The trauma, the stress…..
My flight was at 2:15 and Ryanair recommended getting to the airport two hours in advance. It’s barely an hour from home to East Midlands airport so the plan was to leave at 10:30 and thus give myself plenty of time.
So I was at home some time after 9:30 when I got a text from Val who was at the dentists. She’d heard that there were delays on the M1. I checked and indeed there were, just beyond where I was going but of course these would of course impact on travel further north. So I set off at 10 o’clock.
On the road I learned that in fact the motorway was closed between J23A And J22, but I couldn’t think of any better route than just pressing on – East Midlands airport is impossible to get to except from the M1.
By 10:45 I’d reached J25 for Nottingham, and I only needed to get to J24. Then the queues started. In the end it took me just over two hours to get from J25 to the airport, and I was pulling into the car park at just after 1 o’clock. Now the clock was definitely ticking – baggage drop for my flight was due to finish at 1:35. I won’t bore you with the details of the stress of getting through that, suffice to say that in the end it was down to passengers in the queue having to sort it out so that those trying to get the 2:15 flight could shuffle to the head of the queue. (There’s generally a single checkin queue for Ryanair at E. Mids.) But I made it, and thereafter things went OK. The flight was full but there were no problems, we landed at Chania just ahead of time, my transport arrangements into Chania town worked well, I’ve got my bus ticket to Paleochora for tomorrow, and I even had time to go out for a drink around Chania harbour.
So tomorrow I’m moving on to Paleochora. By the time I get there it will have taken me more than 24 hours to do so!
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