Canada: 05-09-25 Day 1 - The best laid plans….!

What a malaver! Honestly, the things you have to do a few days before you arrive at the airport even though you’ve already done it such as ….a) check-in to the flights adding all your passport details again, even though these were all entered on booking b) ArriveCAN customs declaration with passport details, even though they’ve got all this information up front and so it goes on! Honestly it was a two-woman job to get it done!

So, all up to date with the paper work it was time to concentrate on our favourite task of going on holiday….the dreaded packing. It had certainly been a busy week leading up to the day of our departure, more so for Maice who was working well into the evenings so she was glad to take up the offer from Jane to come and collect Sir Winston on the Thursday evening thus giving her a chance to pack in peace. Poor Winston had already had a traumatic week what with myself and Jane taking him out for the day on Tuesday to Wareham which unbeknownst to us they were ‘firing’ on the ranges at Lulworth which didn’t go down well with Winston who couldn’t stop shaking, he was that traumatised. So on Thursday afternoon, even though Maice hadn’t yet started to pack for herself, she had to pack for Winston who immediately suspected something was afoot, went into panic mode, wouldn’t eat his supper and clung to her like a limpet until Jane came to pick him up.  He was bundled into the car with all his worldly possessions albeit that Jane had to do an about turn as Maice had forgotten his doggy bed and with that Jane was given a ‘doggy bag’ of his uneaten supper and set off to Wool where Winston will be spending his holidays in the company of Jane and Mike, where no doubt he will be more spoilt than he already is!

As far as packing goes, Maice, being under the influence of severe tiredness and needing her bed sooner rather than later just ‘shoved everything in her case’ whilst for me, I took the leisurely route to packing at a ‘go-with-the flow’ pace, which did take up the whole evening.

We were leaving at 9am for our 4pm flight to Canada. We needed to be there four hours beforehand, so adding in the journey to the airport, a wee and a coffee stop on the way and navigating ourselves to the parking lot we thought a 9am start would be sufficient.  Other than being a tad tired leading up to our getaway we were quite healthy albeit my back continues to ache and Maice reports that she did wake up this morning with a niggling tooth ache which hopefully won’t get any worse as the holiday progresses!

On time, I picked Maice up at 9am and we headed off to Sainburys (other Petrol/Supermarkets are available) to fill up with petrol and well, who should we bump into but our friend Sue McG who we haven’t seen in a long while and who was looking particularly lovely. After a speedy catch-up we said our goodbye’s, promised to meet up and headed off to Costa Coffee (and yes other coffee houses are available) where we ordered our coffees ‘to go’ plus two cheese twists…and why not, we’ve a long day ahead of us.  Well Costa you didnt disappoint, we thoroughly enjoyed that coffee and it was just what we needed for our journey.

As you all know, our track record of getting to any destination without getting lost is pretty dire, and lets be perfectly honest about this, its usually Maice who leads us astray because she is more often than not in the passenger seat and has the task of navigating us to our destinations without any deviation, illegal u-turns, traversing the same roundabout on numerous occasions or not reading the directions properly but on this occasion Maice surpassed herself and did an admirable job in getting us to Heathrow Airport T2 Holiday Extras L4 Bay B without any of the above occurrences. Just goes to show, it can be done!

Once inside the airport of course, in the past we have been challenged by the ‘do-it-yourself’ approach to everything and have needed assistance but, once again we surpassed ourselves and sailed through check-in and security although the large playing cards that usually get pulled aside and ‘frisked’ were substituted for a small hand-held mirror in Maices hand luggage, also pulled aside and ‘frisked’.  On the ‘other side’ in Departures we found the drinking fountain, replenished our water bottles and headed off to look around the shops. Five minutes later we found ourselves in the bar with 2 x larges glasses of Pinot Grigio.  The shops, Louis Vuitton, Dior, Versace, Tiffany, Gucci were totally out of our price range so we didn’t even bother going in and when we were looking for somewhere to have a drink the ‘Le Cafe Louis Vuitton’ was so overpriced at £29.00 for one glass of 125ml wine that we ended up in the ‘Big Smoke’ Bar where our two large Pinots cost £21…..for 2!

The plane to Toronto was on time, taking just under seven hours where we had a two hour lay-over, then a five hour flight to Kelowna. Well, all we can say is that the seven hour flight to Toronto took so long it felt more like ten hours. Honestly, the time just dragged despite watching numerous movies and mini-series. Maice ended up being a real fidget, not able to get comfortable whereas I binge-watched the mini-series Chernobyl, and although not a particularly cheery programme for a holiday it was an excellent watch. I’m hoping to watch the final two episodes on the return flight.

Having landed in Toronto on time we successfully navigated ourselves through ‘flight connections’ to the departure lounge for the second stage of our trip. We were a tad peckish and as no food is included on this flight we decided to buy some sushi which we thought we’d eat on the plane. The flight wasn’t particularly busy and we both had aisle seats with no other person in my row and one woman at the window seat in Maice’s row. The cabin crew, having made what we thought were the final checks, and boarding completed before closing the doors, we came up with a plan. I would move to the window seat in my row and Maice would sit in my seat thereby giving us a free seat in the middle. So, ten minutes before departure this guy gets on, walks down the plane towards the back where we were sat, of which beyond us there were numerous empty seats and he stops at our row and says ‘that’s my seat’ the window seat I had moved to. Of all the empty seats to be had on the plane we happened to be sat in his!  Anyway the upshot was, Maice moved back to her seat and he sat in the seat that Maice had just vacated which was my original seat because he said he was going to move to an extra-leg room seat three rows in front which the flight attendants said he could do after take-off when the seat-belt signs had been switched off. We were up in the air, the seat-belt signs had been switched off and I expected this guy to move so that Maice could then vacate her seat but when I looked over he was asleep. I don’t mean just asleep, he was dead to the world asleep. I poked him a few times and spoke to him but there was no response. He spent the whole trip in that seat asleep, making it difficult for me and Maice to converse with each other, have our sushi and more to the point for me to go to the loo! I managed to wake him up 30 minutes before landing as I was desperate and when I returned from the loo he was fast asleep again. When I eventually woke him up I told him to move over to the window seat and I took residence in my original seat and all was well with the world, apart for him who had fallen straight to sleep again, dead to the world!

It had been a very long day and we were glad to see Myrna at the airport albeit we did have to go looking for her in the carpark due to her having taken the wrong turning into the airport due to there being road-works! We made it back to Myrna’s place at 11.15pm and eventually got to bed sometime after midnight. Yes, we can honestly say it’s been a very long day.….we’ve literally crammed 26 hours into one day and it’s still only Friday, just!

On that note, let’s hope we get a good nights sleep and don’t wake up with jet lag!

M&A xx