Compton is a little village in the middle of absolutely nowhere. It is so "in the middle of absolutely nowhere" that even the people who live there don't know where it is. How do I know? Because I had to be there for a training course on Monday this week that started at 10.00. Which meant to get there, I had to leave home on Sunday to fly from Edinburgh to Bristol to grab a hire car and drive to "the middle of absolutely bloody nowhere"!!
Not too bad in the scheme of thing perhaps - but followed up by a meeting in the Isle of Man on Tuesday morning it is. To get to the Isle of Man for Tuesday from "in the middle of absolutely bloody nowhere and I never want to go there again" meant flying out of Gloucestershire airport! Yes I thought the same thing "Has Gloucestershire got an airport?" The answer is ... in name only. My flight was 8.55 so, as a seasoned traveller I arrived early to drop off the hire car at rental car returns. The first problem was finding the damn place in the dark. It is to aviation what Compton is to civilisation. At one point I thought I was on a track to a farm. Gloucestershire Airport is, like Compton, in the middle of absolutely bloody nowhere. I arrived and went looking for the car rental returns and after a bried struggle -gave up. "Stuff it" I thought "I will leave the car in the main (bt veyr small) car park. As I drove into the car park I saw three bays market Avis and three bays marked Europcar.Quaint! With bag in hand I proceeded to the tiny terminal building ready to seek out the car rental desk for Europcar. There was no Europcar desk or Avis desk. There was a letterbox if you looked hard enough with a polite notice suggesting that you drop your keys through it - I did. Looking around there was a sign saying "departures" in the same small room was another sign saying "arrivals". Also in the same small room was an information counter which merged into the counter with a sign on saying "check in". I have not missed out the pluralisation - it was one counter - one check in sign. There was also only one person - a lady of middle age sitting behind the information section of the counter. I stood at Check in and she ignored me for a while before saying that check in was not open yet. This was 8.00 a.m. by the way. I took on of the five seats in the room and waited for check in to open. I looked for a shop - no chance - no paper no coffee. 8.10 the lady of middle age got up and sat in the seat behind "check in" and called to me saying it was now open! After a brief discussion it was concluded that my bag was too big for the cabin locker and probably for the plane. At this point I noticed that the security check was next to check in - literally. After a while we taken out to the plane where we were greeted by a young woman I took to be the stewardess. She warned me to duck when I got on - a timely warning - I bent double till I got to my seat. Looking around I saw that there were no cabin lockers and wondered why I had bothered with discussing the size of my hand baggage. Also noticed - only one pilot. Mmm.After a minute the young lady joined us and went through the safety briefing whilst bent double at the front of the tiny plane.She then announced that she was also the co-pliot! I am not sexist - I had no doubt she could fly the plane - my concern was - no-one was going to get me a coffee! I landed at Ronaldsway Airport and thanked God I was at last in civilisation - I never thought in my life I would say that.
Now it is thursday and I have just bade farewell to our dear friend Peter Burgess and his son Keir - both of whom tower over me. I promised I would write about them in this blog - somehow the juxtaposition of tiny airplane and man-mountain sized friends seemed a fitting conclusion. See pictorial evidence below
Not too bad in the scheme of thing perhaps - but followed up by a meeting in the Isle of Man on Tuesday morning it is. To get to the Isle of Man for Tuesday from "in the middle of absolutely bloody nowhere and I never want to go there again" meant flying out of Gloucestershire airport! Yes I thought the same thing "Has Gloucestershire got an airport?" The answer is ... in name only. My flight was 8.55 so, as a seasoned traveller I arrived early to drop off the hire car at rental car returns. The first problem was finding the damn place in the dark. It is to aviation what Compton is to civilisation. At one point I thought I was on a track to a farm. Gloucestershire Airport is, like Compton, in the middle of absolutely bloody nowhere. I arrived and went looking for the car rental returns and after a bried struggle -gave up. "Stuff it" I thought "I will leave the car in the main (bt veyr small) car park. As I drove into the car park I saw three bays market Avis and three bays marked Europcar.Quaint! With bag in hand I proceeded to the tiny terminal building ready to seek out the car rental desk for Europcar. There was no Europcar desk or Avis desk. There was a letterbox if you looked hard enough with a polite notice suggesting that you drop your keys through it - I did. Looking around there was a sign saying "departures" in the same small room was another sign saying "arrivals". Also in the same small room was an information counter which merged into the counter with a sign on saying "check in". I have not missed out the pluralisation - it was one counter - one check in sign. There was also only one person - a lady of middle age sitting behind the information section of the counter. I stood at Check in and she ignored me for a while before saying that check in was not open yet. This was 8.00 a.m. by the way. I took on of the five seats in the room and waited for check in to open. I looked for a shop - no chance - no paper no coffee. 8.10 the lady of middle age got up and sat in the seat behind "check in" and called to me saying it was now open! After a brief discussion it was concluded that my bag was too big for the cabin locker and probably for the plane. At this point I noticed that the security check was next to check in - literally. After a while we taken out to the plane where we were greeted by a young woman I took to be the stewardess. She warned me to duck when I got on - a timely warning - I bent double till I got to my seat. Looking around I saw that there were no cabin lockers and wondered why I had bothered with discussing the size of my hand baggage. Also noticed - only one pilot. Mmm.After a minute the young lady joined us and went through the safety briefing whilst bent double at the front of the tiny plane.She then announced that she was also the co-pliot! I am not sexist - I had no doubt she could fly the plane - my concern was - no-one was going to get me a coffee! I landed at Ronaldsway Airport and thanked God I was at last in civilisation - I never thought in my life I would say that.
Now it is thursday and I have just bade farewell to our dear friend Peter Burgess and his son Keir - both of whom tower over me. I promised I would write about them in this blog - somehow the juxtaposition of tiny airplane and man-mountain sized friends seemed a fitting conclusion. See pictorial evidence below
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