We had breakfast in the hotel this morning, and then it was just a case of packing bags for our journeys back. I always find that dead time before flights a strange realm, a sort of "no man's land" in time.
Dan would be flying back to Gatwick, leaving Leonardo da Vinci Airport at Fiumicino at 13:00. My flight to Stansted would be at 14:00 from Ciampino Airport. I waved Dan off as he climbed into his taxi to the airport, sorted out my gear, and left an hour later. My taxi driver had ambitions of being a Formula 1 driver, we almost flew down to the airport.
After the dreary business of checking in and squeezing through security, I found myself sitting in the departure lounge reading a text message from Dan. Due to the high winds being experienced in the UK, air traffic control were delaying flights. As he sat on his plane or the tarmac, his captain advised they would have to wait for an hour before take-off. I prepared for the inevitable delay too.
My delay was just 20 minutes, and soon I was a few miles up looking down on the Cap Corse Peninsula jutting out from the northern end of Corsica. The flight was uneventful, but I was aware of buffeting as the captain fought our aircraft down through high winds.
As I waited in the long passport control queue, I received another text from Dan. I expected him to be on a train by now, well on the way home. No he was not, he was still on the tarmac at Rome. After their one hour delay, his plane taxied towards the runway, but a sensor on a cargo door raised an alarm. This resulted in the plane being pushed into a separate parking bay, and then engineers crawling around the cargo doors to rectify the problem. While doing this, the engines had to be switched off, and that meant the air-conditioning too. Passengers were now getting exceedingly hot cooped up on the plane, and it was obvious those passengers who were intending to take connecting flights would be disappointed.
My daughter Katie and two granddaughters collected me from the airport, the wind almost ripping the door off her car. We were driving past Colchester when yet another message came in from Dan, his plane was about to take off. I felt sorry for the lad, I was passing his final destination having left the hotel in Rome an hour later.
Katie and the girls delivered me to my home safely. Great, I could relax, put my feet up and enjoy the cooler climate. Then Katie piped up, "Dad, can Erin have a sleep-over?" I succumbed, and she produced a bag of clothes ready packed for Erin's sleep-over. C'est la vie! Back to earth with a bang.
