Day Seven
Don’t get me wrong, I love a good holiday. Sea, sun and sangrias – what’s not to like? But how does the prospect of getting stranded abroad with exams looming sound to you? Not appealing? Tell me about it.
Let me set the scene. Ok, so I wasn’t sleeping next to a bin in a shed of an airport or bussing it through the Congo to get home. I was in a rather lavish 4 and a half (the half is important) hotel in the oldies’ favourite ‘Playa Blanca’, Lanzarote.
I’d never been there before, but when my Dad asked if I wanted a free holiday I jumped at the chance. We hadn’t had a full family holiday since I was 15, so this was going to be interesting.
It was only a week, 7 days and 6 nights. A relatively stress free time to relax after a hard term and before an even harder term to come.The weather was fantastic and the food was..well..lovely and special all at the same time. They had theme nights- themes varying from ‘Spanish’ to ‘Special Buffet’. It was that, believe me. The week went by quite quickly, and on the last night I felt a touch of sadness. It had been one of the best holidays I’d ever been on. Not only because it was free and pretty damn lush (I’m fickle) but because it was just what we all needed.
Our coach was due to pick us up at 2pm from the hotel, so we packed up our stuff, bought last minute crap for friends and family at home (I got my best friend a sugar watermelon – I think that gives you some idea of what I was dealing with ). My sister and I were, for the first time that holiday, ready before our parents for breakfast.
I’ll put on the TV, that’s a plan. I never normally put the telly on when I’m away and I don’t want to know news. It’s a Chapman trait. The only exception was when my Mam told my Dad that Robin Cook had died when we were in Italy that I remember the rule ever being broken. However on this holiday I’d become addicted to the Disney channel. My life has changed irrevocably thanks to Zack and Cody: All Aboard.
I flicked through and stumbled upon Sky News. It’s the last day, I thought, better get to grips with what’s happening in good old Blighty.
“BREAKING NEWS: ALL UK AIRPORTS CLOSING AFTER 12:00 DUE TO ICELANDIC VOLCANIC ASH”, was running along the bottom of the TV in lurid yellow.
A collective ‘WHAAAT’ from my sister and I. We watched the little amount we could before we were summoned for breakfast. Horror is all that can describe the feeling in the room. It must be a sick joke, of course it is. Sky News is pulling a very late April Fool’s Day joke on us. Ha ha Kate Burley. Very good. That’s a funny idea.Now can we please have the real news?
We went for breakfast and didn’t think much about it. Nobody was causing a fuss over the pancakes or having one over the omelettes. The news had mentioned that it was going to be the main London, Birmingham and Manchester airports that would be mostly affected. We were going to Newcastle. Home and dry!
How very, very wrong I was. The whole ‘I do not need to talk to other Brits on this holiday’ outlook went out the window with my hope for any kind of salvation at that point. So when a solitary man approached us, we jumped at the chance to quiz him.
Wise Oak told us that, in fact, ALL UK airports were closed and that he had booked himself and his wife in for ANOTHER week in the hotel. That’s a bit dramatic mate, I thought, it’s not going to be that bad.
Our holiday company booked us in for the night. I had a mixture of anger and happiness at the prospect of not being able to get back home. We were meant to leave on the day that Eyjafjallajökull erupted. We were going to be in for the long haul (airport themed pun unintended).
Day Eight
The next day my Mam had befriended an all-female family from Huddersfield who we named ‘Doom Crew’, because they were. One girl needed to get home on as she had an A-Level exam the next Wednesday.
“Oh you’ll get home for that, of course you will” we all trilled in unison. To be honest, at that point we had complete faith that we would be home that day, warming our hands on an open fire whilst eating fish and chips, and watching Friday Night with Jonathan Ross.
Our (slightly) dishevelled holiday rep and accomplice turned up. All those travelling to Newcastle, Leeds/Bradford and East Midlands were booked onto a ‘ massive Jumbo Jet’ (his words, not mine) and were flying into Glasgow, leaving 5am on Saturday morning. Relief was all, I felt. Then dread at the thought of a pretty hideous coach trip to come.
Day Forty
At 4am the next morning we got a call saying that the flight had been cancelled and we were to check at reception at 11 for a further update. This was to become a horrible pattern, as every day until we were able to leave we were stood around a dilapidated pin board in (now pushing 9 days) old shorts.
Hysteria was beginning to set in amongst the ranks. Our rep, who had now crossed the line from dishevelled to smelly mouse man, turned up. We were to be booked in for ‘the foreseeable future’. Nobody wanted to hear that. I began to panic then, knowing exactly where my revision notes were at home and the dust they must be accumulating.
The Doom Crew (including my mother – founding member) were full of it. If you could imagine a walking Daily Mail, that’s what they were, a la Russell Howard.
“What next? We’ll have to make colonies on the beach and change our names to something a bit more Spanish”
We went back to our rooms/homes and put on the life blood: Sky News.
Eamon Holmes had just asked a Volcanologist whether they could put an atom bomb in the volcano to stop it erupting.
It was a long while before my head raised from my hands.
Day Two Hundred
Tuesday came round and I knew it was a long shot that I’d get home anytime soon. My parents and my sister had taken the week off work as had many at the hotel. Wise Oak was right. We would be here another week.
That day, the reps began to crumble. After the standard response (cue cockney) ‘I DAAAARNNT KNOOOOOWER’ from the dippy fool of an accomplice, guests fought back. So much so, even, that she believed we were turning against her. Oh happy day.
What little sanity I had left was quickly dashed that night after watching the hotel entertainment. It can only be described as a giant golden condom lady playing the flute to ‘Lord of the Dance’.
The drama was then intensified when we found out that the pregnant lady from down the hall’s cut off time for flying was Thursday, and if she passed it she would have to find other means of getting home. However, Kay Burley had announced that the Navy were on their way, so my spirits were lifted for about half an hour, until I found out that they were only taking people across the Channel. We weren’t even close to mainland Europe.
The Doom Crew decided to fight. They booked flights to Madrid and then a car up to Calais. It would be cruel (but true) to say that they didn’t even get out of the hotel boundaries, so when we saw them that night we knew that their plans had been scuppered.
Day Five Thousand and Thirty One
Thursday came around. One exact week since this whole hideous mess began, two weeks that I’d left the milk open in the fridge. We heard on the frenzied grapevine that some flights had left during the night to Scotland and Ireland. So when a notice was put on the nail scratched (not really, but I’m quite surprised it wasn’t) notice board that we were flying that afternoon at 4 I wailed with relief. Finally, homeward bound.
We were first onto the coach. Our last parting drama was that we’d accidently left smelly mouse man rep at the hotel so he had to get a taxi round the resort until he found the bus. Whoops. It probably won’t surprise you to know that he’s now handed in his notice.
And the rest was history. There was a raucous round of applause when we touched down at Newcastle, and a collective shiver by us all when the plane door opened. I had four days until my open exam started, and one week until my closed exam. I got back to York that weekend and regaled my housemates with stories of abandonment and horror. I hadn’t realised how bad it had actually been for some. People had spent thousands trying to get their families back by land or sea. Some were even kept under house arrest because their visas had run out and they were stuck in that country with no hope.
So my tale is not extravagant as some could be, but even though I was lucky, it is something I would never like to go through again. Especially witnessing a prancing human-condom playing a flute.