Blade goes Back to Blighty

So the day has come for John to take his trip back to the UK - he is flying tonight to Manchester and then taking a car down to Sheffield.  Believe it or not it was cheaper to fly to Manchester and hire a car with Easyjet than it was to fly with Jet2 and land at East Midlands which is marginally nearer.

For a man who spent most of his working life living out of a minuscule suitcase he is dreadful when it comes to packing to go away.  Even more so this time as he is limited to hand luggage only even though it would appear that he left a full wardrobe back at his mum's when he was there last year.

He always leaves his packing to the last minute and today was no exception - there has always been something he wants at the 11th hour and today it was a film to keep him occupied on the flight but ITunes wasn't having any of it.  Part of the problem is that living here in Cyprus it would appear that he is only able to access what is available on ITunes Cyprus and this is about 10 years behind anything he might want to have had access to and since he did it the last time the Bank has changed our debit cards so when he finally found a film to rent he had to input all his new card details which did not amuse him.  Eventually he managed to get something that he could watch but not before he had been told a million times that there was no space left on his IPad even though he had deleted just about everything.

We had decided that we would pick up something to eat en route to Mum's and have tea with her before we went to the airport for 8.00pm.  His flight would get him into Manchester in the early hours of tomorrow morning and that with the fact that he had to find his hire car and then drive a journey he had not done before in a manual car with an exorbitant excess did not excite him.

We spend the day looking at the suitcase and then ignoring it until we really had to do something about it.   The cats were aware that something was going on.  They are creatures of habit and don't like it when they sense change.  Charlie decided to stage his own personal protest by taking up residence on top of the printer as I tried to print out all the paperwork John needed and then one of the ink cartridges ran out which did nothing to add to our moods.

We were invited across to the neighbours for a coffee and to say goodbye which John was more than happy to do as it delayed the actual moment of packing.  Once he gets there he will be fine, in fact more than fine when he gets to watch his beloved Sheffield United playing on Saturday with our lovely friend Mike.  Bad timing though because as he is flying this evening they are playing against Middlesborough and he is going to miss it although I know that Rob will keep him up to date with the scores if and when John manages to get internet access.

It will be like old times when he was in the Navy - him in one country whilst I am in another and then in a couple of weeks the roles will be reversed when I take Mum across to the UK and he will remain here in Droushia.

As we finally went to pack we discovered Boris was taking a leaf out of Charlie's book by protesting about John going away by sleeping on top of the newly rewashed laundry that Charlie had slept on previously thus necessitating a re-wash.  Our fault for leaving the spare bedroom door open.

We managed to get a chicken and some potatoes from Paps - these are now getting too popular as this is the second time I have been recently to have the last remaining chicken with no others being prepared on the rotisserie.  I had made some fresh coleslaw (something I know Mum loves) and together we had a pleasant meal and an hour or so's chat before going to the Airport.

Fingers crossed it will be an uneventful trip for John.