We’re home at last, but oh, what a malaver it’s been to get here! It all started this morning......!
Maice went out like a light when we got back to the room last night but I stayed up to finish the daily blog. Well, can you believe it, this massive argument ensued outside our door between this french lady with a very piercing voice and the hotel Night Manager. I thought it was going to end in fisty-cuffs as both were shouting so loud I really did wonder how this fracas was going to be resolved. The answer to that was it wasn’t. The night manager stormed off and the french lady returned to her room banging doors as she went. Maice was dead to the world, sleeping peacefully, must still be jet-lagged but I still had to finish the blog as there wouldn’t be time in the morning due to our early start.
We actually woke before the dogs started their morning chorus having set our alarms for 6.00am. Mind you I was awake at four o’clock in anticipation of Jess Glynn waking me up to ‘hold my hand’ like she usually does. I really must change the wake-up alarm call to someone else next time. Previously I’ve had Kyle Minogue singing ‘Better the Devil’ and Pharrell Williams singing ‘Happy’.
We queued outside the restaurant waiting for it to open at 7am and yes, we were the first to enter the breakfast room. Well that’s never happened before. Before we knew it Maice had received a text from the taxi driver telling her he was in reception and that was it, we were off.
Security as always at the airport was a bit of a mad rush. Coats off, boots off, liquids out, necklaces off, laptops out, you know how it is, and all items placed in the tray. Then there’s the uncomfortable wait after you’ve gone through the x-ray machines hoping the trays with all your stuff travels along the conveyor belt on your side of the screen and not the other way to be examined! Fortunately for us all our stuff made it on the right side, now that’s another first!
After coffee we found two seats near one of the gates for a people watching session. We’d forgotten to bring our playing cards with us so people watching was the next best thing. It always amazes us how some ‘cabin’ baggage actually makes it through as ‘cabin’ baggage and that some people take the correct sized cabin baggage and a handbag and get told to put the handbag into their cabin baggage and others aren’t told to do this, like when we were at Bristol airport. Just before boarding the plane at the last check we were told we had to put our bags into our cabin baggage, and because we always do as we’re told, we did just that, only to take it straight out again when we sat down. What a malaver! I can see an email being sent to Easy-jet complaining.....if they’re going to enforce a policy it needs to be enforced to everyone not just when they feel like it. Okay, rant over, our flight was on time at the time of looking that is, it was a different story when we were at the boarding gate as we waited well past our flight time until finally we got to board the plane only to be advised that the ground staff were on strike and it was touch-and-go as to what time the luggage would be loaded onto the plane and when they could get clearance etc. etc. We finally set off eighty minutes later, which wasn’t such a bad delay, it just felt long. I was sat next to this lovely couple, she’s a composer and he’s a writer so I had quite an interesting conversation with them about writing courses and was given some useful hints and tips to help me in my quest to write a sitcom.
Arriving to fog and drizzle we picked up JJ from the Silver Zone parking, plugged in SatNav Steve and set off. We wanted to reverse the route we took to get here, along part of the M5, but SatNav Steve had other ideas and wanted to take us across country so we made a collective decision to override his route and travelled along the M5. By this time we had the map-app on the iPhone engaged too and both were telling us to take the same route and turn off at J23. We knew we should have driven straight on to J25 but no, we decided to take their advice and took JJ on her first adventure which took us across the countryside on roads we’ve never been on beforehand. We were being guided to Street and Glastonbury, away from Dorchester so in the end we switched off both devices as they didn't seem to have a clue where they were going and took over. We got back home about 6.40pm having stopped off at the Sheaf of Arrows on the way home for fish and chips.
So we made it home in one piece having had an amazing holiday in Lisbon. What a lovely city, full of character, culture and excellent wines. We’d definitely recommend Lisbon to anyone looking for a city break that’s not too far away.....just two hours flight time from the South West of England.
Okay, so there we have it. Our holiday is over and its been fab-u-lous darlings! Until the next time in 2020......wherever it will take us!
Happy New Year to one and all..
M&A xx
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