Phew ... Off we go ....

Thursday 14th September

Well, our holiday has begun - not bad for the first holiday in nearly 4 years!

Talk about a hectic day - up at 5.45am to try to fit everything in and I hardly had time to catch my breath. But at last, I had collected everything from the dry cleaners, dumped all the rubbish, unplugged all the sockets (I am rather paranoid about the flat going up in flames while I am away!), squeezed the suitcases shut and tried to cool down (all this rushing around was carried out in a flat of over 30°C!).

R arrived back from the dentist - yes, all very last minute - and then we were off. We have so much luggage that he had to drive me to the station and then go back and park the car. So there I stood, in good old Recklinghausen main station, waiting for him to come back and for the train to arrive, surrounded by all this luggage! But I knew that we were only minutes away from the beginning of our holiday .... the sun was shining down, the sky was blue and all was well with the world. Tick, tick, tick - the minutes counted down, R arrived back and at long last the train arrived. We stepped on board and at that very second, our holiday began! I am so excited I can't tell you! I took the obligatory photographs and we just started to unwind. Heaven! This is just so cool .... starting the holiday early....


So, there we are at the airport - Frankfurt is a horrible place - huge and sprawling and you have no idea where you are going and everyone is rushing. I suppose it is just like all these international airports. Maybe I am just so used to these tiny places now where there are only a dozen easyjet flights a day, or maybe I am just turning into a small town girl! Anyway, we finally found our early check-in desk and of course, queued! Ahead of us were dozens of sunbed tanned, middle-aged Germans obviously travelling to the sun. The couple in front of us included a man with the most disgusting handlebar moustache - literally three or four inches thick (as in the depth of hair off his face!) YUK YUK YUK.... They were x-raying all the check in suitcases which slowed things down a lot, but hey, it did not matter because we had all the time in the world! It was great to see our case on the x-ray - all the cables, chargers and stuff and we packed the laptop so that was really cool to see! All checked in, a really cool and friendly check-in guy who gave us emergency exit seats (so R is happy) and informed us that we actually have another thirty kilos of luggage allowance left so we could do some shopping in Canada (so I am happy!!) All in all, full of feel good feelings!

So there we were, all checked in and the whole evening ahead of us with nothing that needed to be done. How cool is that! I have never done this evening before check-in but I tell you, I am a TOTAL convert!

We headed over to our hotel where we had a really lovely, romantic dinner and toasted the beginning of our adventure with some bubbles of the "Veuve" variety!! What a great way to start a holiday!

So here we are, Friday morning and all we have to do is leisurely make our way over to the airport and work our way through security. After that, we can just do what I always wanted to do at these big airports - just do some window shopping (or maybe a tinsy winsy bit of real shopping). We are not sure about the security restrictions of our flight but we are so chilled right now that I feel that nothing can spoil our day today!

So, greetings from Frankfurt-am-Main ...... Speak soon

xxx