It had been a hard day in Fiji.
Ha! Who am I kidding, there is no such thing as a hard day on holiday in Fiji and especially not when you have got a ridiculous last minute deal at the Westin Denarau.
And as I climbed up into my Kingsize bed and reclined into the World’s comfiest pillows, I turned on the news. It was ten to Midnight.
Ten to midnight on my last night in Fiji. Behind me two weeks of Pan-Pacific adventuring and ahead of me a short hop to Sydney, an overnight there and a longer hop home to London.
As I set the alarm on my phone dear old Auntie Beeb’s World Service news broadcast was winding up to it’s ‘And finally’ story. With a note of condescending hilarity in his voice the newsreader informed the World that some flights from London to Canada were being forced to fly a bit further South because of a volcano eruption in Iceland. Hilarious stuff! The banter with the other newscaster revolved around whether anyone would mind waiting an extra hour to get to Canada. Would they even notice he quipped back. With the World suitably amused about the dullness of Canada when compared to a long haul economy flight, but not alarmed by the potential for aeroplane meets volcanic ash cloud catastrophe, we went to the weather.
‘DUM DUM’. Midnight in Fiji and headline time.
“London Heathrow, London Gatwick, Birmingham and Glasgow airports are closed as a volcanic ash cloud threatens air safety across Northern Europe.”
‘DUM DUM’
“BAA announces the closure of British Airspace for two hours as a precautionary measure while an assessment of the dangers is carried out. Amsterdam Schipol will be closed until 6pm.”
You what?! I sit up from the World’s comfiest pillows with a sort of laugh. Surely this can’t be serious. Surely this isn’t something I should worry about? The look on the face of the newsreader tells me he is thinking the same thing. I feel reassured this is a practical joke. Health and safety gone mad in the run up to the election. Fair enough I think, the last thing Gordon needs is planes dropping out of the skies over marginal constituencies. Caution first.
As the Beeb newsreader refuses to wrap their vocal chords around the actual name of the volcano a map appears on the screen. A meteorologist is wheeled out to explain which bit of the cloud covering the UK is cloud and which bit is ash. A lot of it seems to be ash. It’s about ten past midnight.
And just as I’m sat their thinking ‘that won't affect me?’ to myself, my phone goes.
“Oh” I think. A loving text from my lovely boyfriend wishing me sweet dreams.
No. A dreadful text. An awful text. From British Airways. Sent out during Friday lunchtime, UK time telling me that my flight from Sydney to London Heathrow departing on Sunday afternoon and landing in the UK on Monday at 7am, in 70 hours time was cancelled.
My first thought was: This ash cloud is more serious than anyone is letting on yet.
My second thought was: “Shit. How the hell am I going to get home?!”
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