge Day 2

Thursday January 26th

The pills Paul has brought dried up my snivels, so I was able to get some sleep during the night. However, we were both awakened again at 2am by the clog dancer upstairs. Why can't s/he wear slippers? And why run up and down and push furniture around at that time in the morning? I did get back to sleep but woke again at 6 because the painkiller in the pills ran out. I was very tempted to put on my ski boots and perform a dance of my own for the benefit of the clog dancer neighbour, but Paul was still asleep and I'd disturb him even more.

I have done absolutely nothing today, except cough, sneeze and moan. Paul went back to the supermarket and bought me some cough lozenges, so I hope they will help with the coughing. What with the sinex pills every 4 to 6 hours, the cough lozenges every two hours, and the Zantac for the indigestion, I am finding it difficult to remember when I should be taking what!

It is a shame to be so ill when the weather is so beautiful, we've had 2 beautiful blue sky days and I am too ill to put a foot outside the door. Paul had a ski lesson, but couldn't manage the whole day and was back around 3. I certainly won't be well enough to go out tomorrow either, but snow is forecast anyway, so perhaps it doesn't matter. The furniture remover upstairs didn't go out either today, so I had no little naps, and no doubt we will be awakened by the clog dancing again at 2am. I won't be sorry to move on 28th, the Inn will be quieter.


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Breckenridge Day 1

Wednesday 25th January

This is a day I won't forget in a hurry. I finally managed to get some sleep after the noisy neighbour clog danced on our heads at 2 am, but woke just after 6 feeling very unwell when the furniture removal started upstairs.

There was nothing to eat or drink in the house, so Paul said he would go to the supermarket, which opened at 7. He tried to have a shower but couldn't work out how to get the water to come out of the shower head, so he remained dirty. He set off at 6.45 to walk through the snow to the supermarket. This is the view from the front door of the condo which he took as he left. You can see it's early morning, it wasn't even properly light.



He was gone nearly 3 hours, having decided to collect our lift tickets and buy me some skis as well. God knows why! I was beginning to worry, and sent him several texts, but for some reason they didn't arrive at his phone. I had been wondering whether to get dressed and go out myself, or whether I should just resign myself to dying of hunger and pain from my sinuses, when he walked in somewhat after 9.30.

After coffee, some breakfast and a bath, I was ready to try to trace my lost case. Paul went to collect our ski clothes from where they had been stored, confirmed by email that the condo owner was sending a plumber to investigate the wet carpet (which was now dry) and went out for his first attempt at skiing in two years. After my bath, I washed my knickers and draped them over a light bulb to dry - I felt I needed to be dressed when confronting the plumber!

Dealing with the BA Baggage Claims phone line is a ridiculous process. You need a 10 digit file reference number, which of course I hadn't got since the nice man couldn't get the computer to work. It goes something like this
'Welcome to the British Airways Baggage Claims Automated Helpline. Please enter your 10 digit file reference number. If you don't have one, press the pound key.'
An iPhone doesn't have a pound key. I doubt any American phone does - and this is an American helpline. Having some computer knowledge, I pressed #. Paul tells me this means pounds weight in America. What a stupid choice of key - if they mean #, why don't they just say #?
Anyway, # worked.
It said 'Please enter the first 4 letters of your arrival airport'. I entered DENV.
It said 'If your baggage has been missing for less than 10 days, please press 1. Otherwise please press 2'. I pressed 1
It made clicks, played a few bars of music, rang twice, then said
'Welcome to the British Airways Baggage Claims Automated Helpline. Please enter your 10 digit file reference number. If you don't have one, press the pound key.'

I was back at the beginning again! I tried several times. It didn't seem to matter whether I pressed 1 to say my baggage had been missing for less than 10 days, or 2 to signify it had been missing for more than 10 days, it just went round in a circle. An updating of one of Dante's circles of Hell, perhaps?

Eventually, I phoned a general BA help line, where I navigated umpteen automated menus and was eventually able to speak to a real, live person. Not a BA person, they were too busy (probably dealing with people raving about the stupidity of the automated lines), so I spoke to a person in an outsourcing company. She was very sympathetic and helpful, and gave me a number for Denver Airport. Here, I navigated several more automated menus, and eventually again I spoke to a real live person, who said she would put me through. So the phone rang, and a voice said

'Welcome to the British Airways Baggage Claims Automated Helpline. Please enter your 10 digit file reference number. If you don't have one, press the pound key.'

So I rang the airport again, navigated the automated menus AGAIN, and, nearly in tears by now, begged the chap I eventually got at the other end to let me speak to a real live BA person. He said I couldn't, I would have to try again in the afternoon, as they didn't come in to work until 2.30. So I dosed myself with more paracetamol and listened to another audio book. Whenever the furniture remover upstairs gave me a little respite in the pushing around of furniture, I also had a little nap.

About 3pm, I girded my loins and rang the airport, navigated the automated menus AGAIN, and spoke to a person. I was in quite a state by then, and oh joy, he put me through to a real person who said she would be able to log my lost baggage on the computer. While I was talking to her, in between coughing and blowing my sore nose, the plumber arrived, and since I was in bed, I had no trousers on! The lady on the phone was very kind and said she would wait while I dealt with the plumber, so I put my trousers on and explained things to him, coughing and sneezing a good deal. Then I went back to the phone, and logged my lost suitcase. The only real problem was she needed a local phone number, not my mobile. In the end, I gave her the number of the Inn where we are moving on 28th; then I had to phone our friends who run the Inn and explain why they might get calls about my lost luggage.

Then I had to go back to the poor plumber and snivel and cough over him some more while we discussed the wet carpet problem - difficult, as it was no longer wet. He had a theory about an overflow that might have happened in one of the neighbour's condos. Presumably it is the same neighbour who has no carpets, wears clogs in the house, removes furniture to do the housework and does a clog dance at 2 am.

Paul had brought me some alternative pills which I took and I started to feel marginally less awful. The plumber explained how the shower worked - there is a rim around the tap - sorry, faucet - which you pull down once the water is running into the bath. So Paul was able to shower and we had early supper. I felt too ill to eat much anyway, and he was exhausted from the first skiing for 2 years, and 2 trips to the supermarket, wading through the snow.

We went to bed early again at 9, and were only just asleep when Paul got a call on his mobile phone from a courier to say he had my suitcase! This was obviously from the paper record taken the previous day by the nice man at the airport who couldn't make the computer work, since he had been prepared to take Paul's mobile phone number, unlike the lady to who I spoke earlier today. The courier was not a nice man, and demanded that Paul went out to collect the case, so Paul, who had no clothes on, threw some on and went out. I took the phone to speak to the courier while Paul got dressed, but he had put the phone down by then. I said 'O dear, he's gone' and Paul though I meant he had gone away, and went running out barefoot in the snow in just his shirt and trousers! He was not best pleased. Anyway, my suitcase is back, though one glove is missing of a really nice warm pair I bought in a National Trust shop. The gloves were just loose on top of other things - I obviously need more packing cubes.


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London to Denver and Breckonridge

Tuesday 24th January

We had a more relaxed morning, as we didn't have to catch a bus to the airport until 9. We were at the airport 3 hours before our flight, and as we had checked in the night before, we only needed to drop our bags and go through security, which were both very quick. I was able to spend some time in WH Smith's, and found 3 books I wanted. So I went back to my seat, fired up the iPad, looked on Amazon and downloaded them as e-books for slightly over half the price of buying the paperbacks. Actually, I'd rather have had the books themselves, but I have promised myself I will buy no more books. We have boxes and boxes of books in storage and nowhere to unpack them to, so e-books seem to be the answer. Anyway, books make a suitcase too heavy when you are travelling!

We were called to go to the plane on time, but there was something wrong with the tractor that drags the plane off its station. It failed to drag, then it failed to unfasten, so we were delayed by about an hour while they solved that problem.

I was very lucky to be the only person in a group of 3 seats, and so was Paul, so we were able to stretch out. However, I failed to get any sleep because I was so cold. I put on all the clothes I had with me, so I ended up wearing a short sleeved tee shirt, a long sleeved tee shirt and 2 fleece tops, and wrapping myself in two airline blankets, but I was still cold. My ears and sinuses had really started to hurt as well, giving me an unpleasant headache so I wasn't able to read, but fortunately I had an audiobook with me on the iPad so I was able to listen to that on the headphones. However, it was not altogether a happy flight. Paul was cold as well, but at least he had his new anorak - my ski anorak was left in Breckenridge because we had originally intended to go there straight from Toronto.

We arrived in Denver, and just let most other people off the plane while we repacked everything we had taken out of our rucksacks. So we were not amongst the first through border security and out to baggage collection. This turned out to be disastrous.

A suitcase not unlike mine was already going round and round the baggage carousel. I thought at first it was mine, as mine is fairly distinctive, a horrid dull brownish orange on top and grey underneath. It is the one I bought in Paddy's Market in Sydney, and I thought there couldn't be many like it. But mine also has a hideous lime green suitcase strap round it, so at first I was concerned that the strap might have been stolen (though I can't imagine why anybody would want such a vile colour). Then I looked more closely at the case and saw it also lacked the two address labels that mine has. So I looked inside, which confirmed that the case was not mine. Unfortunately, the owner of the case I was looking at had not looked so carefully at mine, before taking it and departing with it! Of course, I had to wait until all the baggage was out and everybody had gone to be certain mine wasn't just the last one off the plane, which took quite some time. Then we had to find somebody to tell us what to do, before going through customs with Paul's bag and reporting the loss at the appropriate counter. My troubles did not end there, as I stood shivering and coughing and snivelling at the counter while a nice helpful man tried, and failed, to get the computer system working. Eventually, he said he would report it on paper, and gave me a printed pro forma telling me how to check up on it, if it didn't return to me.

Of course, our transport to Breckenridge had already left by the time we had done all that, but fortunately there was another in about 40 minutes, so I sat coughing and sneezing on an airport chair until it was time to get into the bus. I had to wrap myself in Paul's anorak in the bus, as I was shivering so much, so it was a long two and a half hours up to Breckenridge. Fortunately, there was no difficulty in finding the condo from the excellent instructions we were given, and the condo itself was lovely and cosy. Actually, the condo is very nice, I'd post some pictures here but we have spread our belongings about and it doesn't look nearly as charming as it did when we arrived. I'll see what I can do on the morning we leave.

Of course I had no toothbrush and no nightie, but I was really too tired to care. I decided to sleep in my dirty teeshirt and dirty knickers. My body thought it was 4 am, though in Denver it was only 9pm, and I was stuffed up with cold, my throat was sore with coughing and my whole face was aching with sinus pain. My medicine chest, of course, was in the missing suitcase, but Paul managed to find some paracetamol in his, and I took some and staggered into the bedroom. There, I noticed that the carpet seemed to be saturated, but frankly I was beyond caring, the bed was several feet above the wet and I just got into it.

The icing on the cake was the neighbour coming home at 2am and making so much noise I thought they were in our condo, not theirs. We both woke up. Once I was awake, I couldn't breathe through my stuffed up nose, and I began to wish I had stayed at home!


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Manchester again

Thursday 19th January - Monday 23rd January

This is another selection of grey drizzly days which which have run into one another again. We tried a different hotel this time, which was even closer to our family; we had a very nice big room, and the breakfast was very good. But this one wasn't well placed for public transport. However, we had the car so that didn't matter. We had another packing and unpacking session, putting back into storage anything we didn't want to take skiing, and we had to make further attempts at filing. The car also needed an MOT as that would run out in early February, and as Paul likes brinkmanship, he booked it in for our final day in Manchester.

Our final day was rather complicated as we were looking after our grandson while our daughter-in-law was in hospital, and Paul had to get the car's MOT done, not to mention trying to buy some spares which is always difficult with an old car. Anyway, it all went more or less according to plan, the car was put back into the garage and we returned our grandson to our son as he went off to the hospital, while we caught a taxi to the station for our 6.30 train. We arrived in London just over two hours later, and caught the tube to Heathrow where we got a bus to our overnight hotel.


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More London

Monday 16th January - Wednesday 18th January

Monday was the day of Paul's second medical appointment, so we didn't have the whole day free. Paul couldn't remember where he had put his ski anorak, so we went out shopping in Croydon to buy him another. This was very successful, and he bought a very nice warm one. I have since been regretting not getting a similar one myself.

Paul went off to his medical appointment, and I went to the Museum of London for the Dickens Exhibition. I did find this quite interesting, though I imagine its planned audience would be people who know relatively little about Dickens. It was fascinating to see the original manuscripts; I wondered how the publisher could read them, because words were so scratched out and overwritten. His desk and chair from Gads Hill were there, and lots of other intriguing artefacts like the door from Newgate prison. It wasn't a huge exhibition, which was just as well, because my back was complaining about all the standing about I had been doing and was very painful.

On Tuesday we had a major disappointment because we went up to London early to join the queue for the Leonardo exhibition, only to be told there were no more day tickets and we would have had to be there before 7am to get one. Actually, this wasn't accurate, my sister later told me she arrived at 8.30 and queued until 1, and was able to get a ticket for 7 pm.
So, no Leonardo for us. We got on a number 15 bus, which to my great joy was an old Routemaster, and were able to sit upstairs and take photographs, something you never do when you live in London.



This is the view down Fleet Street from the Royal Courts of Justice at Number 1, The Strand.

There are some wonderful old buildings in Fleet Street, and you can get some good views of Saint Paul's as you go up Ludgate Hill, though it's hard to avoid all the other traffic.




The sun was in the south so wrong for pictures out of the left side of the bus, so my pictures of the Tower of London weren't very good. We got out of the bus at the Tower and walked across Tower Bridge. These are the modern glass buildings on the south side of the river




The bulbous one on the left is City Hall, and the tall unfinished one is the Shard of Glass which I find quite ugly. HMS Belfast, the Second World War warship, on the right of my photo, is closed until Easter after the walkway collapsed.

We were heading for the Design Museum and walked along the south bank of the Thames, getting wonderful views of Tower Bridge.



We saw an interesting exhibition of various design icons like the Vespa



or the Anglepoise lamp, the bentwood chair, the Mini, the red London phone box and so on. I hadn't realised what design icons our road signs were, with a special readable font created for them.

There was also a Terence Conran exhibition, and as I looked at some of it, I reflected on how many of the things he designed had been part of our family home.




We went back to Croydon where we had a real blast from the past. We got tickets for the Croydon Warehouse Theatre, where we used to go a lot in the 1980s and 1990s. Since we left the area in about 1999, we haven't been back. We went to their Christmas show, which was Don Quixote, and was not as good as some we have seen in the past. We did, amazingly, meet a group of people we knew, some of whom we hadn't seen for 25 years.

On Wednesday I was giving a talk on computer security, so I spent the morning in my old office going over my material, the middle of the day giving the talk and the afternoon discussing it. Then it was back on the train to Manchester again and the miserable grey weather.

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London

Saturday 14th January and Sunday 15th January

We took a late morning train, so we were down in London by early Saturday afternoon. We had hoped to stay with family, but other events intervened, so we found a convenient hotel in East Croydon. I must say, for visitors to London, it is a convenient place to stay, with fast trains to London Bridge, Victoria or Charing Cross. We checked in at the hotel and went back up to London to the South Bank, where we booked tickets for the National Theatre production of Comedy of Errors with Lenny Henry. I would have preferred One Man, Two Guv'nors but had already ascertained there were no tickets for that. We also spent a happy hour looking at the second hand books and then we went back across Waterloo Bridge to the Courtauld Gallery. I had forgotten how beautiful London is at night.



The Courtauld Gallery had an exhibition of Spanish drawings. Some were very interesting; the one I liked best was this Picasso drawing.


There are some wonderful paintings in the Courtauld Gallery collection




Paul was very taken with this Modigliani, and there are some wonderful Cezannes.



This isn't my favourite, but I had left my camera behind, so am depending on whatever Paul took.

After early supper, we were back at the National by 7.30 for the Comedy of Errors. I must say it is a very good vehicle for Lenny Henry, who has quite a talent for farce. You have to suspend your disbelief somewhat, but I found it very enjoyable indeed.

On Sunday, we rose late and went to Tate Britain for two different exhibitions. I have no idea why neither of us took a camera, so there are no photographs. We went first to John Martin - Apocalypse, which was on its last day. It was full of his paintings of apocalyptic destruction and biblical disaster from collections around the world, some of which I knew already.
The paintings are huge, 10 or 15 feet across, full of impossibly rugged landscapes and grandiose theatrical spectacle. I'm putting in here a URL from Wikipedia of one of the paintings which is fairly typical, I'm not sure how successful this will be

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:John_Martin_-_Sodom_and_Gomorrah.jpg

The exhibition brochure claimed he has had an enduring influence on today's cinematic and digital fantasy landscapes, and mentioned Ray Harryhausen.

After all this drama, the next exhibition, The Romantics, was much calmer. There were a lot of Turners and quite a few Constables and Samuel Palmers. It is open until April, and I may just have go back because I felt that seeing it right after all the drama of John Martin meant it was rather overwhelmed.

After that, it was a family dinner then back to the hotel.

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Manchester 10 days

Tuesday January 3rd to Friday January 13th

The days seemed to have run into one another again, being filled with busyness again, all things which needed to be organised before we could go to Colorado. The car was started eventually, and needed to have various things done to it, like getting the exhaust fixed. We packed away our summer clothes into storage, and got other clothes out of storage to take to London or to Colorado.

We did about 6 days in one hotel, then one night babysitting our grandson while his parents had a weekend away, then 6 nights in a different hotel. The first hotel was clean, very well situated in Salford Quays near a tram stop and very inexpensive. But the bed was very hard, and I woke each morning with aching bones. So we moved next door, which was nearly twice the price, but had a slightly bigger room, a better bathroom, and a comfy bed.

Because we were close to a tram stop, we were able to use the tram a couple of times when going in to the centre of Manchester or to the station - Paul had to go to London for a medical appointment. You get some good views of Manchester from the tram. There are some fine old buildings




And you become more aware of the presence of the ship canal in the past, used for transporting all sorts of goods and needing a variety of quays, now surrounded by expensive flats.




There is no water traffic now, but 100 years ago, I think this scene would have been very different.




I have not really enjoyed Manchester, it has been very cold, grey and rainy while we have been there, and I looked forward to my visit to London on January 14th.

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Manchester

Sunday 1st January and Monday 2nd

Days seem to be merging into one, so I have put two days together, neither having been all that interesting. At least I have sorted out my software. BlogPress had re-set itself in some way and lost contact with where the photos were supposed to go. Unfortunately, it reported this as a problem with the connection, so I was wrongly blaming port blocking on the wireless connections. Now that I have tracked this down I have been able to post all the photographs which were missing in previous posts.

We have moved into a hotel in Salford for 6 days, so as not to be crowding out our family. The hotel is conveniently placed, being less than a 10 minute drive from the family, and it has a nice outlook over Salford Quays and the Lowry Centre. It is also close to the tram, if we don't want to drive into the centre of Manchester.






We need a fair amount of space to unpack, sort and wash clothes, and then re-pack for Colorado. Winter clothes we have in storage will have to come out so they can be taken to Colorado, and summer clothes, once clean, will have to go into storage. Another thing we have to deal with is the car, as we can't continue to borrow one. Our car has been stored in a garage some distance away while we were abroad, and probably won't start. A lot of paperwork also arrived while we were away, and has to be dealt with and filed into various files which are currently in storage. It is hard to know where to start.

We are off again on 23rd January, and leave Heathrow for Colorado on 24th. Before that, Paul has to visit London a couple of times for various things and I have to go once. So we will be fairly busy.

We'll be back babysitting on Saturday night, then possibly back to the hotel after that - or possibly to a different hotel. (Babysitting is one of the reasons we only booked 6 nights in the hotel). I would have liked to find a serviced flat for the relatively short time we have to be here, but we haven't managed to find such a thing in Manchester.


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