G & J away from home

Tuesday, 19 May

Last day in Europe and we had a transfer organised from the hotel to Schipol Airport ... well, it had originally been from the Vista to the airport, but let's not quibble over details.  In the lobby we found a few of the group just heading out to another hotel for the days they had originally intended staying in Amsterdam after the cruise.

Almost finished packing for the last time in Europe

 The hedgehog had his own special place in my carry-on bag:

Peeking out

Getting to the airport was easy enough with a bus heading there to pick up an incoming tour.   And then things started to get more problematic.  Passport control - what can I say?  Three-quarters of an hour in a mob, rather thn a queue.  It appeared as if they are in the middle of extensive rennovations but the huge bottle-neck was pretty unpleasant.

The the flight was delayed.  Not such a bad things as our gate (Gate 31) must have been the furthert from check in in the entire airport.  We just kept walking and walking and walking.  Then at he gate they were asking people to check their carry-on bags (at no charge) to speed up boarding.  I happily checked mine (which isn't oversized, but is big) but when we saw it laying on the tarmac beside the baggage loading ramp I had second thoughts.  Perhaps I should have moved the laptop further into the bag before I let it go?  Nothing I could do about it then, but I was definately cringing when we saw the baggage handlers open the baggage containers and throw all the bags inside.

Couldnt be worrying about it as we finally boarded the aircraft (another A320).  Once e all settled in the captain announced that aircraft in and out of Heathrow were suffering delays because of thunderstorms in the area so we weren't able to take of from Amsterdam until there was a time slot for us to land at Heathrow ... and take off wouldnt be in the next hour.  They had to have us onboard and strapped in, though, or they would lose their place in the queue.  Oh, joy!

(Gary asked where my mum's shortbread was remembering that Mum and Dad had had almost the same experience when leaving Heathrow for Italy during our shared holiday in 2000.  They hadn't been fed while they waited but Mum had had shortbread in her handbag and so they avoided starvtion.)

Finally we managed to get away from Amsterdam and over the Heathrow; there were a few bumpy moments on approach (and in the circuits while we were waiting) but the worst part of the whole delay was being shut in the plane with a whole lot of people coughing and hacking away.  Nothing like being coped up with people with colds to test our immunity!

We had no trouble finding the bus to the rental car office but (as usual) they were short of small cars and wanted to upgrade us to an 'estate' - a car we find too large for running around the UK.

Picking up the rental car

We had booked a manual transmission car because of the huge price difference between manuals and automatics - enough to pay for all our fuel costs during the three weeks driving.  Gary asked about automatics and there was no problem finding us an automatic for the same price so I'm not sure why there was such a difference in quoted prices when we were booking.

Our car

While we were packing up the car and letting the GPS catch up with its new location planes were still taking off every few minutes, right overhead.  It was exciting to see them so big and so close, and they certainly made plenty of noise.

Planes were constantly taking off

We were heading west on the M4 - right into the setting sun and big, dark clouds.  As it worked out we just made it into the hotel before the downpour but when we turned the tv on Gary was not pleased to note that the overnight temperature was going to be a very low 4 degrees C (39 F).

Driving west

It's so nice to be back in the UK for the first time since we house swapped in 2004.
______________________________