Tl;dr : We’re here!

But, of course, it didn’t quite all go to plan. Due to circumstances out of my control I ended up having only 19 hours to pack my entire apartment and London life into five suitcases, the fixed number of boxes provided in an Argos “pack your home” set, and a cat crate. Situation stress not improved by the fact that the storage people and the suitcase transport people arrived two hours early. Informational point: BA offer a service where they will collect your luggage from any London location and check it in for you, which I can highly recommend – it means you only have to deal with the logistics of hand luggage and a cat crate when trying to leave the country early on a Monday morning.

The first stage was a Gatwick airport hotel, which was absolutely the best decision I made during the planning process. Not least because it reduced Monday morning stress, but also because it meant I had a very amusing evening in a hotel with the lady cats, and discovered that they are both absolutely obsessed with pork scratchings. How do they even know about pork scratchings?! I think at least one of you lovely people who have cat sat for me may have something to confess…..

So, Monday morning, lady cats delivered to cargo at 6am, four hours before their flight and five before mine; but, yes, there was snow in London and that is where things started to cascade downhill. Some speedy de-icing of our plane and very efficient piloting meant we landed in Lanzarote only slightly behind schedule, however, I had a sinking feeling as we landed and passed planes parked along the side of the runway. Then the pilot confirmed it; we were also being parked wherever they could find a space for us – I thought they didn’t do this any more after the terrible accident at Tenerife North – but there we were along with a dozen or more other planes parked side by side on the runway.

When we were eventually bused to the terminal we passed piles of luggage just abandoned on the tarmac. I scanned every pile for evidence of a cat crate, thankfully only suitcases. But how were they going to cope with all that baggage? The answer; three hours later it would all arrive ad hoc on random carousels. And then there were several hundred people in the taxi queue…. but it could have been worse; after 27 flights arrived in one hour they closed the airport and started diverting to Tenerife, so the lady cats could have spent far more than four hours in cargo if I’d been dispatched to another Canary Island. As an aside; the cargo man advised they close at 7.30pm, would he have had to take the cats home with him at that time if I’d still been in baggage reclaim?!

So, a few hours later than planned, but we made it. My shipping was diverted to Las Palmas, and is due to arrive some time in the next few days; the weather was pretty immense earlier in the week which meant they also closed the port, thank goodness the cats weren’t being shipped or yet again we’d be in a cats stuck on a ferry situation. I left my silk flowers overnight on the hotel reception desk. Three photo frames and a mirror didn’t survive the Lanzarote baggage experience. I briefly lost the old lady cat yesterday, but she found her way back to the apartment. And as of my first day sailing today I’ve already got some very questionable tanlines….

Adios London. Hola Lanzarote!