We went early morning with humungous colds so I can’t
remember much of the flight. But we were there in no time (it’s only a
half-hour 45 minute flight!) and there were only steps to get off of the
easyjet flight then a bus to pick up luggage. So I got down the stairs in a new
way I’d never tried before! Now they’d taken a mechanism that carries pianos up
and down stairs and put a chair on it. So I sat on it, was strapped in and it
carried me down the stairs! Nobody had to lift me or anything. It costs 5000
euros, we were later informed. We didn’t have any luggage to pick up because we’d
packed our clothes and necessities into hand luggage. We were only there for
three days! So we went inside the airport and had to wait around for a while to
get the train to Zandvoort. We had to get off at Sloterdijk and wait about 10
minutes for a train to Zandvoort. The
trains in The Netherlands are double-decker, so that was a different
experience! We had to stay on lower decks with the wheelchair though. So we got
to Zandvoort and had people waiting for us with ramps (so much better than in
England. Even when you ring up for assistance off the train in England, they
are hardly ever there.) because the trains are a lot higher than the ones in
England. So we had arrived! We went to our hotel room and put our stuff down.
We were there! We walked across the promenade and to our grandparent’s block of
flats. They live in a flat overlooking the sea. My brother hauled me in my
wheelchair up the stairs to see our grandparents. They live on the first floor.
So we saw them for a while, then went to the high street in Zandvoort. We had a
drink in a Tapas Bar: 
Then we went back to the hotel and were in bed by 8.30. I
was still bunged up so I needed an early night. And after all that travelling!
Then the next day we went to my grandparents again and we had tea and coffee
there. We stayed for most of the day, and it was so lovely getting to know and
spending time with Nanni and Granddad. There was a funny incident with one of
the TV programmes that came on. Thinking it’d be a show like ‘Top Of The Pops’ we
imagined that once this awful song was over, it’d go to someone else but Boy
were we mistaken! The act kept coming back, and we saw how her image had
changed over the years. Apparently she’s still going today! And by the end of
the half hour show my brother and I were joining in with her! Then after saying
goodbye to the grandparents we went back to the high street and walked up the
other side, where we found an Irish bar and so we spent about two hours there!:
It was now well past
the time we had gone to bed the previous night and I was up for more! So when
we got back to hotel we went to the hotel’s complex to go bowling. We couldn’t
go bowling cos they didn’t have the metal frameworks that meant I could bowl
from my wheelchair so we settled down to have a drink and I had a cocktail. It
was called Blue Ocean. I’d never had it before and it had foreign alcohol in
it. It was nice though I had a blue tongue for the rest of the night:
We finally decided to go to bed. The air is heavier in
Holland so it’s always easy to drop off when you’re tired! Then the next day,
we were going to be leaving, and what was nice was my grandparents made their
way downstairs to meet us in the lobby. Nanni gave me a book ‘Silence and
Solitude’ which is fascinating! We chatted for a long time and then we had to
go. We made our way to train station and it was much the same procedure as
before, though I nearly gave a woman a heart attack because my wheelchair has
stabilisers so that when I tip back I can’t go too far, well the train stopped
and the momentum tipped me back and I was sitting just a few centimetres from
the stairs leading down. So I was very close to going A over T down the stairs!
So if that lady ever reads this, I am sorry! We got to the Airport after
meeting Luigi the train assistance guy. Well, I thought he looked like Luigi
anyway! We had time to kill at the airport so after shopping, we had a pizza
and went to board our plane. But they didn’t tell us that we had to have
someone who worked there to assist us down the lift! So we waited for a while
getting more sure that we’d miss our plane, until two men came to take us down
the lift and to the plane. Now, why they had to send cute brown eyes to help me
I’ll never know but believe me, I didn’t mind being man-handled by him! I sat
in the chair that took me up the stairs again and it was a bit weird going
backwards but I had cute eyes to keep me company so I wasn’t freaking out too
much! I honestly felt I was going to fall out quite a few times, but his eyes
calmed me down. We were the last two on the plane and two minutes after we
arrived they shut the doors. We were flying back at about 9.30pm from Holland
and arriving back in the UK at about 9.15pm. They are an hour ahead in the
Netherlands. Thngs ran smoothly from there, and we got home in one piece!
I hope you liked that! Thank you for reading, if you have
any things you’d like me to discuss in future tweet me (@steph_carfrae) or
email me (stephcarfrae@yahoo.co.uk) . Also if you want a ‘Lyric Your Name’
email me at the same address leaving me your name, their name (if you’re doing it
for someone else) and a paragraph about them (or yourself). Thanks. Quick
turnaround. Thank you for reading.
Steph
XxX
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