‘I’m here!’ Rosie texted as I was standing by the main entrance to Departures at Heathrow.
‘Er, where?’ I replied, looking around and seeing precisely no-one.
‘At the main entrance.’
I peered around again. ‘Umm….’
‘Are you still wearing your hat?’ came back the next text. Er, yup. And the place was hardly crowded so I figured I was hard to miss.
‘Rosie, are you sure you’re at Terminal 1?’ Well, you never know.
‘Absolutely.’
I double-checked with the guy with the big gun. He confirmed that, yes, I wasn’t going crazy. I was in the right place. So where the feck was Rosie?
‘Rosie. There’s a big yellow sign that says All Departures’ right?
Silence.
‘????’
‘Um, I’m in Arrivals.’
So that was fine. She appeared; we went to check in and when the guy at security asked how we were related, Rosie told him we didn’t know each other which, had to be said, must have looked a little odd, given we were giggling like a couple of schoolgirl bezzy mates. So I added, helpfully, that we had met before – just on the Internet and that did it – we were separated and I had to resort to my totally dippy - I’m so bloody stupid I couldn’t possibly be a terrorist - routine to get through.
So, by the time we found Cafe Nero we were mildly hysterical and sat and jibbered. Then Rosie said, ‘Um, what time’s our flight?’ And we looked at the clock and sort of did a bit of an ‘oh shit’ routine as we realised our flight was on its last call. ‘It’s okay,’ I said, wandering off in a desultory fashion. ‘We’ll be fine. Anyhow no way am I ever running for another flight.’ And I told her about how I’d had to sprint through miles of Dubai airport once, dodging people trying to sell me gold.
‘Er…our gate is ten minutes away,’ said Rosie.
‘Damn.’ She took off at a run and I legged it after her but it’s tough to run in high heels with a monster heavy bag so I had to stop and wriggle out of my slingbacks and then sprint after her giving my bare feet a free reflexology treatment on the moving walkway.
‘Sally will be sitting cool as a cucumber on the plane with a gin and tonic,’ said Rosie as we gasped our way onto the plane. ‘She’ll be laughing her head off at us.’
Except. Sally’s seat was ominously empty. So we did what all sensible bloggers do in this situation – we checked Twitter.
Turned out Sally had hit security big time and was having her laptop and camera swabbed.
Anyhow. We all made it by the skin of our teeth. It was becoming a bit surreal. I watched Black Swan and got severely confused when what Rosie swore was lemon mousse turned out to be humus. Then we arrived at Tel Aviv and were love-bombed delightfully by blogger Susie and Adi from Kinetis…and we were greeted at the airport by balloons and the lovely Susie and Adi. Then we got in a mini-bus and flew out into the night and into Tel Aviv, munching on falafel flavoured snacks (oh yes!) and laughing and I was just over the moon as deserts and camels are definitely on the cards.
And then some nutter hit our bus and just merrily drove off…so we had to chase him to let him know that his car looked like it had been gauged by dinosaurs.
Anyhow. We’re all fine and I’m in my hotel room surrounded by snacks and chocolate (we ain’t gonna starve, that’s for sure). And it’s really rather fab… But I just have this feeling…it’s going to be one of those trips!
