Day Trip...

Day Trip...

What a day yesterday! checked out net and Luton airport open!

arrived and lined up about 9:50am, check in desks didn't open but there were people there advising of cancelled flights with Monarch and times and departures... eventually check in opened and i did so about 11:15am...

i learnt my flight was now leaving at 7:30pm so Franco and i headed out of the airport, to have a coffee maybe or go further afield... but then i got a text from Tony saying flight was still coming in at 1:30pm? i checked my ticket and it said time of departure 12:00noon? so with haste we rushed back to passport control, said goodbye, i rushed through and then straight to the departure gate as the boarding gate was open!

i got through but the time on the gate was 2:30pm? anyway, we started to board about 1pm i got most of the way down the gantry thing to board when the girl called me back, made a call and said i was on the flight at 7:30pm! same flight number and although the ticket said 12noon, that was just because that was the original time!

what happened was people of the flight the day before, they left and half hour later returned because the wind-shield had cracked and they were not sure they could make it all the way... so returned to Malaga, those people were kept waiting at Malaga airport until one in the morning when told to go to baggage reclaim and taken to a local hotel, arriving gone 2am, brought back and were all on OUR flight!!!!

so nothing to do with the snow at all!

anyway i did the walk of shame and retraced my steps all the way back to the departure lounge area! had a coffee, read a while down stairs, then back up to restaurant area, more coffee!

a couple joined me after a while, who were supposed to fly the day before, and had then not heard of seen the flight they should have got in the morning so were getting on the next one!! we were then joined by another couple, my flight, turned out she had worked for Welcome Foundation same as me, but when it was Cooper McDougall & Robinson, which was the name of the company when Mom worked for them!!!

they are from Watford, and another friend of theirs joined us then, she works at the hospital Mom is in!

and finally we were joined by a guy who is a musician! and played with some very famous people in some very famous places around the world, especially in London where he still plays!

so we had our little gang, we called our selves the Luton 7!! we felt like hostages, leaving things to go for walks, or coffee or bathroom breaks...

we were given no official information, only relying on families checking out on the net or phone for us.

the time kept changing from bad to worse, i wont bore you any more but the last and final time change showed 12 midnight boarding for a 12:30am flight! at any time we thought the flight would be cancelled and no flights with Monarch till saturday!

we, the gang, all went down stairs and through to the gate area together about 11pm and we even boarded just gone midnight, we didn't actually take off though until 1am as we were apparently waiting for 28 missing people? they announced their baggage would have to be removed if they didn't turn up, but they didn't and ... they didn't! so i think they were just confused....

flight went fairly quick, bit of a tail wind and we landed 2hrs and 20 minutes later into a very white frosty and icy Luton airport, first time i worried about coming to a stand still!

we all stood up, don't know why we didn't get to disembark for about half an hour or more, they had no staff to move the stairs up to the plane... but the plane was actually rocking slightly occasionally so i think that the door may have been frozen....

and then problems of opening the hatch and removing the baggage... so we landed at 2:20am and i walked out to get a cab at 4:30am... a nice clean cut 2 hours!

i recognised a woman on the plane, hadn't seen her at the airport, she lives in Alhaurín and we had a good chat waiting in the freezing cold for our bags... four of us gang were still together and said our good byes.... like ships in the night...

so 13 hour delay, 2 hours arrival, as you do, before flight time... then trip to Tony's and i got here about 5am... now this is English time, so 6am in Spain, i had got up at 6:30am yesterday so i great 23 hour day...

i got up about ... whatever time Tony went to work this morning so about 3hours sleep, maybe, ready again for a bit of a nap i must say!

but i have walked to the local shops for milk and then cleared a bit of the drive! of snow! glad i bought my wellies that's for sure!

ok amigos... seeing Mom later..

TTFN
Marian