Monday, June 26, 2006
Day One - Penzance to Corfu
Our holiday began early on the morning of the 16th June. I was to get the bus from St Ives and meet Pin at Penzance Station to catch the 7:47 train. However by 7:04, the 7:05 bus to Penzance still wasn't there so I decided to get the train to St Erth to Rendezvous with the train there instead. As I was walking into the station, I saw the 7:05 bus coming down the hill above the town, late. By then it was too late to go back to get it so I stayed on the train to St Erth. Not that this little setback was an annoyance, rather a pleasure, as the train ride from St Ives goes past some pretty scenic views of the coast.
I caught the train at 7:57 and found Pin at our pre-reserved seats. Now the long wait started. The train wasn't due to get into Bristol till about 12:19, so we had four hours to kill. Talk about cabin fever, even the most disgusting cup of coffee I've had in years (thank's First Great Western) couldn't alleviate the boredom. I did a bit of stitching on Home is Where the Cat is, (until I spotted that I'd made a mistake in an earlier stitching session) and put that away in disgust too.
We arrived at Bristol Temple Meads station and caught the shuttle bus to Bristol Airport, still with over 2 hours to spare until the plane was due to depart. We checked our baggage in, both of us being just under the 20kg limits, and went up to the food court at the top of the airport for food and otherwise liquid refreshment. We were sitting there enjoying a burger king when we were called back to the check-in desk. Oh my god, we both thought, what's wrong now? But it was nothing, they just wanted to change the seats that we'd been allocated. We proceeded through to airport security to the departure lounge.
I was wearing a rather bulky belt buckle on my jeans, when I offered to take it off, the security guy just waved me through and of course it set the bloody alarms off! Next I get frisked by a lady security person, who even thinks I've got something stowed under my hat! Then this other security guy wants to look through my handbag because I've got a camera and a mobile phone and batteries in there. Hey mate, I bet everyone else at this airport has as well - we're off on holiday! Big mistake mate. Do you really want to know how much crap I carry around in my bag? Regular readers of this blog will know that you don't want to go there, but he did - poor sucker. After he'd spent about 10 minutes emptying every single nook, cranny and side pocket he finally said I could put it all back in. Except I left all the unwanted receipts and other rubbish all over his table. Serves him right!
Anyway, without further incident we boarded the plane and departed on time for Corfu. The flight was without incident, except for Pin accidentally chucking her empty half measure sized wine bottle down the cabin aisle! She said she'd never do that to a full one!
After collecting our luggage from the carousel (there's my nice new co-ordinated luggage collection dirty and covered with big black marks already!), we were told to slap stickers on our luggage so it could be sorted at the port and taken straight to our cabins without having to take it on ourselves. Pin and I were allocated cabin 183. We boarded the transfer coach and proceeded through downtown Corfu.
I caught the train at 7:57 and found Pin at our pre-reserved seats. Now the long wait started. The train wasn't due to get into Bristol till about 12:19, so we had four hours to kill. Talk about cabin fever, even the most disgusting cup of coffee I've had in years (thank's First Great Western) couldn't alleviate the boredom. I did a bit of stitching on Home is Where the Cat is, (until I spotted that I'd made a mistake in an earlier stitching session) and put that away in disgust too.
We arrived at Bristol Temple Meads station and caught the shuttle bus to Bristol Airport, still with over 2 hours to spare until the plane was due to depart. We checked our baggage in, both of us being just under the 20kg limits, and went up to the food court at the top of the airport for food and otherwise liquid refreshment. We were sitting there enjoying a burger king when we were called back to the check-in desk. Oh my god, we both thought, what's wrong now? But it was nothing, they just wanted to change the seats that we'd been allocated. We proceeded through to airport security to the departure lounge.
I was wearing a rather bulky belt buckle on my jeans, when I offered to take it off, the security guy just waved me through and of course it set the bloody alarms off! Next I get frisked by a lady security person, who even thinks I've got something stowed under my hat! Then this other security guy wants to look through my handbag because I've got a camera and a mobile phone and batteries in there. Hey mate, I bet everyone else at this airport has as well - we're off on holiday! Big mistake mate. Do you really want to know how much crap I carry around in my bag? Regular readers of this blog will know that you don't want to go there, but he did - poor sucker. After he'd spent about 10 minutes emptying every single nook, cranny and side pocket he finally said I could put it all back in. Except I left all the unwanted receipts and other rubbish all over his table. Serves him right!
Anyway, without further incident we boarded the plane and departed on time for Corfu. The flight was without incident, except for Pin accidentally chucking her empty half measure sized wine bottle down the cabin aisle! She said she'd never do that to a full one!
After collecting our luggage from the carousel (there's my nice new co-ordinated luggage collection dirty and covered with big black marks already!), we were told to slap stickers on our luggage so it could be sorted at the port and taken straight to our cabins without having to take it on ourselves. Pin and I were allocated cabin 183. We boarded the transfer coach and proceeded through downtown Corfu.
// posted by Vash @ 11:00 AM 
