Standby

They are a funny thing, them standbys. You can have one the day before a trip, and normally pray to the almighty not to be called out, as you really want to do that trip which you were scheduled to fly with two of your coursemates from training and were guaranteed a fantastic time... then the phone rings: "Hi Pall, it's BMED ops here, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to call you out for a Tashkent..."
Damn.
Then there are the standbys one can get after a trip, and pray to the almighty that you do actually get called out, cause if not you'd be only getting 3 trips for the whole month and end up with a pretty lousy paycheck at the end of it.

It's the latter for me today.
Came back from Tehran on Sunday, feeling surprisingly awake and shall I say, a tad fresh (even though it was technically a flight from hell, with the caterers in Tehran having stolen 28 meals, us having an overbooked flight, and not mentioning the Performance Manager on-board to make it a little bit harder, anyhow).
Then yesterday, Monday, I was on standby and didn't get called out. Same today.
The main problem is that starting Friday, I'm on a whole 10 days' leave... only to finish the month with a 4-day trip. This means a lousy paycheck for the month of April. I actually called ops this morning to let them know I'd be happy to do some work during my vacation as I'm not planning to do anything or go anywhere. Just hope my wish comes true.

In other news: nothing.

Oh, and I think it's great that Charles and Camilla finally got married. A bit of a Cinderella story really. Totally good on them, after over 3 decades and a disapproving evil mother.