From Court Duty to Colombo Drama

It’s Jeanne here this week. I got some very lovely responses from the last email I did which was a great confidence boost. So much so, that you’ll be hearing more from me and not just when Dad goes off to play with his model railway trains in some obscure location in a remote corner of England.  

Difficult as it may be to compete with knife edge stories from Lower Burpinghampton of soldering the inside flacket gauge on a 1925 edition Chibley Locomotive, I'll do my best.  Though actually, my week until now had promised an interesting and new life experience that in the end fell somewhat flat.  

This was meant to be my first ever week of jury service, so I didn’t know what to expect but I was warned that I’d be waiting around a lot. So, I arrived at Guildford court on Monday at 8:30am and I brought my laptop with me and what a good decision it was, as I, plus 40 others, were waiting around for about six hours until a chap told us that we were free to go home, and to expect a text between 4:30pm – 5:30pm as to whether we needed to come back to court the following day.  In fact, I have not needed to go back in at all this week, but I am still on standby!  So, an uneventful experience up until now and time will tell if I’m needed at all.

So, an unremarkable week that gave me plenty of time to ponder what I might write in this newsletter, and what came to mind was a rather different experience that I went through a few years back.   I thought this might make an entertaining tale for this week's newsletter, apologies if it's a little long.  Those in a rush should feel free to skip to the bottom to our fantastic offer on high quality set of Le Creuset saucepans.

If you have been reading Dad’s email for at least six years now then you might remember the time I went to Sri Lanka in April 2019, and he was not happy(to put it mildly). What was meant to be a 13-day trip turned out to be six days! It all started with waking up on Easter Sunday morning (my flight was the following day) and seeing a text from a friend asking if I'd seen the news? Nope I hadn’t and when I did look, my heart sank. Bombs had gone off at Christian churches and big hotels that were celebrating Easter across Colombo. What did this mean for me and the tour I booked? I contacted the tour company and they replied saying it wasn’t as bad as the news had made it out to be and that the tour would go ahead. If I didn’t go then I’d lose my money and weirdly, that was a bigger incentive at the time than the potential risk to my life. I know, the blind optimism of youth makes so much sense! So, I put my trust in the tour company and decided to still go. Mum was pretty chilled out about my decision but Dad… was, calmly, trying to convince me to not go. Sadly, for him, he failed.

Monday came and he decided to drive me to Heathrow airport and on the car journey, he started to say how he was preparing himself that I wouldn’t make it back home and this could be the last time he would see me. Did that bring a tear to my eye? Yes. Did it shock me that he said that? No, not at all. I’ve been brought up to be a realist, so bringing up scary, uncomfortable, or taboo topics (death) doesn’t faze me. We’re at Heathrow airport and we are saying goodbye by the security gates, and it was the kind of goodbye that said I might not see you again. Fast forward to landing in Colombo, Sri Lanka and when I collected my luggage and walked through the airport, that would normally be full of people, it was completely empty. It was so surreal as the only people I saw were soldiers in pairs loaded with equipment and guns, and either looking around for dodgy people or swiftly moving on approaching people and vehicles.  My tour leader was coming to pick me up so when I saw that no one was allowed to wait around, I started to panic just a little bit that I’d never find him. Thankfully 10 minutes later I saw a guy wearing a t-shirt with the company name and I felt relieved and safe that I wasn’t alone anymore. 

We’re in a taxi to our hostel and from watching the news a lot, I was expecting to see rubble and fallen buildings everywhere but no I didn’t see any of that, it all looked fine. We arrive at the hostel and then had a few hours to wait until everyone else had arrived and I sat outside by the pool, watching the sky and it was so peaceful. Birds were happily flying around and there wasn’t any noise being made outside. I really did wonder if I was in the country where bombs were going off right, left and centre. In the evening, I met up with the rest of the gang that were also crazy enough to still come to Sri Lanka and the following three days were really great. We met friendly locals, tried some spicy tasty food and did some great activities.

Then on the 4th morning, our tour leader comes to us to say that the tour has been cancelled because the UK government foreign office has said that those who plan to go to Sri Lanka can only go there if it’s for business and anyone who is in Sri Lanka (my words now) needed to get the hell out.  So, as you might imagine, there were thousands and thousands of tourists trying to get out of the country and very sadly, airlines took this as an opportunity and pushed the prices up, a lot! I know, extremely immoral as people’s lives were at stake and they doubled or tripled their prices.

So, my little group of nine were all trying to find flights back home and it took some of us over 12 hours to get one. There wasn't an available flight for five days, and I wasn’t up for staying in Sri Lanka for that long, with escalating government curfews, news blackouts and other local restrictions.

Whilst I was trying to find a plane, I was messaging a friend of mine who lives in India and when I told I her that I was really struggling to find a flight back home, she said “Jeanne come see me in India”.  So, close to midnight (I think) I finally bought a ticket out of Sri Lanka to Mumbai for the following day at around 9am. So, with the three hour journey to the airport I only slept 30mins that night.  We finally got to the airport, and through the multiple extra strict military security checks before we were even allowed into the building and into the crowds fleeing the country.

The moment we were inside I said goodbye to the couple I came with and was getting excited to check in and go to India. It was all fine for the first minute and then the chap behind the counter asks to see my visa. Now, this was a first for me being asked to see a visa when getting a flight, I’ve only ever been asked to show my visa when I land in the country. So, I said I don’t have one, I booked my flight last night due to obvious reasons. He said sorry you can’t go on the flight then. I tried to persuade him to let me on the flight and let me deal with the consequences when I land in India but no, he was not budging. He told me to go to the ticket office and buy a ticket to another country, one that doesn’t need a visa. Not what I wanted but now I had no choice.

At the ticket office I was behind a chap buying a ticket to Frankfurt. Then it was my turn and I told the lovely lady what just happened and that now I just wanted to go home so could she take me to a European country, and I’ll find my way home from there. She asks if Frankfurt would work, and I said yes I’ll take it.  Now the catch was the flight was the following day at around 3pm. It was about 6am when I bought my new ticket and I knew staying in the airport for 36hrs wasn't an option.....

And there I am going to pause my story, so you will have to come back next week to read part two!  I appreciate I have said a lot here and that you’re probably on the edge of your seat wanting to find out what happens to me in Sri Lanka. The good news is I came back in one piece. The bad news is you must patiently wait for seven days, just like back in the day when we had to wait a week to watch the next episode of Grey’s Anatomy or Friends. Wasn’t that a bugger when it was a bit of a cliff hanger.

To Product

The last thing I need to talk about is a great product that we have over stocks of, meaning a nice offer to follow. It’s from Le Creuset (I know we just can’t seem to stop talking about Le Creuset, sometimes people think we are Le Creuset and I’m really not surprised by that) from the 3ply stainless steel range. Very good heat conductivity and they come with helping handles, which is rare among saucepans but useful when handling heavy contents.  All Le Creuset 3 ply comes with a life-time/25 year manufacturer's guarantee that tells you enough about the build quality and that these might well be the last saucepans you ever need to buy.

If you bought these three saucepans separately then the combined RRP from Le Creuset would be £533. This set usually retails at £419, but for this week only get a £120 off that which means you'll get the whole set for £199.  If shopping online use code 3PLY120 or just let us know who you are if coming into the shops.

I hope you have an interesting and eventful weekend,

Kind regards,

Jeanne