Anne’s Creative Threads

It feels good to be back in Boracay. We’ve been coming here for twelve years and every year we come back there are always changes and rarely for the better, but there is always a feeling of coming back to a familiar place and the welcome we get from the many friends that we have made over the time that we’ve been coming here.

The view from our cottage

The last two years we have been coming via a roundabout route, supposedly cheaper but involving so many stopovers, flights and taxi rides that I’m sure it must end up costing more, as well as wasting time. This year we went back to the old route and flew directly from Brunei to Manila. For the first time since I can remember the plane left and arrived on time, a smooth transfer to the hotel, which was fairly ordinary but clean, comfortable enough (apart from the pillows which were like blocks of rubber)and relatively quiet for the centre of Manila. Up early in the morning, breakfast and then a taxi dash to the domestic airport, arriving in good time for our eight thirty flight. I couldn’t believe it, everything was going so smoothly.

No queue at the check in, I knew the cases were overweight but was prepared for that, and then the girl at the check in looked at us and said “do you realize that you are booked on the 8.30am flight for Thursday 10^th December?” Today is Tuesday 1^st December!!!

Whose fault? Mine. I booked the flight online a couple of months ago, printed out the ticket and never thought that much about it. I did check the booking several times but obviously didn’t look at it closely enough, and didn’t get my husband to double check it. Luckily the airline office was just round the corner so we were able to go round and change our booking. Unfortunately the early flight was already full and we had to pay quite an extra chunk of money, but were able to get on a flight a couple of hours later. I couldn’t get cross and blame anyone else as it was totally my fault, so nothing for it but to find a spot in the airport that wasn’t too freezing get a cup of coffee and sit down and write my blog which I’ve neglected a bit recently as I’ve been so busy in the last couple of weeks.

I should have checked the dates more carefully!

Now I’m looking forward to a month of relaxation: windsurfing, swimming, catching up on a bit of reading, enjoying some good food and spending time in the company of good friends. I didn’t bring any sewing with me as I feel it is good to have a complete break. Actually I was tempted to bring some hand sewing and very soon start to miss it, so by the time I get back to Brunei I’m always itching to get back to my sewing machine. I do intend to work on creating some new designs while I’m here so I won’t be completely out of touch.

Boracay from the air