Have I Lost My Grump?

I am getting worried that I may be losing my grump! I haven’t felt grumpy enough to write a blog for quite a while, but it may have returned. And this is down to my holiday. I know, a holiday should not make anyone grumpy and, on the whole, it didn’t. Just parts of it.

Back last year it was suggested by friends, for the sake of this blog we will refer to them as Stuart and Hannah (probably because that is their name!), that we go on holiday together. This could be dangerous as we have only spent a couple of days together since we met, apart from the week or so that we spent on a Nile cruise where we first met. But in those short meetings we have got on like a house on fire. So we weren’t really worried. They booked it and we paid our share, I think although i must check the final numbers, and off we set to their home before our flight from Gatwick. We were all making our way to Broze near Toulouse somewhere down the bottom end of France. Mrs Giant68 and I have never been past Paris and this, sort of, coloured my opinion of our neighbour across the channel in a negative way.

But enough of that. Where did the grumpiness come from? Airports, that’s where. Your holiday and, therefore, the start of the process of shedding the stress begins at the airport, in my opinion. But no, the stress levels build. You arrive at the aerodrome looking forward to the adventure that is launching yourself inside a metal tube full of other peoples farts into the sky. You are shot down almost immediately as you join the queue at check in. Even though you have taken advantage of ‘online check in’ you still have to join the line to drop your bag off. You are met by a surly airport worker, I was, who wants to know why you are in this queue. To drop my bag off, I inform her. No you should be in that queue comes the response comes, and she sounds as if she has been sucking a lemon all night.

Once you have lost your bag you have to wait, one eye on the departures board, for information on your flight time. In this case the board told me that there would be more info at 8:15. It was already 8:20, huh?

Next? The queue at the gate. First through are the ‘speedy boarders’, those who have paid extra for an allocated seat… hang on! I have an allocated seat but I am not a speedy boarder… Seems like a waste of money to me. But the queue gives way to another queue to get on the plane. The first person on will now hold everyone else up as he is sat by the door but must now stand in the aisle while he gets everything he, or she, needs for the flight out of their hand luggage and then put said hand luggage in the overhead locker. While there is a size limit for carry on bags it seems that this doesn’t apply to some travellers as they try to force a bag the size of a grand piano into the overhead locker.

You take off. Then begins the added torture, worse than the CIAs waterboarding: crying babies, small children kicking the back of your seat, being crammed into the smallest seat possible… the list goes on. Is there any wonder why I am grumpy?

You will be pleased to know that my stress level did drop when faced with these views:

    

There was also this stuff called ‘red wine’, food and friendship. You will be pleased to know, maybe, that I survived the airport experience and returned home a bit less stressed, although depressed at being dragged away from the aforementioned items.

Enjoy your holidays

Regards

Giant68