Tiddly-Om-Pom-Pom

Rocking the hi-viz coat and wellies in this
rendering by our artist fella, Brian John
Spencer

With our series of inbound visits last week barely seen off the premises (see previous post) I needed to get packing for my out-bound mission, off to the UK to see family in Hastings and old mates in our former stomping ground of Faversham in Kent. Family these days is my big-bro, Tom and 'me dear aul' Mum, 'Pud Lady' in these pages. Mum is about to go, like me, through a 'significant' number Birthday - she is soon 90 as I am soon 60 so I wanted to spend a bit of quality time with her this time instead of my all too frequent "flying visit" style trips.

Shiny Vauxhall Astra hire car, only days old, outside Mum's.

The mission was to take the normal shape - an Aer Lingus flight, Knock to Gatwick, and then hire of a car in UK for the running about. The first part of that was easy, the 2nd nearly came unstuck and turned into an hour and a half in car hire hell at the airport, and got me indoors at just after midnight.

Primroses and magnolia in Mum's front
garden

It was partly my fault and partly that of the Aer Lingus website where I booked my flights (and car) on line. I saw no-where who the car hire firm actually was (Hertz? EuropeCar? Avis?) but that's not been a problem - you just wander round the big foyer and try your name and booking reference at each till you strike gold. Aer Lingus have also moved their flight from mid afternoon to 8pm-ish too, but I didn't think that would be an issue either. Anyone hearing warning bells yet? What I'd actually written down was Aer Lingus's ref number for my car.

Battle Abbey. Mum in wheel chair centre bottom of pic.

We touched down at 9 pm and I walked to the car-rental 'room' and started my hunt, frustrated at each by having to stand in a short queue before I could even ask my question but also running out of desks to ask at. Finally, I was advised to go try the 'Inter-Rent' porta-cabin out in the dark where the 'indoor' desks said the guy had been evicted from North Terminal by building works but hurry as he didn't normally work late and might be closing.

Mum has map and is ready to explore
Battle Abbey and Senlac Hill

Off I went, increasingly fed up, to find one man soldiering through a queue of 8 customers at the end of a 13 hour shift. I suspected that if I queued for the 45 mins I might still be blown off with a "not our reference number" line. No such problem. The guy (Alex was his name) was as helpful, friendly and professional at my end of the queue as he had been at the 'beginning' - a true hero. Above and beyond. He had my name on his list, sorted me out a Vauxhall Astra and sent me on my way at 10:30 pm. Aer Lingus and Inter-Rent get my vote. You can keep your Hertz, Avis and EuropeCar. I got indoors by just after midnight to find Mum and Tom waiting up for me - Thank You very much, both.

At the Queen's Head, Icklesham, near Rye (Sussex), left to
right, myself, Mum and Tom

To cut a long story short, I had a lovely time both at Hastings and in Faversham and very pleasant company with friends, family and former neighbours all delighted to see me and me to see them. My time in Hastings was blessed by 2 superb, warm, sunny, blue sky days, so we took the hire car and Mum's wheel chair and went on a series of little scenic tours, interspersed with meals, coffee breaks and the inevitable games of Scrabble.

Fish and Chips. You can always rely on the Queen's Head
for a decent portion. Top left of the picture is an equally
generous crab salad. 

On Saturday, we drove all round the lanes 'behind' Hastings looking at the spring flowers - carpets of Lady's Smock, primroses, wood anenomes, celandines etc and the chance of an early orchid. We drove down to Hastings sea-front along by Marine Parade and pushed the wheel chair all along to the newly restored and re-opened pier, out to its very end (it is all nice and flat for this pusher's 'maiden voyage'). We headed out to the family's favourite pub/eaterie, The Queen's Head in Icklesham (near Rye in Sussex) where I managed a fish and chips 'fix'. We bimbled out to the famous Great Dixter garden (Northiam) where there was advertised a "Plant Fair" for Mum to buy a specific Clematis she wanted ('tangutica').

Mum surveys Senlac Hill from the top. I reckon if those Normans
had had to push their Mums up in wheel chairs then they would
not have won the Battle.

On the Sunday we headed out to Battle Abbey and Senlac Hill, the site of the famous 1066 Battle of Hastings, where the pushchair crew had to step up a gear. This battle, as any school boy knows, involved the Normans (and William the Conqueror) charging up Senlac Hill to knock the pesky Saxons (King Harold's mob) off the top. The Abbey was build on top of the hill (afterwards, obviously!) to commemorate the victory and the bits open to the public include the hill. Even the wheel-chair friendly walk route which is lightly gravelled just to slow you down a bit, includes some of the top-slopes of the hill inside the 'skirts' of the abbey, so there was some good heavy-breath slog up the slopes even though Mum is not 'heavy' to any degree. You put any 'little aul' lady' in a good wheel chair and try it, be my guest.

Oh we do like to walk along the prom, prom, prom? Hastings
sea-front and Pier shrouded in sea mist.

On the final morning (Monday), Mum and Tom had a funeral to attend, so I nipped back to the sea front to get some pictures, having deliberately not taken the camera on our walk, my 'maiden voyage' as wheel chair pusher. Sadly there was a thick sea-mist and although it always looked like it was just about to burn off, there were to be no sunny pictures that morning. The sun did not break through till I was heading off after lunch, bound for Romney Marshes and Faversham.

Tom, Mum and myself. 

In Faversham I was to meet our good friend John W, former husband of Diane (Diamond on here) and their disreputable looking Patterdale Terrier cross Ragworth. The plan was to spend the evening with John (we had a lovely stroll round the Front Brents area and north side of the Creek), have a bite to eat and then I'd stay the night in his spare room. On the Tuesday morning I could then work my way round as many former neighbours and friends as I could net before I had to head back to Gatwick in the afternoon for my flight home. Thanks you to all of you who I did meet and who I missed - better luck next time maybe.

Plenty of sailing barges still in the creek despite 'bogey-man'
developer, Michael White allegedly killing all the ship-wrightery

I got to meet and have a nice chat with a friend who I only really know since leaving Faversham (chatting on Facebook etc), Griselda C-M and her husband, staunch supporters and 'activists' of the Creek Preservation campaign. I met film maker Mike M who I know from Cambria days (he made the "Red Sails" film). I had nice chats with neighbours from both sides of our 'old' house in Whitstable Road (Jackie and then Betty and Jim). I met another good friend (Dave) in town as I was wandering about and I also got a good look round the Standard Quay and Iron Wharf areas of the Creek (the south side).

Every town should have a Pirate Ship.

A footnote to that last sentence should probably include mention of the latest "attraction", a rather mad Pirate Ship. This rather disreputable looking piece of fakery (a load of wooden 'topsides' added to an old wooden hull and flying the requisite 'Jolly Roger') turned up in Faversham a few months back, mooring up for a rest en route to Spain, crewed by half a dozen lads from (John tells me) ages about 30 to 50. They didn't manage to stay long as they didn't fancy paying the mooring fees (Why should we? We're Pirates!) charged by Faversham's 'bogey-man' waterfront developer, so he had them 'evicted' using a local tug-firm. These boys rather robustly (I was told) untied them from the quay and towed them down to moor them outside the sewage works outflow where they remain to this day. They have to get aboard and disembark by scrambling across a dodgy grass bank and some mud and then teetering up a long, springy plank in best pirate tradition.

The Creek's main developer finally gets
permission to convert the first of these
 lovely wooden weather-boarded grain
warehouses into a restaurant and wine bar. 

That's about it. I grabbed a spot of lunch with John and then headed for Gatwick, there to hand my car back in with none of the Friday night dramas. I flew home painlessly to be met at the airport by the Lady of the House and got a noisy welcome from dogs and livestock. And so to bed in MY OWN BED (well, my half of 'our bed'). No matter how lovely it is to go travelling, there is something special about finally getting home and being able to sleep on that old familiar mattress.

Thank you to all involved in this break. If I have forgotten to name you specifically, then I apologise for that.

I am the Captain of this Ship

The Captain - our 'back up' Buff Orp rooster.

Of the 'Baker's Dozen' of Buff Orpington chicks hatched in the incubator (  http://deefer-dawg.blogspot.ie/2014/08/the-bakers-dozen.html ) we are now left with just four. One died of natural causes as a tiny chick, we culled out 2 roosters, sold 2 more and the marauding fox took mainly female birds, so we are left with three very fine hens and a lovely cockerel. The hens are in lay now, though not fully grown, and the rooster looks very healthy and well feathered. If you see him on his own, you'd know he was a handsome chap; it is only when you see him with the full grown roo', (Lieutenant Colonel Sir Buffton Tuffton, sah!) that you realise that he has a way to go yet.

The Captain (nearest to camera) is always on the
periphery of the flock. Sir Buffton (yellow circle)
holds the centre ground. 

He is still quite slim and rangey looking and about half the width of Sir Buffton across the chest. He lacks the boss's huge wide fluffy pantaloons and his confident strut. At present he is allowed to hang around at the periphery of the flock as they move around the 'farm', but makes sure he can always sprint off if the boss gets a bit close for comfort. He is always the bridesmaid at the moment. He does get to 'tread' the occasional hen when they have strayed from the group and if they are willing (the Sussex Pontes won't tolerate him!).

The purple sprouting broccoli in the latest snow.

For the moment we are keeping him as our back-up rooster should anything go wrong with Sir Buffton, but he needs to stay content in that 2nd-in-command position and bide his time. If he gets too much 'sap' rising in the spring and challenges his Father/Uncle he will get mullered for sure. We would have to cull him out. The three girls have now assimilated into the main flock with the 'boss', so they spend all day with him but then adjourn to the smaller coop in which they grew up, with their 'brother' at bed time. Because his boss is called "Lieutenant Colonel" we have decided to give him the rank of Captain, so that is his name. He may gain a promotion through the ranks. I will let you know.

A nice view of the back of the house - the snow nicely disguises
the rusty roof sheeting on the Tígín (outbuilding). 

More pretty snow falls overnight Monday/Tuesday earlier this week. This is all well and good from the point of view of picturesque photos and the sun shines to brighten up the day, but I am on serious business on Tuesday, trying to collect Lizzie from Knock airport, back from her long weekend in Bridport. There is a tense morning when we hear that flights are being delayed and (worse) diverted from Knock to Shannon. Knock is a very pleasant 20 minute run away through the bog-lane. Shannon from here is 2 hours and 12 minutes slog down the N17 (in good weather).

A Ryan Air flight gets instructed to jill around above Longford
before being diverted to Shannon Airport

As well as the airport website these days, you can get up to the minute flight information from websites which track all the planes in the air in real time, and you can find 'your' flight and see its height, bearing, speed and so on. Before Liz had even boarded I could see a Ryan Air flight out of Stansted get put into a holding pattern (see picture) above Longford before being sent south on its diversion to Shannon. Things were looking dodgy.

Liz's flight is well over the Irish sea and still heading in the right
direction as I hop into the car to drive over. 

Liz got re-assuring noises from the stewards on her plane, an Aer Lingus flight - they were "quite sniffy" about Ryan Air's performance. "Well, WE got in yesterday", they said. I watched the flight anxiously as it crossed the Irish Sea and was still aimed at Knock when I ran out of time and had to drive to the airport. Luckily, steward pride did not come before a fall this time, and Liz touched down OK on schedule. Indeed, she was early and the incoming flight almost took the roof off our car as I turned in off the N17. Huge relief all round. I had not been looking forward to a drive to Shannon as even then the clouds were closing in and sleet was falling heavily; I wondered would the airport get shut down with Liz's plane on the ground. Not in the end - that afternoon that weather system was all done, the sun came out and we have now all thawed out, snowless as if it had never been.

Goose egg double yolker. 

2 whooper swans flew over tonight while I was exercising the dogs in the orchard before supper. They were heading east, and I wonder whether they might be our last two wintering birds en route home to the north of Norway and Russia. These guys do not announce their departures like the swallows with their noisy massing. You see them moving about (I watched 4 others fly over about a week ago) and then suddenly on a crisp, quiet, windless clear night you realise that you can not hear the bugle calls any more. They have gone. I have seen just 2 down on the lough for the last week or so and now I see two flying over. Coincidence?

One solution to the egg glut - pickled eggs. 

While I'm on birds, we have moved from a shortage of eggs, without the 'proper' flock coming into full lay, to an egg glut. The young Buffs are now pumping them out and the two 'new' geese have come into lay to join the old girls, so we sometimes get 5 goose eggs in 24 hours. Each goose egg is worth about 3 chicken eggs, so Liz loves them for cooking and they make gorgeous scrambled eggs on a toasted bagel, but I was also able to pickle a batch of the young Buff eggs. 18 just about fitted into our biggest Kilner.

Anyone who regularly hard-boils eggs will know that 'fresh' is not necessarily 'best' - it can be tricky to peel the really fresh ones as the white does not separate  from the shell - the outer layers stick to the shell and you are left with a rough looking 'boily'. Having done 18 of them while taking note of dates, I can happily tell you that the cut off point is 4-5 days. Anthing younger was a problem, anything 5 days or more peeled perfectly.

We finally score some Gubbeen cheese, the subject of our Christmas
gift book. 

Well, there is enough, I think, on chickens, birds and eggs. We finally scored some of the Gubbeen cheese , subject of my Christmas present book. More important, possibly, was that we see from the label that there is an outlet for more of this, within easy range of Sparks. We just need to badger him to dropping by the shop next time he comes down this way. Meanwhile, thank you very much to our 'supplier' - you know who you are. We will be tasting it tonight in a cheese-course we have included in our supper.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles......

The house in Hastings where I grew up.

"Just write about what you did in your holidays" - that clichéd old instruction in English Composition classes at school when you were first back from the summer break. Once a year I get the urge to 'go home' (all be it 'home' now feels very much like here, rather than Hastings or Kent), to catch up with Pud Lady (now 87) and my brother, Tom, to drop in on Kent friends and, of course, to get a fix of the 'Thames Sailing Barge' drug. I do all these in one trip, leaving poor Liz in charge of all the livestock. She asks for a check list in case she misses anyone, and gets handed one running to 4 pages of a note book this time (!). She tells me she loves it for a couple of days but by night-5 she is missing her lay-ins and cups of first-thing-in-the-morning tea and she is happy to hand the gang back,

Pud Lady cooks up the next cheating
devious manouvre in scrabble!

In these days of cheap flights it is all reasonably priced and we are delighted to be only 25 minutes drive down country lanes from Knock Airport. We both remember with horror those traffic-clogged trudges to Gatwick (and hour and a half each way on a good day) and some nightmare runs all the way round the M25 to Heathrow (2 hours if you were very lucky). I fly Aer Lingus to Gatwick, hire a small car (VW Polo this time), and trundle down to Kent always in awe of how many cars there are about; I am used to my quiet roads of the 'Wesht' by now. This time I dropped in on former neighbours, the 'Angel Betty' and Jim for a lovely chat and a coffee, then headed for Diamond's with John for supper, a visit from Mazy and a comfortable night's sleep.

Sailing Barge Cambria at night in St Katharine Docks

Thursday saw me down in Hastings catching up with Pud Lady and Tom, helping with and then sharing lunch and then being beaten badly by PL at Scrabble. She will read this, of course, so I can't be too rude, but we do have a good laugh with the Scrabble because she is always dreaming up devious cheating manouvres which she tells me are allowed when you are over 85 years old. There is a rule somewhere, apparently. You can write words upwards, diagonally or even detached from the rest of the grid, plus you can use shamelessly foreign words like "quinze" (15) or initials like 'TT' (tee-total) if it means you can lay your cunning word alongside an existing one in order to put your 'X' or 'Z' on a triple word. Who am I to argue? Just the obedient son........ To be fair in her defence, I should add that she also got lots of genuine and very clever, high scoring words without breaking any rules, 'Friezes' for example across a treble letter, completing 2 other sizable words into the bargain.

Those famous poppies at the Tower of London

From Hastings, back to Diamond's via Mazy's near Faversham for another lovely chat and to collect a cake and a jar of tomato chutney for the barge folk. John and I bought fish and chips (Ahhh the nostalgia) from our old favourite outlet, the Park Fish Bar in Faversham. Diamond is, as regular readers will know, not at all well and did not feel up to the fishy feast but she enjoyed us enjoying it. Local pub, The Elephant also operates a draught beer take-away service, where you can buy 2 pints of any of their guest draughts in a 'Tetra-pack' style container to bring home. We chose the mild Kent stout 'Canterbury Ale' and the paler (Rother Valley Brewery) 'Boadicea', both excellent.

Boozy reception and boaters' prize giving on board Cambria

And so to London to hand back the car at Gatwick and find my way through to St Katharine Docks to "join my ship". This was the Sailing Barge Cambria which was in town as part of Boris Johnson's "Totally Thames" festival and St Kat's "Classic Boat Weekend". Cambria is always a big attraction at such things - she is huge and tall so she can be seen for miles, she is free to enter (donations welcome!) and because she has no engine or terribly 'dangerous bits', parents and kids can come on board and go pretty much anywhere, up and down the three companionways.

Raffle prize - a nice jeroboam of red in
a hand painted bottle.

We make sure there are plenty of volunteers about to act as guides, to man the boarding stairs, to work the shop and, this year, the teas, coffees and cakes. I love to do the guiding and I am told that I have a natural gift of the gab (Blarney?) and often get a rapt group of listeners as I waffle on about 170 tonnes of cargo, 11 inches of free board amidships, lee boards and sprit-sail rigs. We opened the barge on Friday afternoon, plus all of Saturday (where we saw a record 1705 souls come through and hosted a gang of shanty singers who wanted to raise money on our behalf by passing round the bucket used for sluicing down our deck) and on Sunday till 4 pm (1125 people). We were exhausted, aching of foot from standing up all day and sore of throat from speechifying.

Former Mate on Cambria (in trade), Dick Durham (left)
judges and presents the champagne prizes. 

At 4 we closed the shop and became Reception Venue of for a fun and lighthearted prize giving for the boat owners at the festival (71 more people!). There were all manner of daft categories as well as the 'best dressed' (with bunting) award - fizz went to the best fairy lights, a 'travelling light' award to a Belgian guy who had left his clothes behind, to a bizarre combination of best dog and deck furniture, and to the 'spirit of the Festival', a guy who found some lost jewelry in the Marina washrooms and managed to return it to its owner. It was all a bit mad and great fun. Judging, invention of categories and prize giving were done by friend and former in-trade Mate of the barge, Dick Durham, now a writer for Yachting Monthly magazine.

St Kat's Marina is now all 'done up' and renovated as chi-chi posh apartments, cafés and restaurants and the Marina had arranged for boat owners to get a discount card, so we ate in the evenings, in those eateries, sipping our house red and watching the marina's comings and goings and the beautiful lights on the craft, reflected in the water. They were all warm, sunny days and balmy evenings; we were very lucky with the weather.

Mapp and Lucia kill a blown cabbage

My journey home was going to be another 'innocents abroad' job. Although I had traversed London calmly enough on Friday to get to St Kat's, that was at lunchtime with no frantic commuters about, just me and a thin selection of ambling, confused 'tourists'. An early flight on Monday meant that I'd have to travel home during rush hour. I had visions of me clinging to an underground walk-way wall, face like a rabbit caught in the headlights, watching the torrent of determined and unsympathetic 'suits' flow purposefully past me.

My Bee's Lemon survived the slugs

No such drama in the end. I'd set the alarm for 06:45 and walked to Tower Hill tube by 07:15 with nobody much about yet. My District Line train to Victoria filled up but I'd bought my Gatwick Express ticket on Friday, so I marched through the crowds in Victoria to grab my seat on that, made Gatwick with half an hour to spare before I needed to check in, so checked in anyway and went to find some breakfast.

Roast Guinea fowl 'welcome home' supper. Not one of
our birds!

It was a nice easy flight home with the plane only 1/3 full, so nobody next to me in '25A'. Liz met me from Knock and delivered me home. I love the trip and the Cambria stuff but it is always lovely to be home to Liz, one of Liz's welcome home meals (Guinea fowl roast followed by raspberry and blackberry 'cranachan'), to the livestock and to our own bed. Happy, weary traveler.

I Named that Statue. Minute that!

One of the things I have always loved about the Irish is the way that they adopt amusing, irreverent nicknames for their statues, street art and landmarks, notably in the capital, Dublin. A rather boobalicious representation of Molly Malone with a barrow full of fish, cockles and mussels (naturally) is widely known as "The Tart with the Cart". A statue of James Joyce complete with walking cane and iconic specs is "The Dick with the Stick".

A fountain in O'Connell Street which depicted Goddess of the River Liffey, Anna Livia reclining in the water with fountains bubbling down her from shoulders to feet was nicknamed 'The Floozie in the Jacuzzi'. She has now been moved to Croppy Acre Memorial Park in Dublin, replaced with a Millennium Spire, after having been filled with washing up liquid for the umpteenth time. The spire, as far as I am aware does not have a funny name, but I expect it does. A nice statue of two ladies paused in their shopping, sitting on a bench to chat with their Arnott's bags beside them quickly became the 'Hags with the Bags' and so it goes on.

Our nearby Airport, Knock, now has its own statue. We saw the strange twisted pair of upward pointing spikes, shaped like one of the more delicate pincers or tweezers I had in my precious Dissection Kit as a biology student, when these prongs were still being smeared with cement as I collected Liz from the airport on April 29th. We had no idea what they were apart from fairly obviously being a bit of roadside art. Eye catching enough and with that lovely view across Mayo behind them. It was only a few days later that we saw in Facebook, that they were in fact the backdrop to a statue of the visionary 'man of the cloth' Monsignor Horan who first conceived of the idea of an airport for these parts and politicked it into being.

As the news release says "A new statue of our founder, the visionary Monsignor James Horan was unveiled today at Ireland West Airport Knock. The new statue is situated on the approach road into the airport and is a fitting tribute to the great man. A display of Monsignor Horan's memorabilia and artefacts will also be on display in the airport terminal over the summer months".

Of course, I was straight into Facebook and thinking that this statue now needs a witty name, so I challenged 'my lot' and, aside from a rather rude one from Mr Silverwood no-one took up the baton. I went with "The Geezer by the Tweezer" which got a few 'likes' (approving ticks by Facebook people) and was then passed on to a vox-pop 'Twitter' Feed called @Ireland where the current 'chair' liked it too.

This summer, when the crowds of returning Irish wing in on Aer Lingus flights to Knock Airport for "The Gathering, Ireland 2013" and you hear them being driven past Monsignor Horan by their pick-up drivers who say "Ah yeah! They're calling it the 'Geezer by the Tweezer'! Isn't that great?" you'll know that it all started HERE.

Meanwhile in Rabbit news, Goldie is settling in well and was out there in the sun (when it managed to shine) wolfing down good Roscommon grass like it was going out of fashion. She'll be fat as a fool, as well as pregnant!

Hassle-Free flying

Despite the news being full of the strikes by Immigration-clearing workers at Heathrow and the threat of disruption spreading to other UK airports, Dad heads off back to the UK for his final burst of 11 days of Faversham tying up the last loose ends before bringing Mum back to re-unite the family at last for the real start of Project Erroll. The flight is not till 12:50 so there is time to do breakfast as normal and to school run what children there still are going to school, not wiped out by the cold bug. Em-J and little R are both off school today and Dad has now developed a ticklish cough so is sure he's coming down with it - he's only surprised to have survived so long without succumbing.

So, Mr Silverwood drives Dad to the airport via buying a part for Steak Lady's shower, check in is problem free and the flight boards and loads on time. Dad is under instructions to text John at the UK end as he boards, as John will then leave home and take about the same time to drive as it does to fly Dublin to LGW, which saves anyone wasting time hanging around airports. As John rolls up at arrivals, Dad is coming through from baggage reclaim.

The boys drive home to Diamond's via the old house where there might have been some post to collect (including Mum's tax disc... oops) but nobody's home. Diamond welcomes everyone in - she has made up a spare room bed for Dad. In theory Dad was going to be sleeping on the barge, Cambria but now has this cold and it told that the barge has no heating yet and only dodgy mains power, so she is very cold and damp at present and not necessarily that conducive a place to sleep for a cold-ridden blogger. Also, Daimond is cooking haggis (small 'h'), neeps and tatties (and peas and carrots) for St Andrew's Day, Mum will be home from work and wine may well be opened. Thank you Diamond for the hospitality, comfy bed and the attention of the ravishingly handsome Ragworth (grrrrrrrr!)

Deefs

Nipping round the ash cloud

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