Long time no blog!

I think I left you a week ago when I was supposed to go home. On Wednesday (22nd), I took my bag packed with stuff for home and put it in a locker at Marne la Vallee station. I had a Special Event for the prince (again) in the morning, and I was Scrooge McDuck - see pic! It was in the Disneyland Hotel, and we just had to go in and have loooooads of photos taken with the prince and his friends in his breakfast suite overlooking Main Street USA - it was fairly amazing, maybe one day I'll be able to afford it (probably not). After this set in our 'ski suits', we had to change into our 'white Christmas outfits' and come back into the room and dance around for what felt like an eternity to Christmas music. It was fun, but Scrooge's head is really heavy, and it started to squash down my eyebrows over my eyes so I couldn't see anything and got a headache. I spent a lot of time leaning on my walking stick and taking the weight of my head with my shoulders whilst wiggling my bottom and tapping my feet. Luckily I could get away with it as I was playing an old man, but the girls playing Hewey, Lewey and Dewey had to be really energetic the whole time. We had a dancing circle at one point where each character went in one by one and did a dance - I went out of a character a bit for that and held my walking stick above my head and kicked my legs a bit like a can can - it seemed to go down well with the audience though!

After the never ending dancing, we had to hand certificates to some of the guests (with names like Abdul the Third) congratulating them on 'being in Disneyland Paris for Christmas 2010'. It was extremely pointless but I suppose if you have that much money then there is no reason not to pay Disney characters to hand out expensively framed meaningless certificates.

We finished at about 2pm, and there was nothing to do in the afternoon so I sat in the breakroom and read, waiting for it to be 5.01pm so I could clock out and go and get my train home!

The end of the day eventually came and I power walked out of work to the train station to get my bag, and then got the RER to Chatelet-les-Halles and changed to go one stop to Paris Gare-du-Nord. Luckily my Eurostar was running, although my seat and carriage were changed, and I got home without a hitch really. In fact, it was meant to stop at Ebbsfleet but it made an unscheduled stop at Ashford so I got off there as it is closer to home. My train was 40 minutes late because of speed restrictions due to the snow, but I was expecting a massive queue and a huge delay so I was quite relieved. Ed met me at the station and we went back to mine, put on pyjamas and watched the Polar Express in my festive, warm house. I love doing things like that anyway, but I appreciated it even more having been away from home, with one small room to live in which I share with a relative stranger! I ended up staying at home for five days - I had the 23rd and 24th off, and Christmas Day I was scheduled to work, and I also had the 26th and 27th off. The Eurostar were up the chute anyway so I exchanged my ticket and came back on the 27th. I missed a day of work so I won't get paid for it, but I was so pleased to be at home over Christmas. I had a lovely five days, and managed to see lots of friends and family, and went out a couple of times. On the 27th I was so settled at home I didn't really want to come back!

I travelled Standard Premier on the way back (the middle class on Eurostar), so I curled up in my big seat and had a sleep for the whole journey.

Back to work on Tuesday (28th), I had a 10-6 spare parade shift - in fact all of my shifts are 10-6 spare parade until I leave, except for New Year's Eve. I was Timon in park 2 for the day, which was quite fun as he is pretty cool. One guest picked me up like a baby, which you aren't supposed to do, and then he power pressed me and held me on my back above his head! This isn't very safe at the best of times, let alone whilst wearing a Timon costume with a huge tail, massive feet and a head, in really icy conditions. I flailed around for a bit in silence, when I really wanted to shout 'PUT ME DOWN', whilst the stupid man posed for photos - I was scared that I was either going to roll off of his hands and hurt myself or some kids standing around, or my head was going to fall off, or both! Luckily my ACC came along and shouted at him in French something about not picking up the characters. It was scary but I would have quite liked a photo! Other than that my day was uneventful, although I did have a particularly tasty chicken and leek pie for lunch.

I came home and showered and ate, and had planned to write my blog, but I started to play with my new Amazon Kindle instead (a Christmas present), and ended up downloading and reading an entire book called Confessions of a GP, it is a real life, quite funny, insight into the life of an NHS GP and it is really easy to read, so I just sped through it and by the time I'd finished it was 2am.

I had a bad night's sleep and kept waking up with strange nightmares, so when my alarm went off at 8.30am I really was not ready to get up. I managed to get up at 8.45am and get the 9.06am bus which was quite an achievement. Today I was Scrooge McDuck in Park 2, I haven't played him on sets before. and I was surprised at how popular he is.

The French love him, and you just hear them shouting 'Picsou!!!' from all angles (that is his name in French). Some were getting really pushy, and ignored my ACC when she told them in French and English that 'Scrooge McDuck will choose who he sees next so don't push'. I kept drawing a circle around myself with my foot and making gestures for the guests to stay behind this imaginary line. I don't mean to be biased towards my compatriots but the only people who took any notice of me were the English! For this reason I ignored the pushy parents standing right next to me, gestured for an English child to come over and pose for a photo with me, and used the excuse of a photo to get the pushy ones to move away from me so they weren't in the photo. I obviously got to everybody eventually, but I kept hearing English parents saying 'we'll have to see Scrooge another time because all of these other people want to see him too', even though they had been clearly waiting the longest, so I made a point of reaching out and grabbing them as they turned away and making sure they got a photo. If the crowd gets too much when I'm on set I often just walk off straight through the crowd and when I've got out, I move somewhere else whilst gesturing for them to follow me. I try to make sure I position myself in front of a wall or fence so I can't be approached from behind, but somehow the Spanish still manage to squeeze in behind me and shout 'FOTO' in my ear whilst grabbing me forcefully around the shoulders to pose so I nearly fall over. I'm not generalising - if you ever find yourself being mobbed by a selection of Europeans, take note of their differing ideas of common courtesy!

I wasn't on DOUD in the afternoon so I had nothing to do for a couple of hours, I ended up fast asleep in the breakroom and got really disorientated when I woke up. I'm back in my room now, and have just packed my stuff for the next few days (my family and Ed are coming again!), as well as one of my two suitcases for them to take home! I've managed to pack most of my clothes into the case, so I only have bits and bobs and a few clothes to bring back when I leave properly on 7th Jan. I found out that the last day of my contract, 6th Jan, is a day off! At first I was annoyed as it meant I could have booked a train for the day before, but actually a few of us have it off so we are going to go to the park and make the most of our last free day there! It is a Thursday, and most of the kids are back at school, so hopefully the park won't be horrendously busy. It is also the very last day of the Christmas season, so I'll be interested on the 7th Jan to see the park back to its usual bare self again. I think I can get in backstage on the 7th even though my contract is over, as I need to collect my deposit, so I might have a wander around the park and take a few photos of the non-Christmassy park.

The family arrive tomorrow so I'm away yet again, but I'll update you on Sunday - my first entry of 2011! I also get paid tomorrow so I'm excited to find out just how much.

Hope everybody had a lovely Christmas, and you all have a Happy New Year!

xxx