3/1/2026 Recovery and planning

Today has mostly been about recovery. I slept quite late but not a restful sleep at all and woke with a massive dose of anxiety, which was most unpleasant. First order of the day was some meditation and tapping to try and get it under control. The highly emotive week has left me  utterly drained and the flight just finished me off. I know from past experience it will take me a day or two to get over it so I've spent the whole day drinking copious amounts of tea and trying to work out my next adventure and failing miserably. 

My problem is that the school summer holidays are impacting my destination choices for the month of January. I've looked at four different islands and every combination of dates you can imagine and got precisely nowhere. Frustrating to say the least. My other problem is that traveling solo throws up several problems that wouldn’t have existed had Si been alive. When I stuffed up my ‘job’ as travel secretary with our accommodation choices on a trip, it was not really a big deal because Si would always be there to look after me. Something that was necessary in some of the dodgier places I managed to book us into in Mumbai! Even in the ropey places we were able to laugh about it, like when I blew all the electricity in one of the hotel rooms by plugging in too many things. It didn't matter if there was no internet in the accommodation because we had each other and it wasn't a necessity. Now however being connected to the internet is an absolute necessity, not only to keep me in touch with the outside world, but so the people who love me don't worry about me if they don't hear from me. We take the internet completely for granted, but on a lot of the  Pacific islands it's not. Most hotels, apartments and guest houses don't have it, and you have to buy it from little shops on the side of the road and input the code they give you to connect. The connection time is for a maximum of 48 hours, then it expires and you have to top it up again which can work out to a couple of hundred pounds over the course of a fortnight. 

Things are starting to get more connected and there are now a few more hotels that do have free wifi, but they are still few and far between. The very expensive resorts tend to have it, but I don't want to be on a big resort, because there are too many people, and obviously the cost implications. For what it would cost me to stay two weeks in some of these places I could visit 3 more islands for a month at a time.  I much prefer a smaller hotel so I can chat to the locals, but also feel safe, which is a big thing for me. 

I thought I had found somewhere in Rarotonga in the Cook Islands thanks to Expedia, and proceeded to start booking it. It had everything on my list, a pool, free wifi in the room and public areas, 24/7 security and was on the beach, close to the town and the bus stopped outside. Absolutely perfect. The only downside I could see was that the flights were through Jetstar and they only allow you to take hand luggage. Whilst I don't mind travelling light, I had wanted to take more than 7kg, but I know I could manage with hand luggage for the three weeks if I bought sunlotion etc out there. Deciding to go for it, I went ahead and booked it. I was directed to the bank authorisation page and the payment was authorised but when I got back to expedia it told me there was a problem with my payment. I tried again, and the same thing happened. The third time, I used a different card and it happened yet again. I was so pissed off I nearly threw my laptop across the room, and in the end I decided there was a reason this was happening and maybe I wasn't meant to go there.  

I carried on my search, throwing in other Islands, and more potential dates but coming up with nothing that worked out for me and my list of requirements. I went back to Expedia, and decided to message them to see if they could help with the payment problem. I am so glad I did!! For whatever reason the three payments that had been authorised by the bank and card issuer had gone through on their system, yet the accommodation and flights hadn't been booked. The agent on the chat got the amounts refunded but could provide no answer as to why the booking hadn't been completed. He also disconnected the chat before I could get confirmation that all the money was being refunded. I took a screen shot of the chat just in case I have any problems in the next few days. Whilst I was on the chat with him, I happened to check the place I was looking at as I was hopeful he could book it for me, it had gone up in price by £500, talk about taking the piss! To say I was a bit cross would be an understatement, and I decided to give it up as a bad job. I had spent all day online trying to find something that worked and come up with a big fat nothing. 

In a fit of pique I have deleted the Expedia app from my phone, as I no longer regard the app as a safe and secure system to book with. I checked on my bank and credit cards, and was pleased to see the credit card refunds were pending but there was nothing from the bank card. I messaged them through their chat bot about it and was told they couldn't do anything until the card payment had gone from ‘pending’, and when that had occurred I would have to telephone them because it was an issue that couldn't be sorted on a chat. Luckily Morgan has international calling on his phone sim so if required i can use his phone to call the bank to sort it out if required. 

Very tired and extremely frustrated, I took out my salad bowl from the fridge, added a tin of tuna and a load of olives to it and proceeded to eat it whilst mulling over my options. Picking up my bowl to wash it, I picked up the empty tuna tin from the countertop to wash out. It was absolutely full of ants, I have no idea where they came from but the speed of the little buggers was phenomenal. I carried the tin at arms length into the bathroom and proceeded to drown them under the very hot water tap before washing up the rest of my stuff. Bloody disgusting. However they had vanished as quickly as they'd arrived, I don't know where they are but now I know they're crawling around the room somewhere! Eeeeeew!!! 

The day has been a write off, I only left the room to go outside for a whiff of fresh air and have managed to  achieve precisely nothing. All very irritating to be honest... 

I haven't even taken a proper photo today as screenshots of chats with a customer service agent don't count. I am seriously slacking so apologies for that ! 

Lets hope I have a more productive day tomorrow!

Much Love

Mrs Leonard

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