Coming home

Well, we laid in bed for about seven hours and slept fitfully, eventually getting up at four ahead of the alarms. Our taxi arrived at five to five and by twenty past we joined the check-in queue along with five hundred others taking one of four flights being handled by the Vueling desk staff all at the same time. The queue moved at a remarkably steady pace, with half a dozen desks open, and in twenty minutes we had deposited out bags and were on our way to the security queue, which took us another twenty minutes to get through. 

That was when I realised that I wasn't wearing my small wooden pectoral cross, bought in Thessaloniki in 1994. It has travelled everywhere with me since then, but this morning I guess it must have fallen on the floor in room 308 at Hotel Eliseos. There was nothing that could be done apart from phone the hotel reception desk, but I couldn't get through, perhaps because I was upset and used the wrong country code. I had to wait until we arrived home to call and leave a message on their answering service, plus a back up email.

The flight was full and twenty minutes late closing the doors. Perhaps because it was among the first out bound flights of the day, the pilot seemed to drive the aircraft rapidly along side runways where normally there's be a stately queue for take off. At ten to eight we took to the air, flying north west through mist and cloud as the sun was about to rise. Two hours and twenty minutes later we were touching down at Rhoose, having flown in to land from the West over St Athan air station for the first time I can recall. We phoned for a taxi from Dragon cabs in Barry, and were picked up fifteen minutes later. Home by half past ten, after a smooth journey, marred only by losing my cherished little cross.

I found two other small ones in my office drawer. With help from Clare and her jewellery equipment it was possible to enlarge a hole in the upper part of the cross, through which to hang a length of string. This for me isn't decoration but a statement about who I am and what my life is about. I'm not going to change this any time. I do hope the hotel gets my messages, and retrieves the original cross for me. 

We did a couple of loads of post travel clothes washing, responded to priority mail and messages, including a Windows 10 update for my office workstation, then after an improvised lunch, I went out and shopped for fruit and veg., then went into town to get a new CMOS battery installed in my watch, and acquire an new Post Office Money Card, as mine expires today. It only has a few euros left on it, but I found this kind of pre-pay currency card very useful this time around, and could afford to put fifty quid's worth of euros on it, from my recent earnings. 

After supper, we watched a 'Fake or Fortune' programme about the authentication of a Modigliani sketch  but both were rally too tired to take it in. How quickly the evening slipped by and left us ready for bed,