Brave old me...

I had been putting it off for too long.
I knew I had to do it soon...
So, I thought shall I call? Neh...
Maybe go by? hmmm...

What is better.. what will make me feel less embarrassed.. hard choice...lets bury it for a little while, there is time yet it still doesn't look too bad.

I could have gone on like that for months until this invitation arrived for a ...... P A R T Y ... !! Well.. the invitation wasn't necessarily for me, I am 'Tanja no mates' in this country but luckily John has a life :p-) and I get to go with him. He is so sweet!

With a P A R T Y to look forward to I didn't have any excuse left though, it just HAD to happen.

So, today in my lunch break instead of walking to the beach I walked to the 'shopping centre' of Wemyss Bay. I put this between apostrophes because the 'centre' consists of a Spar, a pharmacy, a hairdresser and a doctors surgery which is only sometimes open I think, luckily I seem to be quite healthy so haven't needed it yet except for horrible mandatory things which I shall spare you from.

Walking towards the centre I kept on practising with different sentences in my mind, trying to make sure that I am getting my message across and think of the moment when the reaction would come. I realised then that there are 2 potential moments where embarrassement might strike... when talking not being understood and when talked to not understanding.

The tension mounted while getting closer to THE moment until I finally arrived, had a bit of a dither if it really wasn't better to just use the telephone but decided that with the P A R T Y ahead I wanted to be sure that I would get an appointment and not be too late.

So... first hurdle, the door, there is this big HEAVY door which has a sign on it saying 'please hold door when closing it' or words to that effect. Of course I failed that hurdle and the door crashed closed behind me with a big bang!

Anyway, the mrs woman came out of a back room because they were having lunch (oh dear, I disturbed them during lunch, is that a bad thing in Scotland?) so I said 'Does Pat work on a Saturday?' 'Yes' she said. (hooray she got it in one!)

So next question 'Can I make an appointment for Saturday 1st of April', hmmm.. that threw her a bit because she didnt '' yet. It had to do something with the diary not going that far. So she just scribbled 1st of April 10.00 somewhere and said '10.00' ok? Well.. I rather had 10.30 but wanted to avoid another confusion of tongues so left it. 'What's your last name' she said? 'Tanja' I said... DUHH!!!!!

So I made a joke and said she wouldn't want to say my last name, she might hurt herself while trying. Of course absolutely coming across as someone totally in control and not at all insecure of talking to people with a heavy Scottish accent who can't understand my English with heavy Dutch accent.

I can't remember making an appointment with the hairdresser in Holland being such an ordeal ;-)

On a brighter note, I missed only one word this time and she didn't have to ask me to repeat what I was saying once! Maybe I *will* get used to it one day....