Skiathos Six, June/July 2016
Jul 10, 2016 6:58:17 GMT
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Woody (Admin), kelso, and 1 more like this
Post by dennisn on Jul 10, 2016 6:58:17 GMT
Back home - and so to round it off. .....
Our Birmingham flight was slightly delayed, but only about half an hour or so. The departure board in departures lounge was quite ill, so all the information was broadcast over the loudspeaker system and consequently practically unintelligible. We didn't have last September's hassle. They've changed the routine. You checkin and have your luggage weighed (our scales were accurate for a change and they didn't weigh hand baggage). You then get your cases back to put through the scanner, which discharges them directly onto the conveyor belt for loading - I wished ours a pleasant flight, saying I'd see them in Birmingham.
We didn't risk going to Desires taverna, instead had a sandwich and drink in the upstairs lounge which has been upgraded to quite swish, with tables and a snack bar. That snack bar has the most miserable young lady I have ever met, but I suppose meeting hundreds of rude foreigners must have some impact in her day! And so we went into departure lounge early enough to avoid any panic queueing. Once on the plane, the air con had the girl next to Vera immediately put on a padded anorak and Vera had to snuggle up to me (lovely!) to try and warm up. An hour into the flight, they turned it off and the girl sweated!
Now for a small rant. When the flight boarding was announced "in five minutes at gate 3, we were not alone in being in the wrong seats, needing to get from the door at gate 1. There were two wheelchair passengers there too. Their partners bullied their way through everybody to pass forward right to the front of gate 3, where they were held aside and eventually boarded last. On the plane, it turned out one couple had booked seats right in the doorway and the very big man with stick was prevented from taking his as you can't have disabled passengers restricting the emergency exits, so there was quite a ferfuffle to put him in a different row.
When e landed at Birmingham, despite having been loaded from a wheelchair, he was up and out of his seat to get off the plane just in front of us, then he walked the whole way out hardly using his walking stick. Why rant? Because I once went to meet a friend couple, father and son, who declared airport wheelchair assistance in order to get personal movement. It worked for their outbound flight, but on return there weren't enough wheelchairs at Heathrow and they were stuck on the plane for nearly an hour waiting for wheelchairs. Both of them had blue badges, but were perfectly capable of the necessary walking. The guy on our flight obviously was pulling the same trick - he was even wearing a backpack hand baggage. Having a severely disabled brother, I am quite fanatic about abuse of disabled facilities and this makes me annoyed when I heard other passengers in Birmingham wondering out loud how that man had transformed - he even pushed to the baggage carousel to pick up their cases!
Anyway, Birmingham airport maintained its dreadful reputation for arrivals. First, the super-fast e-passport gate refused to accept Vera's passport even though the Border Agency bloke who was helping everybody with problems came to fix it, so she had to go to a man at a desk. Then the long walk to carousel 4, which hooted and started to turn, completely devoid of any suitcases. After five minutes it stopped, then hooted again and started up, producing two lonely bags which nobody claimed! Then a decent flow of baggage, of course not with ours. Stop, wait ten minutes, hoot, start again, watch al the other cases. Ours eventually arrived three quarters of an hour after we landed. It has always been thus at Birmingham, the one sour note if our holiday, particularly frustrating because our flight lands at about 3:15pm, which with a decent offload would get us out and away down the M42 ahead of the rush. But with that delay, we join the rest of the world plodding through the M42 like slugs. Friday is, of course, the day when all the other drivers in the world want to go past Bristol to the South West of England.
And we arrived home. With 63 days to go until we next arrive at Villa Maria in Troulos. Writing this on my iPhone (so who knows what predictive text has done to my best efforts!) in bed, snuggled into the duvet, with all my clouts uncasted!
To be continued (in a different thread) in September.
Our Birmingham flight was slightly delayed, but only about half an hour or so. The departure board in departures lounge was quite ill, so all the information was broadcast over the loudspeaker system and consequently practically unintelligible. We didn't have last September's hassle. They've changed the routine. You checkin and have your luggage weighed (our scales were accurate for a change and they didn't weigh hand baggage). You then get your cases back to put through the scanner, which discharges them directly onto the conveyor belt for loading - I wished ours a pleasant flight, saying I'd see them in Birmingham.
We didn't risk going to Desires taverna, instead had a sandwich and drink in the upstairs lounge which has been upgraded to quite swish, with tables and a snack bar. That snack bar has the most miserable young lady I have ever met, but I suppose meeting hundreds of rude foreigners must have some impact in her day! And so we went into departure lounge early enough to avoid any panic queueing. Once on the plane, the air con had the girl next to Vera immediately put on a padded anorak and Vera had to snuggle up to me (lovely!) to try and warm up. An hour into the flight, they turned it off and the girl sweated!
Now for a small rant. When the flight boarding was announced "in five minutes at gate 3, we were not alone in being in the wrong seats, needing to get from the door at gate 1. There were two wheelchair passengers there too. Their partners bullied their way through everybody to pass forward right to the front of gate 3, where they were held aside and eventually boarded last. On the plane, it turned out one couple had booked seats right in the doorway and the very big man with stick was prevented from taking his as you can't have disabled passengers restricting the emergency exits, so there was quite a ferfuffle to put him in a different row.
When e landed at Birmingham, despite having been loaded from a wheelchair, he was up and out of his seat to get off the plane just in front of us, then he walked the whole way out hardly using his walking stick. Why rant? Because I once went to meet a friend couple, father and son, who declared airport wheelchair assistance in order to get personal movement. It worked for their outbound flight, but on return there weren't enough wheelchairs at Heathrow and they were stuck on the plane for nearly an hour waiting for wheelchairs. Both of them had blue badges, but were perfectly capable of the necessary walking. The guy on our flight obviously was pulling the same trick - he was even wearing a backpack hand baggage. Having a severely disabled brother, I am quite fanatic about abuse of disabled facilities and this makes me annoyed when I heard other passengers in Birmingham wondering out loud how that man had transformed - he even pushed to the baggage carousel to pick up their cases!
Anyway, Birmingham airport maintained its dreadful reputation for arrivals. First, the super-fast e-passport gate refused to accept Vera's passport even though the Border Agency bloke who was helping everybody with problems came to fix it, so she had to go to a man at a desk. Then the long walk to carousel 4, which hooted and started to turn, completely devoid of any suitcases. After five minutes it stopped, then hooted again and started up, producing two lonely bags which nobody claimed! Then a decent flow of baggage, of course not with ours. Stop, wait ten minutes, hoot, start again, watch al the other cases. Ours eventually arrived three quarters of an hour after we landed. It has always been thus at Birmingham, the one sour note if our holiday, particularly frustrating because our flight lands at about 3:15pm, which with a decent offload would get us out and away down the M42 ahead of the rush. But with that delay, we join the rest of the world plodding through the M42 like slugs. Friday is, of course, the day when all the other drivers in the world want to go past Bristol to the South West of England.
And we arrived home. With 63 days to go until we next arrive at Villa Maria in Troulos. Writing this on my iPhone (so who knows what predictive text has done to my best efforts!) in bed, snuggled into the duvet, with all my clouts uncasted!
To be continued (in a different thread) in September.
Ps how they doing Dennis, they are very pretty gnashers has to be said 