I stood around at Rennes airport for some 7 hours with hundreds of travelers, some in tears and others in rage. Me - I made a few people laugh at the silliness of it all. Why get too enraged with something one cannot change and out of our control. Most of us squirmed at the financial cost of going back home or staying in hotels that the airline would not pay for. Of course they wouldn't! The days of airline generosity disappeared with the ark! It was the weather and not their fault..........we all know it is NEVER their fault! It must have been awful for them, they couldn't even offer a drop of H20 or a stale croissant to settle the parched crowd. So the hours dragged on with monotonous repetition. I watched a sweet elderly couple wander out of the airport for the third day only to attempt it again tomorrow. Mobile phone companies rubbed their hands in glee at the mammoth amount of desperate calls filling the skies. My long awaited "delayed" flight became a cancelled flight and the fog thickened even more. We were not bogged in tons of snow, there was no storm, no iced up roads - just fog; and I thought planes used technology to land! I was wrong! Rennes airport was now CLOSED. My daughter and her beloved were stuck in London and I in countryside France. Half the world was stuck in airports all over Europe! Text messages flew busily around us like bees hovering around open blossoms. But somehow it did not seem that sweet - I was wondering if we could change Christmas to the summer months.....Hmmm! Like at HOME!
After some 6 hours of no water, no food and a slightly aching back from standing for HOURS in a queue, I managed to reach the counter to be confronted with the same young Air France girl who had "assured" me I would leave on time today. I made some sort of ironical joke that John Clease would be proud of, but her blank look obviously misunderstood my humor. Another half an hour of her frantic keyboarding passed before she offered me a bus to Nantes around 6pm later today and the "possibility" of a flight out of there tomorrow. WHAT! A two hour bus journey SOUTH to Nantes to fly to Paris CDG after overnighting there at my own cost and MAYBE an onward flight to Munich......MAYBE!!! Oh that's funny, VERY funny, are you bereft of all sensibility?!! My continued sarcasm disguised as humor washed over her unrecognised........so I chose the latter option of risking a whole new bunch of flights tomorrow from the same airport I was in now. NO guarantees of course. Was I a complete idiot to risk it again or just a hopeful soul wishing to reunite with loved ones? I decided on the latter and the lip curling thought of what Russel Brand would say at this point in time occurred to me but I refrained from attempting a saucy line.
So dear friends, at 6pm tonight, with the grace of my landlord who drove the long foggy drive a 2nd time to pick me up again, I have returned to my little cottage and "totally excited" at the prospect of attempting the whole enchilada again tomorrow........My fridge is empty but the fire is roaring now and I am going to find a can to open and slice the last apple left in the fruit bowl. My Dad has been rung and he is 'crossing everything he has' for my hopeful arrival around midnight tomorrow. He says he will chill a bottle of bubbly ready for us if I make it. I "think" my daughter and beau may have made it out of London but still not 100%.
So I am heading for the fire to put my feet up and tuck a hot water bottle into my back after doing absolutely NOTHING today. There should be a good movie!
Don't you just LURVE flying!!
Fingers crossed for a midnight champers snack tomorrow!!
I found this fabulous photo on the net so I could show you how the fog in Rennes was about DOUBLE as thick as this.........of course I couldn't take any pics as I was standing in a queue for hours..........
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