A London Peasouper

Yes, we are talking weather again! I thought I had to keep it up since this year has been quite so unusual. The latest oddity coincided with the beginning of the story of Sophie's Christmas visit and it was what we call a "peasouper" over here. I actually thought those were a thing of the past and that modern technology and emission control had got the better of this feature, which means a very dense thick fog hanging heavily over the London area for days. Well, it had a comeback this year (the first time I've experienced it) just in the week before Christmas and it was really something to behold (that's NOT saying that it was pleasant): you could not see as far as across the road, and I mean really nothing, not even the shadow of a shape for the first two days. By the time Sophie was due to arrive, it had thinned a little but Heathrow Airport was still running at half capacity. Apparently, the problem was not the in liftoff or landing, nor even the air traffic, but the taxying around the runaways, where pilots could not even see their planes' wing tips!

So we spent a very sad/excited Friday the 22nd when we first found out early in the morning that Sophie's flight had been cancelled. I phoned her and it didn't look at that time as if she would be able to come before Christmas at all - so everybody involved was rather disappointed and sad. But some hours later her Mum called to say that she had managed to get a seat on a later plane and that they'd just taken her to the airport. So we started watching the Internet flight announcements again, half excited and half despondend as we read about more and more flights being cancelled again. There was still more delay but finally Sophie's plane was announced departed and we made our way to the airport. There was surprisingly little traffic apart from loads of coaches bringing people in to catch their overseas flights as all national air traffic was at a standstill... It was odd driving through the thick fog, hardly able to see anything or read signs, and I was mighty glad that Sean had stayed home to do the pickup with me. There was still more waiting at the airport as it took Sophie a long time to get her luggage (apparently there were lots of problems with missing and wrongly delivered baggage but luckily hers had arrived in the same plane!) but finally we were reunited at the gate and ... so they all lived happily ever after... (or at least we had a very nice Christmas and New Year together about which you'll hear soon...).

Credits: template and "A Brand New Day" kit by Ruby Q Hammer; wordart by Tina Williams; Burlap alphas by Lauren Bavin