Happy hols part 1

Well, back to the grind after a very pleasant break in Spain, although got off to a bad start – missed plane. One would think living just 45 mins (on a good day) from Heathrow, allowing for traffic we left at 7.15 for a 9.00 am check in, however we hadn’t allowed for an overturned lorry blocking the M4 at J10, The motorway was at a standstill and it eventually took us 4 hours to get to the airport, 20 mins after our flight had departed, Unfortunately there is only one flight out to Alicante per day so that was it. Fortunately a friend of ours works for the airline we were traveling with so a phone call to her found her stuck in the same traffic jam a couple of miles behind us. She made some calls to the airline and got us booked on the next days flight – at no extra cost so we collected our tickets and booked an hotel at Heathrow.
However this left us with the problem of what to do for the rest of the day. Answer – hit the bar, have lunch and spend the rest of the day shopping in terminal 1.
We then took a taxi to the hotel which was only 5 mins from terminal 1, unbelievably a turban headed black cab driver was unable to speak English and was unfamiliar with the hotel location – this one expects in a foreign Country but not at home especially as the Taxi driver was no doubt an inhabitant of Hounslow.
We checked in the next morning to find that we had been upgraded to Business Class and were escorted directly through to the first class lounge. The experience more than made up for the lost day, and it was only unfortunate in that it was only a 2 hour flight. – why does this never happen long haul? It did cross my mind to ask the pilot to fly around for a while longer but I suspect that the other passengers might not share my enthusiasm.
We shared the BC section with an American rock band who were starting a Europen tour in Spain, however I don’t know who they were as I didn’t like to ask for fear of being embarrassed for not recognising them. I once met Queen‘s bassist John Deacon at a studio and not recognizing him asked if he played in a band having mistaken him for one of the session musicians, he blunt answer was ‘Yes – ever heard of Queen?’
Thanks a million to SC for working miracles and even the lift home from Heathrow on our return. (She was on our flight)
More later……….