Up, Up and Away

It all started so well, I was probably more organised before travelling this time than I've ever been.......the night before my flight my cases were packed, weighed and locked ready to go - I usually finish packing as my husband is loading the car!

We set off for the airport and were enjoying nice drive and chat....when someone pulled alongside us and hollered that we had a flat tyre.....he was right, we did.....a very flat tyre. We managed to make it to the next garage where we added air, then we stopped at every other garage on the route adding air when needed. Luckily we had left home early so I still make it to the airport in plenty of time for my first flight.......and my husband made it back home again without too much drama.

Thank heavens I was flying from Gatwick - if I'd been flying from Heathrow we'd have been haring along the motorway with the flat and goodness knows what might've happened then!

The first flight was Gatwick to Casablanca, roughly a 3 hour flight - I chatted with two nice ladies in my row, one of them was interested in getting into charity work so we swapped contact details.

I had almost 6 hours to wait in Casablanca for my connecting flight and then we were off to Freetown. The flight was only about 2/3 full so I had the entire row to myself - which is always nice! This flight was due to take about 4 hours - after a bit of sleep and a snack and then a bit more sleep it didn't seem long before they announced that we would be landing in Freetown in a few minutes...........then about 20 minutes after that it was announced that the weather was too bad to land and we would hold for about an hour before landing.

I braced myself for a bumpy landing, but after holding for over an hour they announced we would be diverting to Banjul because of the bad weather! This was a bit of a shock.

We landed in Banjul and waited for 3 hours on the plane - it wasn't too bad because there were so few passengers there was plenty of room - then we refuelled and set off for Freetown again.

I got here in the end - almost 5 hours late, but in one piece and with both of my suitcases!!

I enjoyed the flights - there was loads of leg room and apart from panicking a bit when I thought I might get stranded in Banjul it was pretty much hassle free, I'd definitely fly with the same airline again.

I've spent most of today unpacking and settling back in, and now I'm having a cup of camomile tea before getting an early night.