Remote Control

We’ve stayed in a few different hotels/apartments/caravans over the past ten days and I have found that one of the biggest things I take for granted is the ability to pause and rewind the TV. And because we’re not recording our usual programmes, we can’t fast forward the adverts. First world problems eh?

Last night we missed a bit of dialogue between George Shuttleworth and Todd Grimshaw in Coranation Street. It almost ruined my day.

Ah, the day. VISA appointment day. The missed dialogue on Coranation Street, as disappointed as I was, cannot compare to the trauma of VISA appointment day. It is fair to say that it didn’t go entirely to plan. We realized that, if they eventually accept our application to live and work in Portugal, they won’t be making it easy for us.

By the evening all I wanted to do was watch a bit of TV and hear what the characters had said so that we could follow the story line.

I like soap operas. No matter what sort of day you’ve had you can bet that some poor sod in soap land is going through something worse.

Or are they? I don’t know. I didn’t hear what George and Todd had said. And I couldn’t rewind to find out!

Imagine being able to pause, rewind or fast forward real life. Sometimes I want to pause time so that the kids stop growing up so fast. But then I’m wishing time along at the moment to fast forward past our house sale completion date. And if I could rewind I’d probably go back to our VISA appointment with the correct documents.

But, alas, I can’t.

All I can do is press the play button and try to write the script as I go along. There are some great scenes that I’m creating but I must acknowledge the poor ones too. Even the very best of movies have scenes that aren’t as good, although I struggle to find one in Pulp Fiction. But we can’t all live in a masterpiece. Sometimes, things don’t go to plan.

And when I don’t have the remote control to rewind a vital piece of dialogue in Coranation Street, plans have definitely taken a turn for the worst.