IT’S not as if it came as a surprise. These days I don’t expect visits to the UK to be fun – a least not outside my own little family circle
So it was with some apprehension that I boarded Monarch Flight ZB677 at Alicante for the nearest thing I’m going to have to a holiday this year. The idea was to take in a couple of family celebrations in the build-up to Christmas before returning to Spain early in the New Year.
By the time Flight ZB677 squelched onto the rain-lashed runway in Manchester, my nerves were completely shredded. My body had been invaded by more shakes than the Manchester City boardroom, thanks to a pilot who learned to fly on a Big Dipper. Either that or he got syphoned into one long tube of French turbulence from which there was no escape.
Have you ever tried doing the Hippy Hippy Shake in an airborne loo at 35,000 feet to the sound of a panicky stewardess barking out orders for everyone to return to their seats and belt up muy pronto?
‘’The toilets are NOT to be used at this time,’’ came the instruction from the cabin as yet another airquake caught me with my pants down. Literally.
I’d have fallen off the seat if there had been room. As it was, I chose to sit it out until the shuddering stopped…happy in the knowledge that at least I couldn’t be drowned by a tsunami.
The sea of white faces that greeted me when I finally emerged from the toilet and made my way back to seat 9C told me all I needed to know. My fellow passengers weren’t enjoying it either.
Even my choice of seat had rebounded on me. I usually choose an aisle berth because I invariably need to use the loo during a flight and don’t like to disturb the people next to me.
Unfortunately, that feeling is not always reciprocal. On this occasion the couple who had bagged the two inside seats BOTH decided they wanted a wee within half an hour of takeoff. And as luck would have it, their preferred time for urinary exercise was just as I was tucking in to my 10-euro Monarchaise dinner treat – a very tasty Lancashire Hotpot.
If you think it’s a long walk from the plane to the meeting point at the new Alicante airport, try flying into Manchester’s Terminal 2. I wore out three pairs of shoes getting to passport control, where I finally raised my first smile of the night.
No queue to show my passport – and a delightfully eccentric Sikh midget with a high-pitched voice directing everyone at full volume.
It’s not so bad after all, I thought as I jumped into daughter Lisa’s car for the 15-mile motorway drive home. At 11.30pm, we’d be there in a quarter of an hour.
Don’t you believe it! Within ten minutes of leaving the airport we were stuck in a solid queue of traffic stretching across the M60-M61 interchange. As ever, UK traffic jams can strike at any time of day or night. The British traffic is truly terrific.
It was lovely to see the home I lived in for 30 years still standing, if somewhat weather-beaten. But it was the police car in next door’s drive that threw me.
It turned out the neighbours had been burgled earlier in the evening by cheeky villains who had then done a bunk in the family Merc. Unfortunately they hadn’t bothered to raid my place as well.
Unfortunately? Well yes, they are welcome to what little of value remains in the house, particularly the 42 inch plasma TV, which has a colour problem that will cost more to repair than to buy a new one.
The guarantee has run out so I’m saddled with it as it is…unless it is stolen and then replaced by the insurance company.
Anyone know a good, honest colour-blind burglar?
So it was with some apprehension that I boarded Monarch Flight ZB677 at Alicante for the nearest thing I’m going to have to a holiday this year. The idea was to take in a couple of family celebrations in the build-up to Christmas before returning to Spain early in the New Year.
By the time Flight ZB677 squelched onto the rain-lashed runway in Manchester, my nerves were completely shredded. My body had been invaded by more shakes than the Manchester City boardroom, thanks to a pilot who learned to fly on a Big Dipper. Either that or he got syphoned into one long tube of French turbulence from which there was no escape.
‘’The toilets are NOT to be used at this time,’’ came the instruction from the cabin as yet another airquake caught me with my pants down. Literally.
I’d have fallen off the seat if there had been room. As it was, I chose to sit it out until the shuddering stopped…happy in the knowledge that at least I couldn’t be drowned by a tsunami.
The sea of white faces that greeted me when I finally emerged from the toilet and made my way back to seat 9C told me all I needed to know. My fellow passengers weren’t enjoying it either.
Even my choice of seat had rebounded on me. I usually choose an aisle berth because I invariably need to use the loo during a flight and don’t like to disturb the people next to me.
Unfortunately, that feeling is not always reciprocal. On this occasion the couple who had bagged the two inside seats BOTH decided they wanted a wee within half an hour of takeoff. And as luck would have it, their preferred time for urinary exercise was just as I was tucking in to my 10-euro Monarchaise dinner treat – a very tasty Lancashire Hotpot.
If you think it’s a long walk from the plane to the meeting point at the new Alicante airport, try flying into Manchester’s Terminal 2. I wore out three pairs of shoes getting to passport control, where I finally raised my first smile of the night.
No queue to show my passport – and a delightfully eccentric Sikh midget with a high-pitched voice directing everyone at full volume.
It’s not so bad after all, I thought as I jumped into daughter Lisa’s car for the 15-mile motorway drive home. At 11.30pm, we’d be there in a quarter of an hour.
Don’t you believe it! Within ten minutes of leaving the airport we were stuck in a solid queue of traffic stretching across the M60-M61 interchange. As ever, UK traffic jams can strike at any time of day or night. The British traffic is truly terrific.
It was lovely to see the home I lived in for 30 years still standing, if somewhat weather-beaten. But it was the police car in next door’s drive that threw me.
It turned out the neighbours had been burgled earlier in the evening by cheeky villains who had then done a bunk in the family Merc. Unfortunately they hadn’t bothered to raid my place as well.
Unfortunately? Well yes, they are welcome to what little of value remains in the house, particularly the 42 inch plasma TV, which has a colour problem that will cost more to repair than to buy a new one.
The guarantee has run out so I’m saddled with it as it is…unless it is stolen and then replaced by the insurance company.
Anyone know a good, honest colour-blind burglar?
