You're not going to believe this....

....I'M HOME!!!

After the drama of the previous day and completely out of the blue, I got a call from BA at 1am yesterday (Tuesday) morning advising me that I was on standby for the first flight out of Lusaka at 11:45am that day...!   Excitement was matched by concern; I wanted to be home but didn't fancy being one of the first passengers flying through the ash cloud! 

Luckily the prospect of being home outweighed the fear element and I reported to Lusaka Airport at 9:30am - I was allowed to check-in, my luggage was weighed and labelled but at that point, along with about 50 others, I was still on standby,

There was a real sense of camaraderie amongst the standby people and when, ten minutes before the scheduled departure, I was given the go-ahead to board, I was sad to leave about 20 passengers who had not been lucky enough.

True to form, once all the passengers were onboard, the Captain announced that there was a problem....!  

Something to do with tail winds on the runway meant that NONE of our luggage was coming with us!  At that point, I was quite philosophical about it all... who cares about luggage, being home safely is the important thing.  Any who did not to wish to fly without their luggage were given the option to leave the flight.  12 people did leave although curiously, the gentleman who had the ashes of his deceased father in his luggage, decided to stay onboard. 

As some had left the flight and me having a letter stating that I was suffering from 'acute spider-bite-itis', I was given three seats to spread across and keep my leg elevated!!  

And we were off.... 

The Captain told us that at that point he was heading for Heathrow but as the airport was still closed, there was a very real possibility that we would be re-routed.  This became a reality when our flight, after circling in the skies over Europe waiting for Heathrow to open, got low on fuel.  We were diverted to Barcelona to re-fuel after which, finally were allowed to fly on to Heathrow.  There was a slight air of concern in the aircraft as we flew on to Heathrow but, if we did fly through the ash cloud, we passengers did not experience anything other than the normal lumps and bumps. We finally landed safely sometime after 1am this morning.

As Mr Shakespeare would put it, "All's well that ends well"

Grateful thanks for getting me home, go to:  

British Airways
Southern Sun Hotel, Lusaka
Friends & Colleagues at WAG 
Friends, Volunteers and Staff of VSO, Zambia. 
Geraint xx



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