THE BIG TRIP AND STRANGE WILLIAMNMARY

Even I surprise myself at just how idiotic I can be – whoever schedules a Monday morning for her blog except an idiot? My one brain cell is struggling to remember how to get out of bed and get dressed, much less write a scintillating and exciting blog.

However that said; here is the un-scintillating and unexciting blog – about THE BIG TRIP.

Ankor Wat

Now I’ve called it that as it lasted 64 days and was the last big splurge before we go to the holiday in the sky (or the other place, there is always that possibility).

After much discussion of should we or shouldn’t we, and attending a couple of funerals, we decided to take the plunge.

So, one morning in December we drove up to Madrid, spent the night in the hotel where we were going to leave the car – cheaper rates if you are a guest. Yes, in retrospect it does seem a bit mean to stay one night and then leave our vehicle parked for over two months, but that’s what they offer.

Madrid Airport By Diego Delso, CC BY-SA wikimedia.org

We bounced onto the plane the next morning – Quatar Air something and off we flew. Now I must admit to being the very worst companion on an aeroplane. I just LOVE flying, so this means I have to raid the safety regulations, the in-flight magazine and duty free booklet, fiddle with the seat settings, ensure the table is working correctly and unpack all the goodies, blanket, toothbrush and paste, socks, eye shades and headphones.

Soon, my little area of the plane was knee deep in ‘stuff’ I can’t move and I’m invading DH’s space big time. He is beginning to growl and tell me ‘to grow up.’  Sorry, I can’t help it, it’s all so exciting.

Then it’s time to play with the TV screen, pouring through the variety of films, television shows and music on offer. I’m not sure why, but they always seem to provide ear phones for giants, most of the time mine slip down around my knees. However, I managed to fit in 3 full length films before we landed in Kuala Lumpur.

We had further fun with the food tray. OK, so my teeth are not what they were, I used to bite those little plastic packets to get them open. These days I use scissors, but of course, no vicious implements allowed in the cabin, so DH and I resorted wrestling with the plastic knives and forks. No luck. If we were not able to access the food, there was a good chance of us starving to death even before we reached our first destination.

In the meantime it had dawned on me that we might be flying over somewhere dangerous, so I abandoned the film and searched for our route shown on the screen, and then twiddled to find the plane cameras which transmitted from the tail, so I would have early warning if any off-course fighters were approaching.

Finally we arrived at Kuala Lumpur where we had planned to spend the night – in the airport. Yes, that was the price we were going to pay for the cheapest flight and what an exciting place that is at 3am. I’ll continue with that next week.

Time for the history lesson.

Now, not everyone was too excited about Williamanmary being on the throne. In Scotland they quite liked James who was cowering somewhere overseas so they began revolting in Scotland somewhere near Edinburgh in Scotland where the Scots were living at the time.

Edinburgh.gov.uk

Today of course they live all over the world and build bridges and roads for undeveloped countries. The Irish too were revolting and INSISTED on holding the Battle of the Boyne.

Battle of the Boyne between James II and William III, 11 July 1690, Jan van Huchtenburg.

What was worse, William insisted on ruling, not Mary and she only got a look in while he was away fighting.

But the most memorable thing is that Williamanmary discovered the national debt, so they built the Bank of England to put it in. They knew it would be dangerous to pay it off for fear of upsetting the newly invented balance of payments.

https://www.poundsterlinglive.com/bank-of-england

businessinsider.com

They also introduced stamp duty at the local post offices and raked in more loot by taxing vellum, parchment and paper. They pretended the money was needed to make war on France.

And I am going to show this picture of the two of them again,

as I have just discovered it was painted on the ceiling of the Painted Hall of the Greenwich Hospital. Now that seems a very strange place to have your portrait displayed and I’m beginning to think there was something rather strange about this couple.