General Chat

I used to take the amount of medication I needed when I travelled. Since the Icelandic eruption I make sure I take an extra week. Maybe I need to up that to two weeks.

Back in '63, I was in a group returning from France on a charter flight. On arriving at Beauvais Airport, we were informed that there were no flights until the next day, due to a French Air Traffic Controllers strike. Thanks to the local Chamber of Commerce we were put up at a hotel for the night at their expense.

Hubby and I and my sister and her youngest adult son were in Abbotsford,British Columbia when 911 happened

Fortunately we were staying with our sister and brother in law and it was the first week of our three week holiday

We had intended to cross the USA border the day before but changed it for a day as wanted to visit the local sand sculptures before they were swept away otherwise we would have been trapped in Seattle .

Every border shut down and airports closed .

We decided we couldn’t do anything but get on with our holiday and hope the situation eased ,

Brother in law worked at Vancouver airport anyway so was able to get constant updates and fortunately the flight we were booked on did fly at the booked time and we got seats .

We were on standby seats anyway as we had employee concessionary tickets meaning we weren’t guaranteed seats if the flights got overbooked.

Coming home though there spare seats as it was mostly brits returning home

I remember that. OH was having a staffing nightmare, those that made the effort got back and others just sat back and enjoyed the extra sun time.

OH and I were in The Algarve when the Iceland volcano erupted and all flights were cancelled until the dust cleared. We were OK as we had another 10 days of holiday, but a lot of people due home at the weekend (a couple of days) decided to make their way across Europe to the Channel ports.

Getting seats on crowded trains was almost impossible, and when they reached the north of France, they found that the ferries were all booked and most couldn't get on. They were a bit nearer home, but still stuck for days.

Meanwhile the air had cleared, flights had resumed and planes were half empty. In many cases, those who had stayed put got home before the ones who had tried to get home by ferry.

Thankfully this has never happened to us but if we were stuck on mainland Europe and needed to get home we wouldn’tt just be looking to Eurostar we would be looking at getting a ferry, but no one seems to consider that. You might not end up in the right part of the country but at least you back on home soil.

I forgot until writing that. Years ago we got dumped in Sheerness on a Sunday instead of Dover, which was 20 minutes from home. Managed to get a train into London and then out again.