Cork...

This weekend just gone Stuart and I spent in Cork staying with the lovely Clodagh, Colin and baby Harry.

The reason for the trip was to meet up for the 20th anniversary of 'Giessen Girls' - who all misspent their youth on the same student course in Germany.

We had a great time and always fun to spend time with everyone.

At the start of the trip in Heathrow and as we boarded our Aer Lingus flight I popped my head into the cockpit and whispered to the pilot and co-pilot, "feeling happy today fellas?" Well, you would wouldn't you?

Day 17 - Sun 7 December - Home...

We arrived at Heathrow about 4:20pm. Took the tube home. Journey’s end. Knackered.

Best. Holiday. Ever.

Schiphol...

Last night returning from a business trip in Holland I was caught out by the bad weather.

Originally booked on a 21:00 BA flight leaving Schiphol bound for Heathrow I discovered – quite by accident – that the flight had been cancelled. No explanation was given but I assumed it was due to the snow.

I dashed to the airport early trying to change my flight to another one. The only other one to Heathrow was at 19:30 and luckily I made it there in time. Well, my luck was running out as this flight was at first delayed too and then cancelled altogether due to a fault on the wing.

The last flight leaving Schiphol for London was a flight to Gatwick so I managed to get transferred to that instead. Of course that also was delayed due to hitherto unknown to me issue - frost on the wing. “British Airways pride themselves as being a ‘clean wing’ airline”

The plane taxied to a part of the runway before take-off where we were sprayed with super-heated steam from cherry-picker type machines. It was a bit like Thunderbirds.

Eventually we were given the all clear and took off. Luckily I managed to call my driver ahead of time so he was waiting for me at Gatwick instead of Heathrow I got back home by 23:30 - after 7 hours of travel. Phew!

#OlympicsBashing...

The Olympics athletes started arriving in London yesterday so inevitably the usual suspects started with their Olympics bashing. Yes, step forward peddlers of negativity Evening Standard and BBC News London.

All they could come with last night was (a) the Australian team's boat sails were delivered to the cargo rather than the passenger gate at Heathrow resulting in a slight delay. Oh the humanity! and, (b) the Canadian team's bus driver got a bit lost driving from Heathrow to Startford and took the scenic route via Buckingham Palace. Will no one think of the children!

It prompted me to tweet the following two messages mentioning them:-

Oh #EveningStandard is that the best you can do? Not even got the word 'chaos' in #OlympicsBashing non-story front page! Please try harder.

Oh #BBCLondon is that the best you can do? Not even got the word 'chaos' in #OlympicsBashing top story! Please try harder.

That told 'em, huh?

Though it seemed to the world, They were all I desired...

We woke up late. Ooops. Luckily we'd checked in and packed the previous night - thanks for doing that Stu! I'd developed a bit of an ear infection (all my own fault) so had taken some painkillers which meant I overslept.

So dashed down to the breakfast room - we gabbed some breakfast, checked out and grabbed a cab. We ran through bag drop, immigration, security and to our gate. Suited me fine to be honest. I don't like hanging around in airports.

I wolfed down 10mg of Valium to ease my nerves and we minutes afterwards we were on board.

Thirteen hours later we were in Heathrow. Don't you just love Valium?