Today was set to be a very busy day as Mum and Dad were coming over for lunch and then Sophie and I were taking them to Heathrow later in the day, as they are flying to Cyprus tomorrow.
I woke up with a sudden thought that I really needed to insure myself to drive their car - my own insurance covers me to drive any car with the owner's permission, but only on a third party basis. If the very worst happened and I wrote off my Dad's car, I wouldn't be covered! Luckily I found a great temporary insurance website which insured me to drive Dad's car for just today, and for only £20! Worth it for peace of mind!
I gave the house a quick clean downstairs and Sophie made a salad and set the table for me. After we'd showered we went to get some diesel for my car, picked up the Sunday newspapers and some beer and went to collect my parents. They were in the process of checking in online but hadn't realised that they'd only booked tickets which included cabin baggage. To check in their two suitcases cost them £160 but if they'd left it until they arrived at the airport to check in, the cost would have been £260! And this is BA! Since when did they charge for hold bags? How times have changed! I was so glad Sophie and I were there to help them.
I left my car at their house and drove them home in their new Nissan. By now it was getting very warm indeed and it was lovely to have the air-conditioning going full blast! When we arrived home we had the Sicilian sparkling wine I'd bought on Friday and Dad had a glass of Spanish red. He opened his present from me and was very pleased but decided to leave the aftershave with me as he didn't want to risk putting the bottle in his cabin bag and having it confiscated!
Sitting in the conservatory at lunchtime was a bit hot and I brought our fan downstairs to try and alleviate the heat a bit! We'd roasted a chicken and we served this with new potatoes, salad and some nibbly bits such as Scotch eggs and cocktail sausages. We decided to have dessert in the living room with the fan full on again and Sophie and I went into the kitchen to assemble our Eton Mess, a mixture of meringue, thick cream and strawberries. It was delicious!
At 4pm we left for the airport after first making sure they had all their paperwork! The journey down was not bad, considering it was Sunday and Father's Day! We were held up for a while just before we reached the junction for Terminal 5 of Heathrow and I found the way to the Premier Inn quite well, with just one small mistake...we'd turned the SatNav off as we later discovered she wanted us to avoid all motorways!
The Premier Inn was in a small village, which was bizarre, but the runway must have been opposite as we could see the planes taking off every couple of minutes. I felt like I could have reached out and touched them! We said goodbye to my parents and I hoped fervently that they would be OK on the stressful journey tomorrow.
We had a good trip home and it took us about 90 minutes to get back, drop my parents' car off and reclaim mine. I collapsed on the sofa with a glass of the Spanish red and relaxed for the first time today with the wine and a couple of episodes of Riviera, which is very good!
No comments:
Post a Comment