Blog 54 t...The Smoothie Maker...

Blog 54 t...The Smoothie Maker...

Well, the ‘Cutie-pie’ managed to create his own piece of literary genius for that piece of homework without any help from any of us; allowing us only to proof read his spellings! But the flood gates of memories were open for me and as I said last week the Smoothie-maker was a whole different tale to tell…so I think you’ve already guessed by the title what this week’s blog is all about…

About 9 years ago we had been invited to a family wedding across the water in Ireland. As is per the norm for my Irish family gatherings it’s not just a wedding day but a few days of parties and celebrations which entail food, drink, laughter, tears, stories, reminiscing, shopping trips, beach trips…you name it we squeeze it all in and it becomes the most wonderful wedding experience of a lifetime.

So the invitation sent me into a frenzy of dieting, organising, more dieting and clothes shopping. I had learnt my lesson from the Disney trip and relegated the Judy Garland luggage to the attic and invested in two wonderful large suitcases on wheels…fabulous invention…and a suit carrier. So it was that the ‘Hubby’, myself, the boys and the grandfather set off to fly to Belfast via Liverpool. It was important that we arrived early in order to book in and get seats together…on-line booking was not invented at this point…or if it was we didn’t know about it! We were the first to arrive at the booking in desk and stood excited; three adults, two children [aged 8 years and nearly 4 years] three suitcases, one suit carrier, a rather large hat-box and the gift of the season: a smoothie maker. The queue began to breed in large numbers as we stood there eagerly awaiting the ‘come hither’ wave of the hostess. We approached the desk, displayed our passports, answered the questions about packing and explained what we were carrying as hand luggage.

Due to him not needing as much luggage as us, we had entrusted the grandfather with the smoothie-maker. When asked what it was that he was carrying, he replied:

“An ice-cream maker.”

“No it’s not, it’s a yoghurt maker,” said the ‘Hubby’.

“No it isn’t,” I intervened, “it’s a smoothie maker.”

“Well whatever it is, it has to go through security and you must hand it to the air hostess on boarding the plane,” replied the pretty young thing from behind her desk, all red lipstick and slicked back hair…oh to have the time to do that so early in the morning!

Then she proceeded to weigh our luggage and much to my shock and horror after having carefully packed the freshly ironed clothes for the five of us [no easy task preparing the wardrobe of four males for four days] one of the cases was a kilo overweight…a kilo? 

What’s that in clothes? 

I was informed that it could not go through if it was over the limit, there are health and safety regulations you know for the luggage handlers and they will not lift anything over the pre-scripted weight.

“What do I do now?”

Gutted I looked at the ‘Hubby’ who looked behind him as if there was someone else I was talking to, [I was waiting for him to point a finger at his chest and say ‘Who? Me?’ ]

“You’ll need to transfer something from the heavier case to the lighter case,” suggested the pretty one from the safety of her desk.

“What? Oh for goodness sake…”

This was followed by several minutes of trying to find the suitcase keys in my new, large, travel-appropriate handbag; delving down deep in between wet wipes [never travel without them these days…] make up bag [why bother? There’s never anytime to use it…] tissues, perfume, sweets for the boys, crayons and mosaic pads to help occupy them, ‘Hubby’s’ aftershave that he’d left on the breakfast bar, a beanie Winnie the Pooh, [how the hell did that get there?] the car keys and finally the suitcase padlock keys!

I grabbed the case, threw it on the floor, wrenched open the damn thing and massacred my packing; I grabbed my freshly ironed designer blouse, summer dress, a handful of t-shirts, tissue papered wedding shoes, silky camisoles and angrily piled them together on to the floor…leaving that case open on the floor I grabbed the lighter case, sprawled it open on the floor and like a mad woman I thrust all those clothes into it, slammed it shut and hauled it back on to the awaiting scales; red faced I knelt down to see my knickers, girdles, panty-hose and ‘Sexy Miss’ pyjamas were on display to everyone in the queue and as she, the perfect one behind the desk, announced that was fine, I began shoving the remaining clothes in so I could close this, now the lighter case: mumbling about weight and what difference is a bloody kilo?

As I placed this case on the scales I heard the grandfather announce to the impatient passengers behind…

“It’s because she’s on a diet…not had chocolate for a month…she can’t cope…look what it’s done to her…and I don’t think she looks any thinner…”

Furious, I walked away, face burning red, my new jeans filthy from crawling on the floor, exasperated to think that my clothes will be shrivelled and I’ll need to stay sober that night and press them all over again whilst everyone else is partying!

With all the males from the family walking several steps behind for fear of having their heads bitten off, I turned to see who would like a breakfast; the grandfather announced I needed to sit down and he would get me a pot of tea. Tea! I needed a double brandy after that charade…and a cake…a big slice…to hell with it: I needed a fry up.

Believe it or not they all abandoned me to sit quietly on my own and sip black tea and devour a shortbread.

We needed to go through the security checks as early as possible as it was a small airport at the time and prone to delays due to the hundreds of passengers walking through the zig-zags of security red tape…literally!

So we set off down the stairs and approached the first of the three security checks…this was passport check: easy enough you would think wouldn’t you, except that the grandfather couldn’t remember where his passport was and he insisted he had given it to me at the desk…a few panicky moments later he found it in his back pocket and proceeded to then pass the smoothie maker box over the desk to the passport controller.

“What’s this?”

“It’s an ice-cream maker,” proudly announced the grandfather…

“No it’s not, it’s a yoghurt maker …” patiently said the ‘Hubby’

“No it isn’t,” I intervened once again, “it’s a smoothie maker…”

“Well whatever it is I don’t want it on my desk…it goes on board as hand luggage,” remarked the ‘Grumpy Controller .’

We approached the next security check point and after removing jackets and money from pockets we dutifully filed through the scanner…the ‘Hubby’ first followed by the ‘Intelligent-one’ and hot on his heels was the ‘Cutie-pie’…the alarm bells rang and he froze…what was wrong?

I was waved forward with my hat box and the pair of us were taken to one side…permission granted, the security guard began to search the ‘Cutie-pie’ who thought that this was fantastic to set that noise off…the guard reached the side pockets of his dungarees which I suddenly noticed were bulging…

“Please empty your pockets…”

The ‘Cutie-pie’ proudly presented three metal fire engines, two metal black mini cabs, a metal tractor, a farmer figure and a handful of batteries…with the suggestion that the mother should put all those in her handbag, we were allowed to start to walk towards the ‘Hubby’ and the ‘Intelligent-one’ who had found this amusing…and in the background I heard the grandfather saying “It’s an ice cream maker…”

“No it’s not, it’s a yoghurt maker…”shouted the ‘Hubby’

“No it isn’t,” I intervened, “it’s a smoothie maker.”

“Well I’m supposed to give it to you…” the grandfather stated as he held the box high and tried to pass it onto the security guard as he walked towards the scanner…

“No, granddad you have to give it to the air hostess,” shouted the ‘Intelligent- one’.

We progressed to the final security check point where I was not surprised to see the grandfather try to give the lady in uniform the box announcing that he was carrying the ice-cream maker because I had the hat box…the puzzled look on her face broke into a smile when she heard…

“No it’s not, it’s a yoghurt maker…”

“No it isn’t it’s a smoothie maker…”

“No, granddad you’re supposed to give it to the air stewardess…”

Finally we sat down near the boarding gate and I thought I’d snatch a few minutes of looking around the perfume shop…seeing as the ‘Cutie-pie’ had enough toys for them both to play with, the ‘Hubby’ was reading his book and the grandfather was off to buy a paper.

This was lovely, I wanted to spend ages just browsing and dreaming of going to a hot destination and buying all these lovely swimsuits and flip flops…my peace was shattered by the ‘Hubby’ calling that the grandfather had lost the damn yoghurt maker and the flight had been called… “It’s a…”oh what the hell it doesn’t matter what it was it’s lost now I thought as I ran out of the shop; looking more like a shop lifter than a mummy going away for a weekend break…

Luckily the smoothie maker was found next to the newspaper stand and so off we trotted with it and my hat box and all the toys. We filed along the airport apron to our awaiting plane, the ‘Hubby’ leading, the excited boys behind him, the grandfather next and me at the end so that I could make sure we didn’t leave anyone or anything behind.

As the grandfather disappeared through the plane door I heard;

“What’s this?”

“It’s an ice-cream maker…”

“No it’s not it’s a yoghurt maker…” I heard the 'Hubby' shout from the depths of the plane and before I could intervene a line of voices from the impatient passengers behind me on the steps shouted…

“It’s a smoothie maker…

…granddad's supposed to give it to you…”

Blog 54 u coming soon…next Wednesday…

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