We left home yesterday evening in a car driven by a chatty Bangladeshi who had never driven in snow before - so we went very slowly to Heathrow. But once outside the village the roads were not icy and there was almost no traffic, so the journey wasn't difficult.
On arrival at Heathrow Terminal 5 the departure board showed cancellations for all the early evening flights, mainly to Europe. But the long-haul ones to the East were apparently still possible, even though the harrassed Duty Manager kept saying the airport was closed and would remain so for the night, as the temperature dropped again (it hadn't been above freezing all day). To our dismay and that of our fellow Minerva passengers, all of whom are oldies like us, there was no sign of a Swan Hellenic representative to tell us what to do and how they proposed to handle the problems. Some people had come from Devon, Buxton, Manchester ... following Swan's instructions to turn up at the airport. Some were in wheelchairs. There were no more hotel rooms available, no taxis, no minicabs. Even the underground had seized up on the Piccadilly line to Heathrow. The departure area has limited seating, very limited supplies of coffee and hardly anything to eat, and no warmth on the marble floors.
So we rang a neighbour who sent number 2 son over to collect us and bring us home. He said he didn't mind at all as the alternative was watching the Strictly Come Dancing final! We came back, opened a tin of soup, turned the heating back up and went to bed.
Just think. I should be on the deck of ship under a blue sky by now, warming my toes in the sunshine and ordering a light lunch under an umbrella: it's 26 degrees in Dubai. But home is a lot better than Terminal 5!!
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