LIGHTENING AND ALARMS !!!

Well here we go ... typically of us we couldn't sleep with excitement of our long awaited trip actually it was only Roger 😀 and we were up far to early. We had planned to have breakfast in newly opened cafe in Pwll ,so after sorting out the new heating system and a general security check we left the house and got to the cafe just after 9 am only to find that they were having staff  problems and they weren't serving breakfast! Quick rethink and headed for Morrisons, not the greatest breakfast in the world, but it filled a hole and the service was pretty quick.

On the road for 10 am which gave us plenty of time to get to our Heathrow car park, Lynda was in control but soon got very bored when Roger insisted on staying at 70 mile an hour. Quick pit stop in Wales for change of driver and we were soon crossing the bridge into England. As we had plenty of time we sat and enjoyed a coffee at our favourite services in England. The motorway was surprising free flowing and it was soon time to turn off heading towards the car park, the area we drove through has many memories for both of us as we lived in Stanwell Moor way back yonder.

We were a little bit disappointed in that although we arrived early the mini bus to take us to the airport left just as we were booking in so had to wait until just before 3 pm.

On arrival at Terminal 2 we soon found the Air Canada checking desk but were directed to the automated system for the luggage labels, bags dropped and security cleared pretty quickly. Time for a cup of coffee a bite to eat and people watching whilst waiting for our gate to show. The options given were a 5 minute walk or a 15 minute one, guess which one we had? Taking advantage of the moving walkways we arrived in less than 15 minutes, had time for a pit stop before boarding. 

The flight was quite bumpy all the way across and got worse as we flew over the start of the Canadian land mass. As we began our descent into Toronto airport Lynda noticed out of the window some bright flashing lights which we both assumed were the aircraft navigation lights as it was now quite dark. A smooth landing and a steady taxi to the apron only for the pilot to announce that we were unable to approach the Jetway to disembark owing to the fact that the bright flashing lights were actually lightening flashes, due to health and safety all the ground crew had been told to stop work and shelter for the duration of the storm. This caused a back log of aircraft on the apron with no where to go. Eventually we did manage to disembark and proceeded to enter Canada. The immigration officer we chose was a chatty soul and wanted every persons life history before he stamped the passports, us included. Collected our luggage and headed for the desk where our limo would be picking us up, owing to the fact we were now 2 hours late he had gone off to park, Lynda smiled sweetly at the supervisor manning the desk who then let us out the emergency exit which was a short cut to the pick up point, where Lynda and the supervisor had

a nice chat leaving Roger feeling a bit like a gooseberry. It was a very nice limo pity about the driver

who was rather miserable but it might have had something to the long wait he had.

The drive to our down town hotel took about 20 minutes, we were surprised with the amount of traffic on the very wide highways, as we got closer to the city the view was dominated by hundreds of skyscrapers. Rather disappointed no porters to help us with our luggage but we managed and found reception. 

Check-in went very well and Lynda was pleasantly surprised when she was given a voucher for a gooey cake pudding (which we never redeemed) as a birthday present from the hotel, and we were told we had been given an upgrade on the room but Rog wasn't so sure. The room was very nice though and another surprise and thoughtful touch was a card from Fast Tracks Canada wishing us all the very best for our anniversary trip along with a plate of cheese and crackers. We fell into bed exhausted but owing to jet lag our bodies were completely out of sync and we were both wide awake by 3.30 am, managed to get back to sleep eventually only to be rudely awakened at 5.30 am by the fire alarm going off! Fortunately it was a false alarm and we did not have to evacuate. Tried to sleep again but were down stairs for breakfast fairly early to start the day.

That concludes our first blog. Goodnight from Lynda.