In flight inconvenience

We arrived in good time for our plane to Malaga, and it departed on time. I was so relaxed, I dozed off once we were airborne. When I woke up, the refreshments trolley was on the move, and I needed to go to the toilet. We were sitting quite near the front, so I figured it wouldn't be long before the trolley had passed my seat, but the indicator light stubbornly stayed on 'occupied'. I asked the trolley steward if it going to be opened at all, and was told the toilet was out of order. True or not, the only person to go in and out of the loo was a bearded pilot, wielding a pass key. I got up to join the queue for the pair of toilets at the tail end, but the gangway was blocked by a second trolley, and the stewards seemed to be oblivious of the fact that there were several others like myself, looking uncomfortable and fidgeting, children and old people alike. 

An hour later the gangway finally cleared. Another passenger equally desperate appealed to the trolley steward to abandon a second round of refreshment orders to let people pass. It was an embarrassment for some passengers to ask, and an error on the part of the stewarding staff to give food and drink sales a higher priority than passenger comfort. I was awake long enough to follow pre flight announcements, and there was nothing said either in English or Spanish to warn passengers of the inconvenience, so that some might think ahead of trolley service. It was an unpleasant experience, and it's the first time that I've had cause for complaint about anything on a Vueling flight, whose staff are generally charming and considerate. What went wrong? Something amiss in training new staff perhaps?

The flight was early arriving. We were picked up by bus and ferried to the terminal, but the gate staff hadn't arrived, so we lost the ten minutes gained. But it was comfortably warm, and ten thirty at night so there was no point in getting grumpy. As soon as I was able, I tweeted about our on-board experience. Within the hour I received a tweeted reply directing me to the Vueling complaints website to make a report. It will be interesting to see how long it will take to respond.

Churchwarden Bill was there to meet us and take us to Fuengirola and 'Casa de la Esperanza', the Costa del Sol East chaplaincy house. How good it was to arrive at a now familiar place and relax with a cool beer and a chat before tackling one last thing before bed.

Another internet router had been installed since we were last here with a different 20 digit alphanumeric wi-fi password. I just couldn't get it right trying to connect my phone. There was no automatic set up button on this one! I switched to my Chromebook, entered the password monster correctly from a proper keyboard first go, taking care to cut and paste my effort to an email, to send myself, if successful. Then I could copy and paste it from the email to the phones and laptop I'd brought with me to cover every communications need while I'm away. It was quarter past one before I could finally relax into bed in the heat of the night ...

We woke early, breakfasted, and then went out food shopping. As I arrived home, fully laden, the front gate and doors were wide open, much to my surprise, as we'd locked up carefully. Churchwarden Linda and Peter her husband had arrived to stock the fridge ahead of our arrival, not realising that we'd come in on a late night Thursday flight, they'd mistaken the day. It was great to see them again, sit down and get an instant update over another cool beer. My, it's hot, 28C if not more, and humid, although there are breezes from the sea from time to time. Acclimatisation is going to take a little while, but it's good to be back again.