The alarms rang out at the unearthly hour of 3.15am and Maice and I made our way into the kitchen to wait for the others to appear but they were already there, sat round the table drinking coffee. We spent our last ten minutes reminiscing, on fast forward, our holiday moments and what a great time we’ve had. Considering Maice had never met Mark or Brian before and none of us had holidayed together as a group we got on so well and literally laughed our way though the holiday.
Who can forget our innovative headgear on New Year’s Eve or our serenading violinist on the wine tasting cruise or that walk up the hill every evening or the ‘millions’ of additional steps we’ve walked trying to get from A to B. We can honestly say we’ve kicked off 2018 in style.
Soon it was time to wave them goodbye, Mark, Pearl, Brian and Dianne, making sure they had their ‘packed breakfast’ with them, and with that we went back to our beds, set our alarms for 6.30am and hoped we’d get back to sleep. Of course, it wasn’t to be, we were too wide awake. I think we must have dozed off at 6am and waking up with the alarm at 6.30am we felt more tired than we had when we woke at 3.15am!
Soon we too were in a taxi on the way to the airport, the driver seemed to have a sticky phone as it was glued to his ear the full journey. Five calls he either made or answered and when he had to make a gear change it was ‘look no hands’ as both hands came off the steering wheel at the same time!
We fared no better at the airport. We went in search of the machine to print off our boarding cards hunting high and low for one with the Ryanair logo. We asked a few members of staff who were most unhelpful and eventually were told that as Ryanair hadn’t paid their bills we couldn’t use the machine. Great, now what. An urgent regroup was required. Crisis talks were held, a conflab ensued and Maice, who’s more savvy than me when it comes to IT spent the next thirty minutes trying to download the Ryanair App onto her phone in order to download our boarding cards. Finally success and with that we made it through customs, unfortunately Maice’s bag didn’t due to there being an unidentified jar of liquid in there . Of course, it was Jane’s honey. Why had we not thought of that when we purchased it at the Grand Market? It was 250ml and of course you’re only allowed 100ml in hand luggage. There was nothing for it, it was confiscated and ended up in the bin. A perfectly good jar of honey. We were gutted, but we’ve had to park the episode in the ‘control dartboard’. Sorry Jane, no honey for you I’m afraid!
We sat in the departure lounge and ate our cheese puff pastries washed down with a couple of bottles of fizzy water, looking forward to our bottle of Prosecco on the plane. It took forever to board the flight, our legs were aching and it was hot, but finally we were seated and soon up in the air. We were looking forward to tucking into our breakfast rolls and bottle of Prosecco but they’d run out of Prosecco so we had to resort to white wine instead. I must say, those rolls were absolutely gorgeous and to think it was a team effort that went into the making of those.
It seemed a long flight and we were glad when we landed, had picked up the car and were on the road back to Dorset and home....back to our own comfy beds and proper quilts. What bliss.
Well, that’s it folks. We left 2017 behind in Hungary and entered 2018 still in Hungary. We’ve had a belly full of laughs along the way, we’ve eaten lots, we’ve drunk lots, we’ve made our own entertainment and we’ve ‘gone with the flow’. Whatever 2018 brings, we’re ready for it!
Happy days and Happy 2018 xxxxxx