Fly me to the moon.....

We're home. But if you know me, you're probably thinking to yourself 'Nah, it can't be that simple'. You'd be right.

We were booked onto the 1.20pm British Airways flight from Rome to Gatwick. I'd checked in online at about 7.00pm last night so had the seat numbers allocated even though we couldn't print the boarding cards. We left the apartment about 9.30am and headed over to the station where we got the express shuttle to the airport, arriving some time after 11.00am. A few alarm bells started ringing when we looked at the departure boards and the only 1.20pm departure was to Bucharest, but we weren't too worried. Off we went to the check-in desk, passed over our documents and got the face. You know the face. It's that face you see when you know the person sporting it is about to tell you something you don't want to hear. BA, in their ultimate wisdom, had rescheduled the flight time to 11.55am and not told us. Check-in had closed, so that meant we had missed the flight. Of course, they said everyone had been told. Well, they had my e-mail address and mobile number and I'm still waiting for the notification now.

There were two alternatives; a flight to Heathrow at 3.20pm, or the next flight to Gatwick at 8.20pm. The car was at Gatwick, but it made more sense to get the Heathrow flight and get a coach to Gatwick to collect the car. The coach cost £50 but I'm not too worried about that; if I can't get that back from BA given what I used to do for a living, I'd be surprised. So here we are; back home after a journey that took over 13 hours door to door. I am seriously considering using high speed trains next time we travel in Europe; at least you don't have all the time hanging around in departure lounges, and if it's anything like the train we got from Naples to Rome which travelled at over 300 kilometres (186 miles) per hour and takes you right into the city centre, it's probably as quick!

I wasn't sure if I'd have time to take any pictures today so I took this shot this morning on my phone from the back of our Rome apartment. Apparently the Mono Monday theme for today is 'Star Wars' but as I've never seen any of the films I'd have been struggling. I do, however, feel that perhaps I could have got into outer space more quickly than we got home today.