We are really going to miss the sun as back home its been pretty damn cold and with some snow showers in places we understand. However at breakfast Noel took the light option and then we headed back to the room for the final piece of packing before leaving the Hotel. At 1045 we asked the guys to come and collect the luggage whilst Noel went down to pay the bill and then we waited for the transport to airport which had been organised by BA , we had expected a car and not a rattily old 8 seater bus and for the price it was disgusting.
I was aware there had been a flight delay with the aircraft leaving London and it turned out it was all due to the French Air Traffic Control, along with the rest of the French population going on strike due to intention of raising the retirement age which the workers don't want to do.. This meant that the aircraft was delayed leaving London and instead of its direct route over Normandy and down the west coast of Spain and Portugal and then on out in to the Atlantic but NO it had to fly down to Lands End in the UK and then a bit before turning South in the direction of the Canary Islands and this added about an extra hour and bit plus they left late. So Instead of the inbound flight arriving at just before 1300 and leaving at 14.00 it arrived at about 14.30 and left at approx. 16.00 with a four hour flight time.. We had spent our pre flight time in the Lounge which was a lot quieter and with the noise of several thousand people waiting for for their flights. The funny thing was though most other flights were not delayed even EasyJet to Manchester left on time???
The economy seating is rubbish with no seat movement and no food is served on board unless you pay 30 per cent extra to fly business class in the same economy seat , bloody rubbish really. For me and Jen we brought our own bread rolls so not so much of a problem but many people on board were strongly complaining to the crew how little food , if any was served on this long flight . Apparently if you do not pre-order food you can order on-board only it seems they had run out of sandwiches for people to buy and a lot of passengers were complaining to the on board staff.
We arrived back at Gatwick at around 2000 and were staggered how quick it was from the time we left our seats, thro immigration and collect suitcases was abut 25 minutes which I thought was very good. The Taxi was waiting for us and we were leaving the airport shortly 2030 and were getting home at around 21.15 and I was able to watch the last 35 minutes of the game , it was great to see the team actually playing.and they won 2.0 with an aggregate of 2-1 over Borussia Dortmund.
And so back to our normal bed. It had been a very nice holiday and shame the weather was not better in the first week but at least this was quite good for touring with the car.
Well that's the last bit of blogging for a while..
