December 1, 2010

  • Wednesday 1st Decemebr 2010

    Today is a mixture of sunny spells and cloudy periods, it is cool at 11C. It’s been much colder though, as well as dark and wet here in Spain since the weekend it has only been about 6C. I have been to the UK to collect my Mum for her holiday here and we only got back out of freezing Britain yesterday by the skin of our teeth.

     

    I had flown out Monday from Alicante where it was 6C, raining and very dark because of very dense cloud. We took off on time and climbed to a normal cruising altitude, but we didn’t fly out of the cloud and into clear sky for nearly half an hour, in fact we were almost to the Pyrenees before we flew out of the massive thick and high cloud.

     

    My Mum had sent a taxi to pick me up from Gatwick but was surprised when I arrived at her house about 1-30pm, we had landed early. It was 0 degrees in the London area on Monday. Unfortunately my Mums central heating had packed up Saturday, leaving her relying on two little halogen heaters for warmth. It had just been fixed when I arrived, but the house was an ice box, I have never been so cold for so long and I huddled in front of one of the heaters wrapped in a blanket, with my scarf, coat and gloves on……

     

    My sister came to visit us and we all went into West Byfleet for a late lunch, then we went back to my Mums house to rest before we had to leave at 4am for the flight back  to Alicante.

     

     

     

    Yesterday morning as the snow storm closed in on Gatwick and the M25 we were there. Fortunately it was about 4-30 am on the M25 and the snow hadn’t started to settle on the motorway, but at the airport it was a different story. Above is Bray Gardens at 4am, after this it snowed all day and night.....

     

     

     

     

    The aircraft were all covered in a layer of snow and the runway was covered in snow and ice. We boarded the aircraft on time, but then sat on the tarmac for over an hour and a half whilst both the plane and the runway were de-iced. We were one of the first aircraft to eventually take off, the rest became embroiled in an ever increasing series of delays until the airport was closed all together….. today it hasn’t even opened and will remain closed until at least tomorrow.

     

    Unfortunately my Mum wasn’t feeling at all well even before we left, but by the time we arrived here she was pretty wiped out and last night we were really worried about her. Today she is on the mend and a little better………

     

    I took Daphne the sat nav with me on the flight back and was really pleased that it worked jn the aircraft at 39000 feet…… On these flights I have always played a guessing game as to our position, but with Daphne I was able to see exactly where we were and the speed we were flying….  We flew very high yesterday so there was no turbulence and we had a good flight.