Day 9

The holidays are upon us and this is the time of much merriment and joyous laughter; the time for giving and receiving of gifts and of goodwill to all men, except that at the moment for me and my son who are supposed to be in ‘Arctic UK’ for Christmas it isn’t so joyous. Our flight from Cyprus was cancelled last evening due to severe weather in the UK and most of Europe. We had a choice of our money back or moving our flight to the next day, today. So here I am, amongst the babble of foreign tongues all around me, in the coffee shop at the airport departure lounge. Most of these people seem to be travelling to non European destinations if their laughter and chatter is anything to go by. You can tell who the UK bound passengers are by their long faces and discarded piles of crisp packets and drinks cups. I can live with this kind of delay without feeling too aggrieved under normal circumstances but this time the delay means that I will not see my brother and his family, as arranged, who are due to fly out early tomorrow for their own Christmas holiday; neither will my son see his cousin. As if this wasn’t bad enough I received weather updates a short while ago from another brother in the UK. He informed me that although my flight may arrive on time and only leave two and a half hours later, the real problem will begin when (and if) we land at Gatwick. The weather forecast is for freezing fog and temperatures down to ten below zero! Effectively the runways could become ice rinks as will the roads. So even if we arrive in ‘Arctic UK’ we could be stuck in the buildings at Gatwick sleeping rough until the morning when the Gatwick express starts up again. I can’t expect family to drive tens of miles, risking life, limb and bumpers just to collect us and all the while hoping that they don’t skid off the motorway into a bottomless ravine! The more I think of it the best thing now would be the postponement of the flight until tomorrow morning which means that we could sleep rough in the airport of a warmer climate without the need for heat retaining foil ‘blankets’ as has been the case in the UK; you really can’t help thinking of Christmas when you see those unfortunate passengers wrapped up like huge Turkeys ready to go in the oven! But seriously, it’s at times like these that you realise how fragile our whole infrastructure is. The fabric of our lives is intricately woven and we are all at the mercy of unseen forces which are all ultimately masters of our very existence. The disruption of millions of people’s lives can be attributed to ‘severe weather.’ No amount of science or technology is a match for the raw, unpredictable beast that is ‘Nature’.

 The information screen is currently showing that our flight is still scheduled; so all that is left is to keep our fingers crossed and hope for a safe and trouble-free landing. Godspeed!