Day 21 of Romance Holiday
July 20, 2012

We are all safely home. I wondered yesterday when I said I would write a concluding post today whether I would have anything to write about given it would just be the flight but there was some action (as there always seems to be on flights). Michael and I were settled into our seats when the airhostess approached me to ask whether I would mind swapping seats. The reason was that my seat was the only one that could accommodate a bassinet for a baby. And there was one in the cabin with us. I first thought was one of annoyance because I was thinking why on earth do they even allow babies in First Class but then I remembered that Helen and I used to travel with our kids as babies in business class. My second thought was that the baby was more likely to sleep if I let them have a bassinet. So after some complicated rearrangement I ended up across the aisle from Michael and I vacated my seat.

I was expecting a young (good looking and grateful) mother to come with her baby to my seat. Boy was I surprised when it turned out to be a 60 something grey-haired male who pitched up with a 1.5 year old little girl. Hardly a baby (she was toddling already). Anyway, he was grateful and I hoped it meant less disruption for everyone. I was wrong. At 3am the ‘baby’ woke up and shrieked for about 5 minutes. She was clearly finished sleeping at that point and so the cabin crew came to dismantle the bassinet. That turned out to be harder than they thought and it seemed to take 30 minutes while they flashed a torch around, bashed and banged and then eventually it stopped. By this stage I was wide awake as even my noise cancelling headphones couldn’t keep all that noise out. I was awake for at least an hour before eventually drifting off to sleep again only to be woken up at 5:45am (UK time) when they turned on the cabin lights so that they could feed us breakfast before we landed.

The flight was relatively bumpy the whole night as well so it wasn’t a great night of sleep. Helen and co on the flight behind us also experienced a similarly bumpy flight so at least we knew it wasn’t our plane only (or the pilot having some fun at the controls overnight). We landed in CT to be met by rain which is fitting given that it rained 19 days out of 20 while we were away. It is much colder in CT than Europe though and boy does it get dark early here! We are used to the long evenings with the sun setting at 10pm. Not that we have to get used to the cold and short days for long. Not that I want to gloat or anything but Helen and I head back next Wednesday pm for London to watch a small event being held next Friday pm in London. I might be tempted to post a blog or two about the experience. If not then, my next blog will be in Sept/October when we go to get our annual fix of game viewing and birding.

Until then …

4 thoughts on “Day 21 of Romance Holiday

  1. Morning Peter,

    I would expect to hear all the news of the UK next week and would be really disappointed if you chose not to write.

  2. And so, that’s that. Thank you so much for taking Lara along with you on your family holiday. She had an amazing time for which we will be forever grateful. Bryan and Sharon.

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