Delay after delay

It had all been going so well; we’d had a nice relaxing week in pleasant surroundings. Then, when we arrived at the airport, the rep delivered the news that the plane had gone technical in London and there was a four-hour delay posted. Still, it meant the company paid for our lunch instead of us, so we hung around in the departure lounge reading our books and listening to our music.

About half an hour before the revised boarding time, we were all called together at a gate and told that they hadn’t been able to fix the plane, so the company had arranged for a First Choice aircraft to fly us home instead. The downside of this was that the plane wasn’t due for another three hours, so instead of arriving at Gatwick as planned at about 18:30, we would now be arriving in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

I suppose Las Palmas isn’t a bad airport to be delayed in. Compared to some Spanish resort airports I’ve seen, it is well-endowed with restaurants, cafes and shops. We did end up buying books and puzzle magazines to alleviate the boredom though and Thomas Cook (our tour operator) paid for a second meal for us.

We ran across John M from the Chorus while we were waiting. He and his partner had been out to Gran Canaria for the long Easter weekend.

The plane eventually arrived and we were boarded. The flight home was not much different from the flight out, although my tolerance for the cramped seating was lower. Also the meal was very stodgy and seemed designed to make you thirsty (you had to pay for all the drinks onboard, even the water!) Nevertheless the flight crew were all very pleasant – which can’t have been easy since they had been on standby since 09:00 that morning and had only been called up for the ten-hour return trip about half an hour before they were due to be relieved.

We were on the ground by 01:15 and Rosie was waiting for us at the airport, which made getting home carefree: At that time in the morning, I would not have been a happy bear trying to do it by public transport or even driving myself! Straight to bed when we got home at around 03:00.