Travel

The good lady and I have finally returned to Thorn towers. The break was, as always, was very enjoyable. Our good friends Kostos and Thalia became first time grandparents, congratulations to Marina and Claudio and welcome to the human race, baby Olga. 

We had a heat wave and at times the temperature was in the 40's centigrade! We eat, drank and spent time with all the people we love.

So on Wednesday we took our taxi to the airport to arrive at the appointed two hours before for check in, flight time 11.30pm. Plane lands and we are called to board, so far so good, we wait on the steps, not unusual at Heraklion, eventually we board the bus. Now we expect a little waiting time, this is Greece! Waiting became delay and suspicions started to grow that all was not right? Eventually we were called back into the terminal and so began hours of waiting and travelling! A member of the crew had become ill and the flight had to be cancelled. We found out later that the second officer had eaten sushi in a hot cabin and ended up with food poisoning! He had been warned by his crew but ignored them. 

Imagine a the full passenger load of an airbus in a small terminal, babies, children, disabled all pissed off, waiting to find out what will happen and where they will spend the night? Gone midnight, hot and stuffy, they crowd round staff who are being feed information slowly. Rumour and false information abound, this will happen, that will happen. As always, opinions range from the truly ridiculous to the vaguely logical but there was an abundance of humour as well. In these situations it is best to remain calm and resist the temptation to get excited. At 3pm we left the airport and were shuffled onto buses and taken to several hotels. Room was okay but little sleep as the tension of the night and the now very late hour was not conjuicive to much sleep! Breakfast in an all inclusive hotel,   I can only describe as unbelievable and food of a standard I would throw out! Ungrateful, perhaps, snobby, certainly but really people pay for that? 

To cut a long story short we eventually landed at Gatwick at 6pm UK time and then had the misery of the M25, arriving home at 9.30pm, 28 hours after we first started the journey.!

Now the observant will have noticed that I have not mentioned the airline in question, EasyJet take a bow, your communication was poor your apology perfunctory, free drink and small confectionary not enough! Well done airport staff who organised buses and accommodation in two hours, no mean feat at that time of night.

We are home at last!