Dave's Bit Bucket

Friday December 29, 2006

Third-worst journey on public transport ever...

Just before Christmas, I was called up to Blackpool to do some very, very short-notice security work for a customer. This was all arranged at such short notice that I found out at about 11:00 on Tuesday last week that I needed to be on-site first thing Wednesday morning, so as the Aston is currently being serviced, the roads were congested with holidaymakers and Blackpool is a shade over 250 miles from home, it was decided that flying would probably the best idea.

In hindsight, I'm not so sure. Blackpool has a small international airport, but the only flights to it from anywhere near me go from Stansted (100 miles away), twice daily (1 rather early, 1 rather late)... the outbound flight was delayed by 1.75 hours, and so I arrived at my hotel at around midnight.

I managed to get things on-site completed to the customer's satisfaction at about 16:00 on the Thursday, so was left with 6 hours to kick my heels before expecting to be on my way home. Fortunately, I'd brought a good thick book with me (Michael Palin's Diaries, 1969-79, "The Python Years") anticipating this eventuality.

What I didn't anticipate, was the flight being cancelled.

Blackpool airport is, as mentioned, small. In fact, it isn't even open 24 hours a day. The hotel I'd stayed at was closing down for Christmas as I was checking out of it, so there was no chance of trying to get back in, it wasn't possible to curl up on a row of seats in Departures (see 24h note above), and the chances of finding a tourist office or random hotel reception open at 23:30 (when the cancellation was announced, for a flight supposed to depart at 22:00) are slim. RyanAir assumes no responsibility for repercussions associated with delays or cancellations, so wasn't about to put their passengers up anywhere.

If it wasn't for finding that one of the staff at the airport cafe knew the guy who ran the local Travelodge and found me a vacancy, I'd have found myself walking the streets in sub-zero temperatures until the airport opened again at 06:00.

This, however, isn't as bad as two other journeys I've had, so at least there's a bright side. I'm not sure which of the other two was worst. One involved having to spend a night on a bench at King's Cross station and having a rather nice workstation containing the primary copy of my Master's thesis stolen while in transit (the trip from Bristol to Cambridge took 17 hours... I had a week-old backup of the thesis too, so while duplication of effort was needed, all was not lost), and the other involved 3 days stuck at a dingy little sub-Travelodge near Sarajevo's snowed-in airport. The place didn't serve food (at the time, neither did the airport) and the staff and I didn't share a common language, so I didn't get to eat for the duration.

Suddenly, Blackpool doesn't seem so bad...

(2006-12-29 03:12:58.0) Permalink Comments [0]