Day 270 - Chaos

Today was travely day: Aggie is returning to Lille via Atlanta, Heathrow and then the Eurostar; Andrew has a flight from Tampa to Gatwick; daughter, Caroline, and fiancé Paul are heading this way from Gatwick on the plane that is due to fly her brother back across the Atlantic.

We woke up this morning to the news that there was a security alert in the North Terminal at Gatwick and that it was closed. Caroline and Paul had arrived at the airport on time but were now camped out at Costa Cafe in the South Terminal, patiently waiting for news.  And boy did they have to be patient: the delay amounted to some 7 hrs, whilst the security services dealt with the threat posed by some kind of suspect pacakge/airgun/grenade depending which of the increasingly hysterical news sources you believed.

Whilst we were waiting for news, the departure time of Andrew's flight of course kept being put back so that in the end he drove Aggie back up to Tampa for her (on-time) departure and it wasn't until 10 pm that we eventually drove back ourselves with him to drop him off for his flight and then greet Caroline and Paul.

When they eventually made it through Immigration, the drama wasn't yet over as they had made it to the US but their luggage had not.

British Airways at Tampa were not at their organisational best and, by the time that we had reported the missing bags, it was gone 01:00 when we got back here (that was 06:00 for the visitors!).  Straight to bed...