We’re supposed to be in La Belle France. We were to be going with Guillaume for three weeks. However, as our departure date got perilously close, just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong. So, France got delayed [I still have the ferry tickets to be used in 2018]. Instead, as a consolation prize, we booked a 1-week trip to España. Besides, we really needed to replace the moisture absorbers in Casa Libélule before winter hit. 🙂
The easyJet flight 2223 to Alicante from Luton seems to be getting ever earlier. Our departure time was 05:30 so our alarm went at 03:00 and our taxi picked us up at 03:30. Ours was the first flight timetabled to leave. Luton airport was blissfully quiet. Well, not quite blissfully, perhaps; little about Luton airport could ever be described as blissful. Our gate was announced early and we boarded.
We sat on the plane, which was not actually an easyJet plane – it wasn’t even a British plane, bearing no writing whatsoever save for an LY- registration. Ah, Lithuanian. We sat. The captain came on the blower and announced a 75-minute delay “due to French air traffic control”. Bloody marvelous! The French were at it again. It began to feel as though some higher authority might be trying to tell us not to go anywhere.
Eventually our delay was shortened to about an hour and, miracle of miracles, we did get airborne. The flight was reasonable and we duly arrived in Alicante airport a shade prior to 10:00 local time.
Friend Jim had experienced awful delays at Alicante passport control due to its pitifully slow automated passport reading machines, when four plane loads of passengers spill out simultaneously. We were apprehensive. Mercifully, there seemed to be no flight having landed just ahead of us and we got to the immigration hall in good time. Francine and I were third and fourth in line for one of the infernal machines. It still took about 10 minutes to get processed but we got through, collected our rental car and drove to Jalón in glorious sunshine, which was part of our reason or coming, let’s face it.
It seems that M. Macron has caused consternation in France because he declared that he wants to revise their employment law. This is why French ATC threw their toys out of the pram. News reports stating that Ryan Air had cancelled several flights the same day suggested that we had been lucky to get here at all.
We relaxed with some lunch washed down with the obligatory rosado or two, then went to check out the local ford for Odos, which had been woefully low in numbers on our spring visit as a result, I suspected, of the raging winter torrents. Better, here were some friends to photograph. We counted five species flitting about. Worse, I missed my footing and managed to slip on the rocks, buggering my right elbow. parts of the water-smoothed rocks suddenly took on a bloody red hue. Bother! It wasn’t the wine’s fault; I failed to spot a loose piece of plastic covering the rock I tried to stand on. I got the shot , though. 😉
We retired to patch my elbow. Dangerous sport, this Odo photography. 😀
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