It’s Over
That’s it, we are on the plane, sadly the Autumn 2013 trip is over. This is an evening flight due to take off at 21.00 Spanish time so we were able to make the most of the last day. After turning everything off, covering everything with peliculas protectiva (dust covers) and locking up we were able to take the excesses of food to neighbours and say hasta la vista to them, which was very pleasant.
We had determined that we wouldn’t have time to go to Alicante this trip until it occurred to me that we could punctuate out trip to Alicante airport with time in the city itself. We arrived there at 13.40 and went immediately to our favourite restaurant, Prego, an Italian restaurant that has no problem accommodating my needs. We spent two hours consuming a splendid lunch that rendered the sandwiches we had made for the plane trip redundant. No matter, that’s breakfast sorted.
We wandered along the front, Garrath bought a new man bag, then we ambled around the old town, sat by the port and enjoyed the boats and beautiful light on the water, took some photos with my compact camera, then meandered back to Prego for a cup of tea. It was a pleasant, leisurely afternoon spent in a sophisticated but gently paced, elegant city. The only problem with it was that I had my jeans on in preparation for our return to England and it was too darned hot in the bright sunshine. The car’s temperature reader had the outside temperature at 26.5C. Thank goodness for air conditioning.
A leisurely and brief drive to the car hire company and their bus trip to the airport had us there in time to enjoy a very relaxed drink and internet play via our MIFI (mobile wireless hot spot). Boarding was called early and it was entirely trouble free. Take off was bang on time but we were warned that it would probably be a bumpy ride near Leeds Bradford. Deep joy, it is said to be windy and rainy there.
Joy of joys, not a single Stag or Hen part on board so the flight promised to be quiet and civilised. There weren’t any on the flight out either, much to our relief. Previous flights have been marred by these so called celebrations. It seems a bizarre practice to me, bunches of stupidly costumed, drunken, loud-mouths screeching and rampaging on the plane and around Benidorm, behaving disgracefully, spending a fortune and not being able to remember any of it. I have been married three times and never had a hen party. Mind you I have never dressed up like a meringue or a lampshade with net curtains on my head either!
We have been incredibly lucky with the weather this trip. Our friends and neighbours, Keith and Audrey, say that it has been the best October they can remember and they have lived in Calpé for twenty years. We had only one cloudy day and that was when we went to Moraira. When we returned to Calpé we found out that it had been sunny there all day. The temperature exceeded 30C on several occasions and was never lower that 18C at night. In fact we slept under a single cotton sheet every night for the entire stay. I reckon we have had enough sunshine on our skins to boost our vitamin D stores enough to last us through to our next trip in Spring.
Now it is back to reality with a bump – literally according to the captain of the aircraft though he was wrong in that. In the event it was head down back to earth , oops, no back up again and try again. He had to abandon the first landing attempt at the wind was too strong, go round and come down again. He landed very smoothly in the circumstances, though a little late. Waiting for the cab was a shock in the cold windy weather. I got used to unrelenting sunshine rather quickly!
Garrath has to work tomorrow so I get the good bit, collecting the dogs. I am so looking forward to seeing them and being smothered with doggy kisses. It will almost make our return to the UK worthwhile – almost!!!