The Final Hurdle

After a great day's racing full of big smashes and close races KL and I spent a couple of hours chilling in the hotel before heading to the airport for our return flight to the UK. Chadders left earlier in the day on his flight home to Newcastle and, as the earlier blog entry states, successfully got home despite the snow. We weren't so lucky.....

We'd actually got to the airport, checked in and gone through passport control very quickly and were having a beer and some food prior to the flight. Suddenly the tannoy blared out that our flight was closing and it was calling for us by name to go to the departure gate. When we got there they'd announced that the flight had been cancelled and we had to go to ticket sales (via the baggage carousel to collect our checked in luggage) to sort out return flights.

It transpired that only about a dozen people had actually checked in and gone through passport control as they'd arrived early like ourselves - the remainder had been turned away before they checked in and were already queued up to rebook and reschedule their flight.

So, we waited in line for over 90 minutes to speak to the ticket desk....


We eventually got to the front of the queue to find that there were no other flights back to the UK that night. The following night's (Monday) Jet2 flight back to Leeds/Bradford was now full so we could either wait for Tuesday night's Jet2 flight or cancel the flight and book an alternative route.

So, with a sigh, we booked on a Monday morning BA flight to Heathrow at an extortionate cost and decided to take our chances on sorting out onward travel ourselves. A taxi took us back to the same hotel we'd left earlier in the day and we checked back in and even managed to get the same rooms we had previously.

Sat in the bar with a cold beer (we'd both been completely dry all day as we would have been driving home from the airport) we checked out possible travel arrangements from Heathrow and realised that there was a tube strike which would severely hamper us getting in to London and over to Kings Cross for the train back to Leeds. We decided on hiring a car, which we found at a reasonable price, had a quick night-cap and retired to bed.

The taxi to the airport the following morning went without a hitch, we checked in and went through passport control to wait patiently for the gate to open. So far, so good.....



Our flight was on time and got to Heathrow early. The plane was pretty big in fact it was a 2 x 3 x 2 width plane - proper BA, that's why! Free refreshments and a snack and we even got to sit across from a wrapped up Asian girl who looked a bit like one of those suitcases that's been encased in cellophane for protection - very bizarre!

Our car was ready and waiting for us at Eurocar but sadly it was only a Vauxhall Astra - KL was most dischuffed that it wasn't a Golf after all.

The journey back to Leeds/Bradford took three and a half hours and was very uneventful. We dumped the car and trudged to our respective car parks to collect our vehicles. Sadly, my car is a little bit poorly after being out in such bad weather for the last few days - it's not used to being so cold - but I managed to get it to limp home.....although a trip to the garage tomorrow is planned.....hope it doesn't make my weekend cost even more!!

So, all in all gentleman a most splendid weekend...roll on LM2011 and next years's RoC - I wonder where it will be !??!



....and finally, if we get treated like that again by a budget airline the Monkey King will leave a horse's head in their bed!