Sunday 8th January 2012

A rain bashed garden with flooded road!

A belated Happy New Year!  After an enjoyable two week stay back in the UK celebrating the Christmas period with family and friends it was back to our second home of Pervolia.

An early start with an alarm going off at 0545hrs. is not something that we are used to.  However we were reasonable well organised and ready and waiting for the taxi to London Heathrow Terminal 3, which arrived exactly on time at 0615.  As you can expect there was little traffic on the road and in exactly one hour we were in the British Airways lounge having coffee and bacon baps!  Its great to be able to use the lounge even though we fly economy.  One perk from all of the business trips that I have completed in the last eighteen months qualifying me as a silver card holder.  Lounge access makes flying so more 'relaxing' as I genuinely hate waiting for planes and still after all the travel I have done get anxious about the whole 'check in - get a seat process'.

As ever the usual British Airways style flight.  Rubbish entertainment which you can't see as the planes are without setback screens.  Food that whilst it is OK is often served by cabin crew who have little in the way of smile and customer service.  I almost missed breakfast as I was dozing when it was eventually brought round!  However with the 'small sleep' and sunday papers to read the flight even though 4.5hrs passed quickly.  Our seat of 14F and 14G was near the exit so it was a quick getaway on landing being one of the first in the passport control queue.  I don't know why we even show passports as they get no more than a cursory glance.  Oh that US immigration was so easy.

Cases where quick in coming through and it was out to get a taxi.  With Pervolia only being about 12 minutes away from the airport the drivers are not keen on the trip, especially today with us with a lot of luggage (3 cases and hand luggage with laptops and camera) and it pouring with rain.  I mean pouring.  It was lashing down and the roads were flooded.  This was light compared with our made-up road which was like a lake and the driver took some persuading to take us to the door.  A 20 euro fee was hardly surprising in the conditions.

The garden as you can see had taken a bit of a bashing and if you look carefully you can see the dread 'Charlie' who had made a 'reappearance' despite all of our effort before Xmas.  With the rain we did no more than look out of the window, eat, drink and watch some DVD's before off to bed.

Its nice to be back ...... even if it is only for the week.