HONEST REPORTS, DAY BY DAY FROM QUARANTINE HOTEL HOLIDAY INN HEATHROW. (SEE DAY NINE HERE)
IN QUARANTINE HOTEL HELL A NEW CRUSHING BLOW, BRUTUS MY SONS BULLDOG BEEN TAKEN INTO HOSPITAL
All other news from today has been made irrelevant as I just received a call from my son that Brutus our British Bulldog has been taken into hospital with severe breathing problems. This news is the final straw. This is new torture whilst I’m still not allowed to leave here until one minute past midnight. A day when I felt relatively happy has now developed into a terrible crying jag. I simply feel that the ground I walk on will never be safe again for this is literally the final straw. This wonderful kind magnificent boy is now in peril and only just turned six years of age, young even bulldog standards.
BACK TO THE HOTEL…..
The start of the day was awful in its own way as I had barely slept. My tablets hadn’t arrived after my mate lovingly went to two Boots to get them and post them off first class to Hotel California. (memo to me, add that to my email to Holiday Inn when I get to it)
I was uncomfortable in every section of my now grimy shiny wrinkled sheeted bed. Too hot too cold, pillows not right, lumpy and hard now, at the beginning I had marvelled at their fabulous softness. I think they achieve that in tumble driers or something. all those tortured nights of tossing and turning had made them lumpy. The sheets I was sure had my lizardy dry skin scales embedded with the terrible hotel body cream that just plasticises you. Any sleep I must have got I could not remember. I felt like I’d been to an all-night party so had a fatigue hangover.
I had planned to go harass people today, get names to investigate later to prepare a damning report on this system. I had been a mean lean machine the day before but today I just felt abused and sick to my stomach.
After my new ‘Continental Breakfast’- two hard-boiled eggs, Two mini pre-wrapped pieces of cheese, cold toast fruit croissant and jam I lurched back to my pit and looked with gritty eyes at a documentary about Mesopotamia, then slumped into a really deep fathomless sleep.
Waking at midday I felt hideous. Drugged by this narcotic style slumber I could barely make a cup of time from my now mountainous accumulation of teas coffees and milks. I felt grim and not at all like pursuing my wrongdoers. I felt apathetic to the day as if already I knew something foul would crop up so I just called reception and got all the info I needed to dig deep at a later date from the lovely chap who had been very kind when I couldn’t stop crying on day two.
‘Picnic’ lunch arrives in its white carrier bag. Bland sandwich, fruit juice, some tinned tomato soup and a chocolate bar. I’m still dazed and now guilty that I haven’t even been downstairs again to search out the people that I want to follow up on.
In a bizarre turn of fate I call the front desk and Faiz gives me the news that the previously enthusiastic Sophia Pkbladze, the desk manager, has sidestepped me and left a message saying that I should just email the manager. No meeting was to take place with Eilis Noble after all and any concerns were just to go to him via his email address. He also informed me that CTM had no representatives at the hotel and all the guards came from G4S and a number was provided when I said that they had now promised several times to send their manager up to me. So cheers Faiz. You were the only honest and decent person there and you saved me a lot of frustrating leg work by giving me the info I needed and being supportive.
I packed my bag and went for a last cigarette, chatting with the gang of regular smokers and noting any extra anecdotes of grievances (for there were many and by that time the word had got around about me so angry folk were yakking and shouting ‘Me too’) before dosing myself up with Diazepam and hitting the sack one last time in that shithole.
I’M NOT SCARED OF A BIT OF HARD GRAFT YOU COWARDS. I’LL GET MY INFORMATION, I’LL GET MY DAY IN COURT AND I MIGHT EVEN GET, A RARE ANIMAL THESE DAYS, A JOURNALIST WHO WILL OUT YOU ALL.
The thing about nobody wanting to come forward is that it tells you the whole ghastly story. They have a lot to hide, and their excuse will be that old chestnut ‘I was just following orders’
Old Bird Travels Solo! 