With
James on his way to house-and dog- sit we settled the pups, collected "My
Boy TM" and his tribe and (it has to be said)
against my better judgement set off on holiday. I didn’t want to go. I *hate* travelling, I detest aeroplanes, I
don’t like the heat, I get bored easily… If someone had offered to take my
place this morning I would happily have stayed at home.
But
this was part of "er indoors TM" birthday treat so I
sucked it up and off we went.
We
made good time to the airport, and dropped off my car in the long-stay car
park. The idea was I left the car and the keys with the car park people; they
would store my car and it would be waiting for me on my return. I wasn’t keen
on this holiday, and the nice man at “Summer
Special” (quite frankly) didn’t
know his arse from a hole in the ground. I wasn’t keen on leaving my car with
him, but by then it was too late.
We
got on the shuttle bus and we soon started the performance that is airport
security. Endless passport checks and
armed police marching around. On the one hand the nation had to be vigilant… on
the other hand anyone could rock up in a fishing boat at any beach in the
country and not be challenged.
We
met the rest of our gang (I seem to go
everywhere mob-handed) and we were soon scoffing the Full English in the
Wetherspoons, and washing it down with a couple of pints. Suitably replete we
then mooched around the shopping mall. Gatwick airport seems to be designed for
the sole purpose of separating people from their hard-earned cash.
I
sat down and had a doze; usually I get fed up with more than an hour or so’s
travelling, we’d left home five hours previously and still hadn’t got as far as
the plane.
Suddenly
there was excitement; our plane was boarding. We then trolled seemingly miles
to bundle onto the plane. The first chap to get on walked half a dozen steps
then started repacking all of his hand luggage in the aisle; effectively blocking
everyone else’s way.
Eventually
everyone was settled and we sat about waiting to be given the opportunity to
blast off. Apparently all things aeronautical had been somewhat complicated by
the French air traffic controllers going on strike today. But after another
hour we were airborne.
Flying
is dull.
Once
you *finally* get into the plane you
then sit about for ages waiting for take-off. There is two minutes of
excitement, then hours of boredom spent squashed like sardines and unable to
move. And the food… the in-flight magazine offered a cheese board. It looked
wonderful. We got one to share; there wasn’t enough there to feed a mouse. What
a rip off.
I
read a rather rubbish book about London gangsters for four hours before we
finally landed in Kos. But with the vagaries of international time zones a
four-hour flight took six hours. We piled into our transfer coach, and after a
little argument with the driver (who didn’t
like people touching their own cases) we were on our way.
It
was a shame that we went to everyone else’s hotels to drop them off before us;
we’d landed in the early evening but it was dark when we got to our hotel.
Check-in
went quickly, and we were in time for dinner. Having left home at 7am, we sat
down to eat at 8.45pm. Dinner was very good; there was a huge selection. And
after a little confusion in finding our rooms we thought we’d have a little
drinkie and an early night. However an all-inclusive holiday with three
cocktail bars was something like a red rag to a bull…
We
went to bed at 1am having taken a
few photos of the day.
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