Day 5 - Warning, grumpy old woman ahead.

So the holiday is over and I am safely home - but, as usual, not without incident.  We checked out of the hotel in time for the check in at the airport to have opened- allow 3 hours right?  Wrong - Verona is such a small airport that we walked up to the check in desk with no queue, spent all of ten mins max waiting to go through the security check and effectively walked through passport control.  With limited shopping opportunities ( apart from a gift for my house sitter of course) cue lots of reading.

The plane was due to leave at 11:40 and arrive at 12:40 uk time.  We had all planned to take trains from London around 4:30pm believing that 4 hours should be enough time to clear passport control, pick up the bags and travel from Gatwick airport to London (1 hour).  As I said when we arrived at the airport the plane was on time, by the time we went through passport control it was delayed until 12:15 but didn't take off until 12:30 ( 11:30 uk time). It then made good time but was held in a circling queue until it could land - meaning that the passengers of at least 6 different planes headed for border control all at the same time - meaning that we were held in a queue until we could go through to the very long border control queue!  There must be an easier way.

Our only stroke of luck ( and trust me I was panicking by now that we would not make the London trains) was that the train from Gatwick was delayed meaning that we walked straight onto it and didn't have to wait.  As a result we all enjoyed a last coffee and cake at St Pancras before going our seperate ways.

The train journey home was uneventful but the car journey home took over an hour longer than it should have done due to rush hour traffic / problem with the A46. However what greeted me - even in the gloom of the evening - was amazing - wow the garden looks amazing!  They have worked so hard!!! I will post pictures tomorrow and you will see what I mean.

Lastly- the weather.  The clue should have been when the pilot told us about the weather in the uk - calling it grim!  However when you realise that I have dropped 20 degrees in 24 hours then it's no wonder I'm cold!  I think that I just need a good nights sleep wrapped up in a duvet!

Take care x