Oh no I hear you all cry! Not another blog to wade through from this somewhat illiterate Yorkshireman? Well yes I'm afraid it is, only this time it will be tempered by the literary skills of my much, much older brother Stuart who will be updating the blog on alternate days/weeks to myself.
For any of you that don't know Stuart (or big bro as I call him), last year he wrote a wonderful blog about his and Terri's trip around New Zealand and it was him that inspired me to take to the blogging medium when we went to Croatia in September. Yes you remembered! We didn't actually get to Croatia but instead ended up spending a delightful three weeks in France.
That trip gave me the bug and so here I am getting in first with regard to our trip to South Africa which for Linda and I will last five weeks but for Stuart and Terri a mere seven!
I get to write the first post because we are departing today whilst Stuart and Terri don't depart until Sunday. At one point today there was serious doubt as to whether we would be able to get away as planned. Overnight, we had over two inches of snow which resulted in the airport being closed until 10am and a number of flights including BA's first shuttle from Heathrow being cancelled. Things then looked better for our afternoon flight although it did become touch and go as to whether it would a) be able to get into Leeds Bradford and b) get back out!
It did get in but then followed a two hour delay when the weather closed in to approximately 300 metres visibility, the snow continued to fall, the plane required de-icing and then we sat at the end of the runway with the Captain contemplating a return to stand for further de-icing. A bit of a nerve jangler but in the end we took to the skies and landed into a snow free Heathrow where our planned five hour wait had turned into just three. Every cloud has a silver lining.
For Linda and me this is our fifth visit to South Africa but the first time that we have rented a property and also the first time that we have travelled here with family or friends. The property that is home for the next few weeks is owned by an ex BA Captain and it is only recently that he decided to rent it to people in the airline industry! Obviously we didn't fulfil that category but it turned out that his son is a current BA pilot and that Sarah knew Nick and had actually flown with him. That was good enough for owner Colin and the deal was done.
So here we sit at Stand C56 waiting to board our flight to Johannesburg. We are actually going to Cape Town but were unable to get on either of the BA flights to that destination and so took this option. All it means is that we hopefully get another BA flight which run every hour from Jo'burg to Cape Town.
An eleven hour flight beckons and yet again we are blessed with comfy seats in Club World. We never forget just how privileged we are.
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