Be careful for what you wish for....

Or 3 degrees of disappointment.

Last Sunday Emin made the mistake of promising Leyla a trip to the cinema to see Narnia, he does this a lot, but the reality of a day lost in a cinema watching a mediocre 3D film then dawned on him and he decided not to go. The mistake, as I always tell him is to make the promise, better to keep it to yourself until you are ready to go, that way disappointment is avoided.

BIG fat juicy tears rolled down her cheek, it was heart breaking. He cheered her up by taking her shopping to spend her Christmas vouchers, so she scratched a small itch a bought some clothes for the holiday. In fact this last week we have all replenished supplies of undies and various sundries to take*.

Then her cousin said she would take her to the film AND a bite to eat after school on Wednesday as a Christmas treat, only her cousin came down with flu, more BIG fat tears so unbeknownst to me he only went and promised her again, this time Friday. Well it was my turn to piss on that parade, I wanted to pack and get an early night as we had to be up a 4am. So no tears this time just the weary resignation of a perpetually disappointed 9 year old.

We so nearly missed the bus to the station but made it to the airport, the queues to drop our bag off snaked around the hall and took so long I could see my duty free stroll time vanishing. I rarely fly and even rarer fly BA so I actually wanted to swan around terminal 5 but no by the time we made it we had just enough time left to spend stupid money on perfume and a lippy. Actually a lovely Clinique lippy and my favourite perfume Rose by Paul Smith, we then grabbed some food and looked up to check our boarding gate.......Well you know what happens next...Cancelled, BIG fat tears rolled down her cheeks and mine this time. I HATE BA really really hate them. Why let us get so close? We then had to wait ages to retrieve our bags and get through passport control, it was like the walk of shame. 6 hours it took to get home every time I think if where I should be and what I should be doing I get a small dull ache in the pit of my stomach. We tried all day yesterday and today to rebook but BA have taken the phone off the hook, what makes me mad is they have space on later flights but they will not transfer us. We had a cooked meal waiting for us in Istanbul now it's back to the bump and grind of life here in Blighty.

I have booked a ticket to go to York, but poor Kitty only made it as far as Peterborough today before being turned back, she too has lost a cooked meal my mother had waiting for her, plus missed a very disappointed sister.

Little sister AGAIN got stuck in a 5* hotel in Cannes this time, seriously she has all the luck, only she too was close to tears as she was stuck in Cannes with her boss plus 2 couples and could not get any flights home before Christmas, so Emin on his white stallion booked them a train to Marseilles from Nice, then on to Paris where with a shed load of luck they might make a connecting train to London.

This is Leyla's first ever Christmas in England! and my first for 10 years how weird is that?

* what a monumental waste of time and money that turned out to be.