Had checked on teletext and got the daughter at home to check on the old interweb, but they only mentioned ash cloud problems in southern Spain and the Canary Islands, so thought we would be OK.
Usual thing for us on the last day, we had to be out of the villa early so put alarm on for 7am (which is my normal work time so nothing unusual). Go to bed the night before and don't sleep thinking the alarm might not go off, so probably only got about 4 hours sleep, (why do we do this every year??)
The hire car did not have to be back until 2:30pm, so we loaded the luggage in and went off for a run in the mountains to pass some time, it was 31 degrees up there so nice the be in the air conditioned hire car.
Finally handed the car back at the airport at about 2:30 and went in the check the plane info, should have departed at 5pm.
Nothing on the departures board for our flight at all, not even a cancelled or delayed notice........... OOOOOPS.
Checked with the desk, no plane, stuck grounded in Spain or probably Lanzarote, so never got back to Manchester to fly to Cyprus.
Eventually found out they hoped to get a flight out to us early the next morning, but could not confirm before 10PM.
Eventually Thompson Fly, bused us off the a hotel 20 miles away where, in theory we could sit down, have a free meal at 5:30pm and they would update us at about 9pm.
Nice idea but the hotel was already full with loads of people who could not get out anyway so we in theory sat in the lounge or around the pool.
Not really they were all full, withnsuitcases everywhere, so sat on the cases out on the lawn for a while, then the free meal was OK and we were finally told at 10pm that the plane was now booked to leave Manchester and we should be off for about 01:30. so there were coaches outside to take us back to the airport, and we piled back down there again. At the airport there was still no further upadate on the plane, so they asked us all to go through the checkout and to the departure lounge and await an update. Only worked out after we got through that we wouold not be coming back out of there if the plane was late. It did eventually arrive and we got back to Manchester at around 8am Cyprus time 06:00 our time.
Somehow managed to get back to the car park and drive back to Sheffield after 27 hours with no sleep at all and only 4 hours the night before.
Went to bed at 08:00 yesterday but gut up before 13:00 as knew I wouldn't sleep last night if I slept all day.
Managed about 4 hrs last night, so I am here at work in Zombie format today.
Thompson Fly did everything they could and the holday was great , but I would not have liked to spend all that time in the airport!
Catch you all later.
