Up, Up and Away!

Friday 07/04/2023 - 0847hrs

 We got up a little earlier than usual this morning. I guess we are a bit excited about our trip to the Netherlands.  Like children going to Disneyland! Only our theme park consists of windmills and tulips and dykes and cheese! 

Elizabeth is so well organised that there is very little to do in the way of packing. I have carried our cases downstairs and we only need to add our iPads before we go.

So we will follow our usual morning routine and have breakfast before doing our Duolingo language courses - Dutch for me and Spanish for Elizabeth. 

We are going to forego our morning walk today.  This is a very rare event which only happens perhaps twice a year.  But we figure we will make up the steps with all the walking at the airports and stations on our journey.

We are leaving for the airport 40 minutes earlier than we had originally planned as there are some concerns about holiday traffic.  According to Google there will be about a 15 minute addition to our driving time and that could get worse as the day progresses.  So better safe than sorry we are now leaving at 1230. All these drivers must be hunting for Easter Eggs! 

1427hrs
Well here we are at Heathrow.  We are very early for our flight! I suppose that is infinitely better than being late for it. All has gone smoothly so far. Although security did think that the assembly tools for Elizabeth’s reading lectern were a risk. An Alan key and a spanner looked suspicious on the scanner. So she had to open the case.  Luckily a supervisor realised that two 76 year olds did not pose a risk. 

But I shouldn’t joke about it, it’s important that they are thorough with these checks. 

Now we are relaxing until it’s time to go to our departure gate. We went for a drink at a very noisy pub bar.  But all good. Just waiting to know our gate number. 

1737hrs

We are on board our plane which was supposed to depart at 1710.  But the truck pushing the plane back from the gate has broken down and we have to wait for a maintenance crew. Apparently this could take some time as they have to go through the full security process and that is very busy today. So we are sat here on the runway waiting….

2313hrs. Wormer.

We eventually arrived at our apartment here at about 2200 having been met by Yolande and Leo. There had been some further delays with immigration and baggage collection.  Plus some confusion over trains. 

So we are both pretty exhausted now and looking forward to a bit of relaxation and a good night’s sleep. 

Our holiday begins for real tomorrow.

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