Problems at Heathrow?

England has not seen this much snow since 1960 something, it just keeps falling and falling. Driving up through the country to Brook Farm is seriously looks like the ideal white Christmas you see on cards at this time of year. Perfect for Christmas, not perfect if you are travelling.

I haven’t been home on Christmas day for the past two years, and didn’t want to miss it this year. Then the snow came. I stayed optimistic but deep down I was slightly concerned. Flight disruptions and airport closures began on Saturday. Tom and I were booked to fly on Tuesday. I kept my fingers crossed, but stopped enjoying each new snow fall.

The news constantly shared information about the chaos at the airports. 45,000 people stuck at Heathrow sleeping on the floors with emergency blankets. People stranded for days. This was not good news. Tom’s sister Sally got stuck in Paris for a night on her way back from Tanzania. Luckily she got a hotel to sleep in, and made it back the next day. Only not by plane, she shared a cab with a couple others to Calais and took the ferry to Dover where a friend was able to pick her up. I tried not to worry about the news; instead I worried about how to fit all of our clothes and presents into our suitcases without being overweight.

Monday night news reports said only go to the airports if your flight has been confirmed as only one third of flights were operating. We had already checked in online, but knew that didn’t mean much. With fingers crossed we check our flight right before bed. I was so pleased; our flight was as planned! Tom had also read they had finalised the flight scheduled for Tuesday at this point. This was as positive as I could have hoped for. Tuesday morning online it said the same, so to the airport we went.

Upon arrival the airport was more crowded than normal. They only let us inside the airport when we proved which flight we were on. Then we were led to the bag drop. There was a queue, but not much worse than I’ve seen at other times, and it moved quickly. Additionally, the airport was full of provisions and we got sandwiches whilst waiting to check our bags. Bonus! It might be bad to admit, but we were laughing, what problems? We made it through security with only a minor hiccup; Tom’s parents gave him a mini tool set with pliers he had wrapped in his carry on. You aren’t really allowed to carry tools on to a flight. But the man was nice and didn’t confiscate Tom’s gift, We boarded our flight and departed on time. I think we were the lucky ones. I am now sitting semi comfortably writing to you from the plane and will be in Seattle shortly.

Love