Heading home

December 29, 2006 by paul
Filed under: Uncategorized

We left my parents’ a little later than planned but still made it to the airport in good time, despite really strong winds as we crossed the moors. We checked in, had coffee, then said goodbye to mum and dad, and joined the first of the queues for security checks. Well, it wasn’t much of a check: “are you carrying any liquids?” Kerri says yes so the woman hands her a clear plastic bag to put them in, and we carry on. At the next check we put everything through to be scanned and Kerri puts the bag (now containing some hair/makeup stuff) in with her handbag and coat … and she passes straight through. I didn’t set off the metal detector but the guy still pats me down – it wasn’t very busy so I guess he wanted to look like he was doing something. Oddly enough no-one asked (either here or when we were leaving Toronto) about all the electronic gadgets in my rucksack.

After getting through check-in and security so quickly, we had a couple of hours to kill before departure, so we wandered the terminal shops. We picked up some scotch for Andy (to say thanks for looking after the Boys and the hassles with the new front door) and parked ourselves in the least disgusting seats we could find. Oh, Kerri cornered a guy and asked him where he got his England bag: laptopshop.co.uk, so it’s now on my wishlist

I think we finally boarded about half an hour late but, being as I make a point of ignoring the time when there’s nothing I can do about it, I’m not sure. We seemed to be on the plane a long time before we were finally pushed back; time enough for us to be moved to seats with even more leg room.

The first film was My Super Ex-Girlfriend (it was pretty bad – Kerri said it was a good thing we were flying west so she at least got those 2 hours back!) and then Big! Seriously, the 1988 film with Tom Hanks. How cheap can an airline get? It didn’t really matter – the projector was slightly out of focus and the image was too large for the screen, so in a way I’m glad they didn’t show any decent films.

The flight itself was very smooth and we touched down a little ahead of schedule. There was almost no queue at customs, so we thought we were on a roll and I called ahead to arrange to pick up our house keys. We should know though: never tempt fate. It took over an hour to get our “priority”-tagged bags, and I’d say well over 75% of the passengers were still waiting when we finally escaped baggage claim! There didn’t seem to be any problem (there certainly wasn’t any announcement of any) but shortly after we got there a few bags came through and then all four(?) carousels were empty – still going round but not a bag to be seen anywhere! It was like the baggage handlers had all decided to take a 45-minute break.