The Parent Trap

The parentals have just jetted off to Spain for a couple of weeks, which means I won’t hear from them for a bit. This has caused my dad some consternation, as he’s a whizz on the texts and likes to ‘chat’ with me every day on them, bless him. (Should I be concerned that the man who texts me most often is my dad? Anyway…)


The texts are usually the minutiae of life, the kind that are the glue that keeps you up-to-date and involved in someone’s life - I’m sure you know the sort: "the weather’s grim today/I’m just on the patio with mum/mum says her email isn’t working/no I haven’t fixed the dvd player yet."  But yesterday out of the blue my dad sent: "Your mum and I are so so proud of you. We love you very much xxx."

I’m not ashamed to say it brought a tear to my eye and I had to drop the celebrity gossip magazine that I was reading onto the sun-lounger. Thankfully I was wearing a de rigueur pair of over-sized sunglasses so people didn’t stop and stare…

In one quick moment I changed from grown-up, capable, Group Account Director Kelly, to five year old Kelly who sat with her dad and made collages at the weekend. (Keep that to yourself, eh?) Simpler times. Parents: don’t you just love them?!

Oh Snow!

I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of my family. In all the excitement and drama of the 'will they/won't they' BA strike, I hadn't even thought about the weather. As the UK got colder and colder, I laughed to friends, exclaiming: "No need to worry, it hasn't snowed in Jersey for at least 15 years." And then, of course, it did.

If you think that the UK grinds to a halt when it snows, then you haven't seen Jersey. Two flakes and the schools were closed. Three flakes and the buses and taxis stopped running. At this stage I assumed there must have been at least a foot of snowfall, but my dear mum assured me that not a flake was sticking to the roads. Pandemonium!

Anyway, this inevitably meant airport chaos yesterday. Jersey Airport is the size of a postage stamp and ill equipped for bad weather. Unfortunate really, as Jersey, despite being blessed with a lot of lovely sunny weather, also has a tendency to get fog bound. I've lost count of the amount of hours I've had to kill there whilst delayed. And even had to collect my bags and fall on the mercy of my parents for one more night when the entire place shut down.

I spent a good part of yesterday evening on the Jersey Airport website (surely the most traffic they've had all year!) and was just starting to panic when by 8 pm, not a single flight had taken off. Thankfully, my midnight, they were staring to clear.

And this morning, my family were airborne! They still have another flight to catch from Gatwick, but I'm sure the universe knows just how much they want to be here. See you soon!

Island Life: News Moves Slowly

Had worrying text from my dad last night - apparently a house on our road burnt to the ground on Friday morning. House completely gutted, and as well as the fire there was also a huge explosion. Cause undiagnosed as yet.

Obviously I logged straight onto the Jersey Evening Post website to hear all the news. Nothing. Then I checked the BBC Jersey news website, but nothing there either.

Perhaps you say, it was a very busy news day and the house explosion was pushed off the news agenda by another bigger story? Well, here's a selection of other stories on the news sites:

New signs at the airport

Museum COULD close

Holidaymaker gets kiss of life at hotel

Two mothers want hot meals at their kids' school

Rocks near a car park COULD fall off

Hardly the stuff of a front page scoop, non? Bless dear old Jersey. I'll keep checking the JEP website but I don't hold out much hope for it being updated any time soon...