Christmas is Cancelled

This post should be coming to you from a riverboat cruising down the Rhine river in Germany. But, as you've probably guessed, it's not.

We had a 4-day Romantic Rhine Cruise booked, which was supposed to begin on the Sunday before Christmas Day - including stops at Christmas markets in gorgeous German villages, a European-style Christmas Eve feast, plus a traditional English-style 5-course Christmas Dinner the next day! This had been booked for quite some time, but Bec started getting worried when our promised itinerary and tickets still hadn't arrived with a week to go.

Then the tickets did finally arrive on Tuesday, but only thanks to some outstanding Christmas Spirit from one of our neighbours. The tour operator had completely mangled our home address, omitting our house number completely! Luckily the random recipient, Barbara in Number One, was kind enough to call up the tour company and find out where it was supposed to get delivered.

Our relief was short-lived though, with Bec receiving a phone call from them on Thursday with bad news. Apparently the boat was having "some technical problems" which meant that while the "cruise" would still go ahead, there was a strong chance that the boat would remain moored in the same spot for the duration!

Finally, on Saturday, a chat with a friendly taxi driver alerted us to the fact that the tour company had actually gone into receivership the day before! Sure enough, later that day we got a call confirming that our cruise was cancelled. We would get all our money back, but a quick scout around t'Internet showed us that even the most last-minute of the last-minute holiday deals weren't going to help us this side of Christmas.

So Christmas this year for us will be with Johnny's Granny again in Kent, just like last year. And that's certainly not a bad thing - it should be lovely, relaxing, cosy - and maybe, just maybe white!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone, have a fantastic festive season and a great 2008!