19 September 2017 (Tuesday) - Coming Home

One last brekkie at the hotel… I’ve rather got used to having a “full Greek” every morning. Having stuffed myself silly we went back to our apartments to pack. It was surprising how long it took to round up all my errant odds and ends and get them back into the case.

And with our stuff together we dumped it into "My Boy TM"’s room (as we didn’t have to be out of that room until much later), did the formal checking-out thing, and then spent the morning slobbing by the pool alternately swimming and doing crossword puzzles.
A late lunch was a toasted cheese sandwich at the beach bar, a shower, then we sat about waiting for the arrival of the coach to take us to the airport. It arrived, we loaded up, and we set off. Ten minutes early.
I wonder if anyone else had been hoping to get that coach?

Kos is a small island; we got to the airport in about twenty minutes and had done all the passport and luggage nonsense within another twenty minutes.
Then the boring bit started. Gatwick airport had lots of shops; Kos’s airport had three. One sold poncey perfumes, one was a vastly overpriced burger stall, and one sold pretty much anything you can get in the high street but at three times the price.
It was a shame that they were giving out comprehensive tourist guides; we could have done with those on the way in.

I slept in the waiting area for an hour or so until it was time to get onto the plane. There was then a frankly ridiculous system in which enough people were allowed through a gate to fill a bus. Said bus then drove a hundred yards to the plane, unloaded everyone and drove back again. It would have been far quicker to have everyone walk to the plane.
As we boarded the plane I did snigger. The aisle was blocked by some bloke who was standing with a shamefaced expression whilst his wife nagged from her seat. After a couple of minutes, the bloke in the queue in front of me swore under his breath then announced to the man very loudly “You! Sit Down!” And once the chap had sat the irate fellow then (equally loudly) announced to the wife “Now carry on nagging him!”.
I did chuckle.

To be fair we did get airborne a lot quicker on the way home than we did on the way out. After an hour or so spent reading a book about the Kray twins I needed a tiddle. As I walked to the loo I noticed that pretty much everyone on the plane was asleep. Once tiddled I sat back in my seat and woke an hour or so later to find the plane lights had been turned off. Everyone was sleeping.

We arrived at Gatwick on time; at 9.25pm local time. We had the obligatory passport and luggage performance and was out in fifty minutes. Far faster than on the way in.
Having said our goodbyes to everyone else we took the shuttle bus to the long-stay car park to get my car. The woman on the counter was far better than the idiot to whom I’d given my key, and I got the key back in seconds.
My car was a hundred yards away; I had been expecting the worst. But my car was fine. Mostly. From the mileage I could see that it had been driven from the drop-off to the storage bay and no more. But whoever had driven it had adjusted absolutely every single thing they could have adjusted. The seat’s position and posture were wrong for me, as were all of the mirrors. Bearing in mind it had only been moved a hundred yards was there any need to adjust anything?

Pausing only briefly for McScoff at Clackett Lane services we were home just before midnight. I was so pleased to see my dogs.

Fudge has lost weight…


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