My long trip to Manchester

Saturday, July 2nd

Yesterday I started my trip at 9.45 am on Lux Express for Tallinn and the first obstacle popped up when Ryanair announced 15.40 flight would be delayed for 20 minutes.

Actually we took off 25 minutes later and so I took my middle seat 15E at the front part of the plain.

I slided my hand luggage under the front seat and asked the stuardess what time the plane would land in Dublin. I was going to have a flight connection in Dublin. They said that hopefully we would be in time for the connection.

After that a lady sitting in front of me turned around and started chattering happily that she had been worried about the same problem as she was also heading for  Manchester. Luckily I wasn`t alone with my problem! She was married to an Englishman and started living in England 13 years ago, they had 3 kids.At the moment they lived in Shoebury (what a place name!), but were going to move to Scotland soon. The woman worked as a social care supervisor (helping and taking care of elderly people) ans she mentioned it was not very  convenient to work while you have small kids in England.

Nursery schools  are really expensive to attend. She said women in England usually start working when children go to school at the age of 5 or sometimes even 4. I asked if families were paid some extra money for kids in England. She said some were, but they never did because her husband earned more than 50 000 £ per year.

Arrived at Dublin Airport just in time to reclaim and check  in the luggage again then searh for the right gate......... BUT the flight billboard declared 19.05 Dublin - Manchester is delayed and probably departing 3 hours later (at 10 pm) And we could redeem a 5Eur snack coupon , spent it in BurgerKing. As you know luckily I had a company, but still it was a long time hanging around.

Meanwhile the gate had been changed! And then the next message declared - delayed up to 22.25, 

and then again a new gate and the new time 22.55. Everyone feeling tired and exhausted and also having done further arrangements for transfer and so on .....

Finally we took off at 23.05, Ryanair`s crew thanked everybody for waiting patiently and said there were too many reasons for the delay, so they weren`t going to say anything !!!

After arrival reclaiming the baggage again and then started to look for the train station, it was about a 10-minutes walk to the next terminal with luggage and I was almost running hopefully catching the last train to the city. Oh, and at the last moment managed to catch the last express to Manchester Piccadilly, searching for a taxi next ... 

I was quite alarmed when looking into the taxi window saw an Arabian  driver looking almost like Osama bin Laden, but it was too late to run away ...  I uttered the address 50 Chester Street and he mumbled something like "Do you want it on the metre?" The result was that I was too much in a hurry to leave the cab and didn`t ask for a receipt.

I think it was half past 2 when I could finally fall asleep.

My flat is on the 13th floor of this skyscraper.