Trials and tribulations of reuniting sisters!

So here I am, back in Spain, in Andalucía this time. My older sister and I are visiting our younger sister. It’s the first time in a good while that the three sisters have been together. My daughter did suggest that the three of us should all sleep,in the same bedroom, recapturing our childhood! Fortunately there is no room large enough for three beds.

The journey was interesting to say the least. First there was my older sister not having understood that meeting at departures in Manchester airport meant before not after going through security. Consequently I was waiting for her and not getting through to her phone because she was already in the security queue and being yelled at to switch her phone off!!

We got that sorted and eventually met and found our way to the gate and then onto the plane, headed for Gibraltar. It’s the first time I have flown to Gibraltar.

Except that in the event I didn’t fly to Gibraltar.

We set off from a windy Manchester and the pilot did his usual talk about how nice it was to welcome us onto this EasyJet flight and so on and so forth. He went on, as usual, to talk about weather conditions in Gibraltar: windy, just on the edge of acceptable for landing there.

And then he told us about a rockfall on El Peñón in the last few days, a rockfall which had knocked out the radar system. This meant he would have to land on visuals, provided visibility was good enough. Which it was at that point but he would monitor the situation.

We continued on our rather bumpy way, the pilot explaining to us that the jet stream was really strong and he would have to fly above it if possible. On and off went to the fasten-seat-belts signs throughout the flight. You had to choose your moment to go for a pee!

Then he announced that there was a possibility of our being diverted to Malaga. Oops! But better a diversion than falling off the end of Gibraltar’s runway.

And so, forty minutes before our due landing time, he confirmed, Malaga it was. By now our niece would be on her way to meet us at Gibraltar. How annoying! But they did promise to provide us with transport to The Rock.

Once landed in Malaga, we had to sit on the plane a while until they had sorted some things with the ground crew. But now we were able to send messages to our driver, expecting to be in Gibraltar within a couple of hours.

What false expectations!

We finally got off the plane and stood around in baggage reclaim waiting for further information. Some three quarters of an hour later we all traipsed, in a gloomy kind of procession, into the bowels of the airport, where buses were supposedly waiting for us. Except that not enough buses were waiting. We were unfortunately at the tail end of the gloomy procession. Our bus went to the wrong bit of the underground bus park!

And at long last, after standing around for another two hours, we got onto a bus and made our way to Gibraltar!

And so several hours later than intended the three sisters got together to spend another hour or two reminiscing! Such is my life!