Back in the USSR

I decided to sneak back across the border into the UK for Christmas and New Year. I had it all worked out. Flights booked, lifts arranged.

By chance I went on the Internet early in the morning on the day of my departure. A brief look at Toulouse airport flights showed me that planes seemed to be arriving and departing as per normal, with only one flight cancelled. I was going to leave it at that, but something made me click on page 4, where my flight was listed. Cancelled. Well that was okay then.


CAncELLED!! There must be some mistake. On to the EasyJet website and I got a message that said that my flight had been cancelled due to the weather.


We had had about an inch of snow a few days before, and I know that Bristol had not snow. I managed to change my flight to the following day, but this meant that I would not be able to catch my next flight, Bristol to Inverness as I would not arrive in Bristol in time.


I should have just left my Inverness flight alone, but I changed it to a date later in the year. Admin charge £50. As it turned out the flight was cancelled very close to departure, so I would have been able to transfer it to another date for free.....


In the event it was lucky that I did not get to Inverness, as the airport remained closed for many days and only reopened the day that I flew back to France. The papers carried a story of a lighthouse-keeper’s wife who had gone to Inverness to buy a turkey for Christmas dinner, who was still stranded in Inverness 15 days later.


Half way through the holiday, S knackered her back so more travelling was not an option. Fortunately we had managed to visit the Clark's Village shopping outlet at Street, before her back went, and also a trip to Dunelm (soft furnishings) and PCWorld (1.5 Tb external drive) so the essential shopping was covered.


The flight back to France was uneventful, except that we arrived about 2 hours late. The plane had had to find cabin crew from other flights to man our plane. Then the baggage took 35 minutes to arrive......


I hate driving in the dark. At least it wasn’t snowing or raining.


Which reminds me. There are all sorts of madness in this world, and a lot of it happens in the UK. Every New year’s day the life saving club at Clevedon, put on their Victorian swimming gear and take a dip in the sea.


This year was no exception and I met up with H and D by the Marine lake to watch human ice cubes being made. They were about 10 minutes late coming out of the pub, where they had got changed. This was very inconsiderate as I had not put on a hat, scarf or gloves, it was freezing cold, and there was a biting breeze.


They marched out of the pub and down to where we were standing. It was time for them to have a sing-song. Then it was time to sing Auld lang Syne.

Would they ever get into the sea so that we could return home to thaw out?

Then they set off towards the sea and entered the dirty water of the Bristol Channel which was glinting invitingly in the sunshine. The water looked blue. The day before it had been its usual muddy brown colour. The hills in the background are in Wales, the other side of the Bristol Channel.

The photos above were taken by D and H as my camera batteries died.  To see 12 photos taken by the local newspaper look here

Happy New Year everyone!

I am slightly miffed that the UK government did not offer me £3k to leave the country. If I had been Albanian it would probably have been a different story. Am I a victim of discrimination?