Mom’s big holiday at the City Lodge

Mutiny on the A380

I am ambivalent about travel at the best of times, and my reasons for that are documented here. However, when my pregnant sister suggested a girl’s trip to the UK - ‘A weekend in London! A show! Some shopping!’ - to tag onto a work trip of hers - during which ‘you could do a solo-walking holiday along the Cornwall coast!’ - and the fact that ‘you haven’t been overseas since you’ve had children!’, ‘you’re turning forty this year!’ and ‘I’m about to have a child, which means we won’t be going anywhere on our own anytime soon!’), I couldn’t resist. Musicals, shopping, walking, and my sister; one couldn’t ask for a better combo.

So I agreed to the onslaught of admin that is getting a visa (I kid reader, my sister did all the admin! She is amazing! I just appeared at the appointment). I then dutifully checked that my husband’s calendar would allow for him to be more flexible, I spoke to my gracious in-laws about doing school lifts, I sent everyone schedules, and phone numbers, and notes on the preferred bench one should sit on at pickup so that the child doesn’t dissolve into a panic, I let the schools know I wouldn’t be around, I made 22 individual Ziploc lunch bags (11 days away x 2 kids), I froze enough suppers for 6 days, and made sure there were enough cans of beans and tuna for the rest.

I bought myself a new suitcase and walking shoes, cos now that I’m almost forty I do things like that. We booked train journeys and West End tickets, we booked hotels, and tables at restaurants. We were EXCITED.

The day finally came and of course my daughter had a raging temperature and was utterly miserable at my leaving. Once I managed to disentangle myself my father-in-law drove me to the train station while I tried to muffle my sobs, and he tried to reassure me that it would all be just fine. He would buy them ice-cream (I love that this is the grandparent’s universal go-to).

Finally united with my sister at the airport, and my nerves largely under control, we checked in, went through passport control, and into the slow lounge (wow, I’ve missed the slow lounge!), I had a glass of bubbly, she had a ginger ale, and we called our parents to say, ‘all was well, we’ll message you when we land’.

Time came to board, and we queued with the rest of the cattle class. We settled ourselves and got as far as the very funny BA safety video staring Ncuti Gatwa. Shortly thereafter, the head flight attendant, best described as an upbeat Basil Fawlty, came on the intercom.

7pm. ‘Good evening, everyone, my name is Mark, and I am the head attendant on this flight. I am terribly sorry to say, that it seems we’ve hit a bit of snag, and will be somewhat delayed. There is a problem with the brakes, well, the brake lights, it appears, and our engineers are on their way this minute to attend to the problem. We hope to resolve this within about 30 minutes, and we will of course, keep in communication with you as to any developments. Thank you so much for your patience.’

Oh well, could be worse. We kept chatting. 30 minutes became one hour.

8pm. ‘Hello again, ladies and gentlemen, it’s me, Mark, your head flight attendant, and I’m afraid I don’t have any good news to share at this stage, our engineers are doing everything they can to troubleshoot the problem, but its taking a little longer than anticipated, but we are sure this will be resolved soon, and ask you to please bear with us. I will be back with you in 30 minutes to give you an update.’

We should by this stage have been in the air for an hour. We opened our Word Search book and drank our water and ate our snacks (provided by my sister, I should point out, the airline had offered us nothing). Spirits still high, confident that, as Mark said, all would be resolved soonest.

At about 9pm we were offered half a glass of water, and people were starting to get restless. An American youth across the aisle was loudly telling anyone who would listen about how he was going to miss his connecting flight. We also managed to hear that he was born in China, raised in the USA, went to a Christian college and had been on a volunteer trip to an orphanage in the greater Gauteng area. That he had learnt a lot and that it was good to ‘exchange cultural experiences’. No-one had asked him about any of this, and neither did he ask anyone anything about themselves and their journeys during this repeated soliloquy.

By 9.30 we were hungry, getting hot and needing to stretch legs.

‘Hello and good evening passengers, its, me, Mark, your flight attendant. Thank you for your patience, we do of course understand your mounting frustration. We haven’t quite located the problem but we think we’re just about nearing the source. Of course, I’ll keep you promptly updated as to when we do locate the problem itself. In the meantime, we invite you to relax, and I hope to back with you soon, bearing good news.’

We decided to take a tour of the double-decker plane, staring without shame at the first-class passengers stretched out quaffing champagne in their pajamas, and wondering how we ourselves could ever reach such heights of luxury.

We hovered for a while in the kitchen galley while the air stewards cheerfully gabbed away. One Italian gentleman regaled us with a tale of delivering a baby on-board when he saw Rachel was pregnant. The staff looked like they were eating left over bits of muffin from a previous service. They were obviously as hungry as the passengers.

The American youth approached us, with the opening gambit that he was going to miss his connecting flight, to which we said, “oh?” and politely excused ourselves.  

10.30 ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Mark here, and I thrilled to say the problem has been located and it looks like we will be taking off in approximately 30 minutes, and we ask you to ready yourselves, make your way back to your seats and fasten your seatbelts. We thank you again for your cooperation, patience, and forbearance. We will begin our ascent as soon as possible.’

The mood immediately improved and up we buckled, away we stowed, ready for supper, ready to sleep. The smell of food warming in the ovens. The engines started and,

11pm ‘Good evening ladies and gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. Having just started the engines again, the brake light has once more lit up, despite us thinking the error had been fixed, so it’s safe to say we won’t be flying anywhere tonight.’

11.01 ‘Well, that’s not good news is it. This is Mark, your head flight attendant, and I am sorry, but not to worry we will be communicating our next steps as soon as we, in fact, have been communicated what those will be. We do apologise, we understand that this must be deeply disappointing. But unfortunately, this is beyond our control.’

The passengers now having lost all sense of humour, the tiredness and hunger that have been kept at bay, now erupt. The gentlemen next to us had already researched his compensation rights and was ready to go on a public education campaign for the rights of the maligned commuter. A lady in front of us signals to the air hostess,

‘Are they feeding the people in first class? I heard they’re feeding people in first class?’

‘Oh no love, they wouldn’t do that.’

‘But we can smell the food? Where is the food?’

‘It’s the food we were warming for your flight, but now we’re disembarking.’

‘But we saw *you* eating?’

‘Oh yes, but that was our lunch, wasn’t it?’

‘Hello, Mark here, once again, thank you for your ongoing patience in these extenuating circumstances. I can’t, at this moment, say where you will be going tonight, but we don’t want any of you getting lost and just wondering around the airport, so what we’re going to do is disembark one cabin at a time, and when you reach the baggage hall you will receive further instruction.’

It was becoming like the world’s worst version of the amazing race. Parents with young children scrounging for snacks, overtired babies crying, the old dehydrating.

Out we all schlepped, through passport control, again, and into the baggage hall. As yet with no clear instruction. We waited about an hour for our bags and when they arrived, Rachel’s had literally been bent out of shape. It was now 12.30. We were beyond tired and there was not one airline staff member in sight.

Unmarked and unnamed individuals told us to ‘just follow the others to the buses’, with no mention of when we might fly and where we were going.

This being an enormous plane, the queue of 400 people snaking towards the buses felt impossible. One had to wait for the bus, for the baggage to be loaded (and probably unloaded at the unnamed location to where we were being taken). I broke out of the line to try and walk to the front and find an actual Official Looking Person and some information, and irate gentleman shouted, ‘hey, we’re all waiting in line here’. The baying for blood was moments away.

Privileged princesses that we are, we took the strategic decision to leave the bus queue and whatever location it was headed to and walked smartly toward the glowing City Lodge sign.

Upon entry the receptionist warmly welcomed us. It was 1am and he said that room service was served until 2am. Praise God.

We schlepped to our room and ordered two cheese and tomato toasties. In continuation with everything else that had happened, only one sandwich arrived. We scarfed it down and went to bed.

We woke to an email saying that the airline was sorry, but as yet, they had no idea when we might be boarding our flight. But that they were extending the hotel accommodation until the following day.

Fast-forward 50+ hours, and a sense of existing in a collapsed space-time continuum, watching the clock as each of our carefully planned activities were scuppered, we are here once again, two days later, eating what looks to be the same chicken and rice in the slow lounge, about to board.

Wish us luck!