Getting home from Ireland, Mum and Dad do a rather nifty line in skirting round the volcanic ash cloud. The latest out pourings of the volcano no-one can spell or pronounce (except Sandi Toksvig) are driven south on Friday's winds and close the airspace above Gatwick and Dublin from 7pm on the Sunday till "at least 9am" on Monday, which then slips to "at least midday". Mum and Dad's flight home is scheduled for 12:40, so it's looking a bit grim - a bit close to the wire.
The Silverwoods and Mum and Dad are all starting to consider how "bad" it would be to miss a day's work, or even considering a plan-B which involved ferries and trains (and hours and expense) to get home if planes were out of action for days. Dad is also a bit concerned for us poor abandoned doggies.
On the Monday morning, though, the forecasts and news are still confidently predicting the skies re-opening at midday, so Mum and Dad set out from Co. Laois to Dublin to hand back the hire car and head for the airport. Their hearts sink as they enter the terminal building to see a sea of heads - a massed melee of frustrated delayed passengers. It looks like it will take days to clear that lot, not just hours.
But, the system is that if the skies re-open at midday, and you have a flight scheduled after that, you get to fly on time and the backlog filters into vacant seats as and when. So Mum and Dad are ushered out of the melee, out of one door and in another further down the terminal building, and straight to a queue for check in that's only 6 families deep. There is a small delay due to late inbound aircraft, but basically they are in the air by 14:00, on the ground at Gatwick by 14:55 and back indoors and being welcomed enthusiastically by us dogs by 15:00.
Result!
Deefski
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