Trials of travel (or is it age)

An early start saw the Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen ferried to the airport by Urban-cub. This was the first visit to the notorious T5 and it went rather smoothly. The lines for security were, of course, long and the security attendents were taking an exceptional time to examine two elderly English gentlemen with pacemakers – they were so feeble they could hardly stand – but the whole queue had to wait while they were ritually humiliated by security – then laughably, the rest of us who had been caught in this bottleneck were rushed through as if it was a race.

We met up with Barney and Betty Rubble for some coffee and made our way, sheep-like, onto the plan that carried us in a degree of comfort to Pisa. With the bags collected we purchased our train tickets to Florence, which meant a train to Pisa Central and then a quick change onto another train. This was all going rather well, really.

The clouds of fate, however, were gathering and an element of chaos about to be injected into our plans.

We boarded the train to Pisa – a journey of some 5 minutes. Then arriving at the station we headed for Platform 1 (at the opposite end of the station). There we waited for the train to Florence. Minutes ticked by, and the train arrived. GF heaved the bags up into the carriage – Barney Rubble right behind. The Silver Vixen and Betty Rubble behind him. It was at that point that GF realised he was missing his backpack. He had left it on the airport train. It contained his camera, netbook, SV’s camera, the perfume she had bought at the airport and numerous other sundries. GF felt sick to stomach.

Ordering an immediate about-turn they disembarked. GF explained his stupidity and set off, Gazelle-like (*), across the concourse to where the Airport train should be – meanwhile Barney Rubble went the station manager to explain the situation. GF arrived to find the train gone. Barney was more lucky – the station manager having phoned the train’s guard and asked him to look for the missing rucksack. All we could do was wait for the train to return.

Restoring GF’s faith in human nature the train arrived back at the station with the missing rucksack. Heaving a sigh of relief, the intrepid travellers continued their journey, catching the next train to Florence.

We have checked in to a nice hotel, just of one of the busy piazzas. A quick drink in the piazza and stroll around the locale helped us get our bearings prior to this evening’s meal – which is looking very welcome at present.

Unfortunately, the big let-down of the day (other than GF’s stupidity) was the fact that we failed to talk to Cousteau-cub on her birthday. We tried numerous times, and left text messages – but it's not the same. All of the intrepid group hope that she’s had a wonderful day.