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An unexpected opportunity

Colin Campbell
by Colin Campbell on 28/12/21 18:00

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In this soap opera that seems to be my life and my amazing talent of being a ‘sh*t magnet’, Callum and I travelled to Scotland on the 21st of December to see my parents. 

We’d looked at all the different ways to travel and never learn a lesson so, we decided that this time it might be good to fly even though we know that flying comes with all sorts of difficulties and problems and especially now the closest place we can fly from is Birmingham.

The flights were (relatively) inexpensive but you obviously have to add a car park onto that and a taxi from the airport at the other end. 

And so, for a late flight on the Tuesday night, Callum and I jumped in the car and drove to Birmingham, arriving at the airport just after 7pm. 

We were over 2 hours early for our flight which was great so we could sit in Pret and have a cup of tea and chat and watch some of the arsenal game and then make our way up to gate 47. 

We sat at the far end of gate 47 because it was absolutely rammed full (the airport was really busy) and people were sitting separately for obvious reasons. 

About 15 minutes before the flight was due to take off, I looked down at the queue for people going onto the plane to realise that it had vanished. 

This had been a massive queue and we decided to wait until the end before we got on the plane because our seats were allocated. 

We picked up our bags and walked down to the gate to find it was shut and there was nobody there. 

No tannoy called to say the flight was boarding, nothing to say it was last call, nobody shouting to ask if there were anymore passengers. 

The people who had been sat beside us were still sat beside us and the gate was still 50% full but it turned out that all of these people were waiting for a flight somewhere else. 

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get out of an airport when you’ve checked in and not left on an airplane? 

Frantic rushing around, first trying to get on the plane then realising we couldn’t and then just trying to get out of the airport. 

Eventually we managed to get out, you have to go through immigration and passport control and then try and find my car which was supposed to have been parked somewhere else but thankfully it was still in the position where I left it. 

Then was an explanation with NCP to let us out of the car park 2 days early and then there was a decision to make. 

Either we get a hotel and get the flight the next day, go home and come back and get the flight the next day, go home and don’t go or drive. 

We left Birmingham at 10.15pm with the intention to drive to Scotland and 15 minutes into the journey I hit a mile long tail back on the M6. 

At this point it might have been just about the right time to completely lose your f*ck*ng rag or to take a breath and not. 

Callum was upset that he thought we weren’t going to get to Scotland and I was quite insistent that we were. 

And so, we entered into 2 or 3 hours together with the most wonderful and extraordinary conversation because we were ‘trapped’ in a car heading north in the dark on an adventure. 

We talked about privilege and lack of privilege, we talked about attitudes to money, we talked about saving money, we talked about what had gone wrong at the airport and about the nice people who had helped us in the end and Callum fell asleep. 

I listened to the most extraordinary interview from Colin Murray on 5 live with KT Tunstall which I’d heard trailed the night before but thought I would never get a chance to hear between 12-1. 

I listened to Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl (much more about this later again even though I’ve revisited this book many times) round about 2.30am Callum woke up and he spent the last hour of the journey chatting again before my Mum and Dad were ready with a cup of tea and then we went to bed. 

It was ridiculous to miss the flight but we would have just gone through the motions and maybe never remembered that journey and now we’ll never forget it. 

It was interesting explaining to my wife exactly what had gone wrong and I’m still not entirely sure. 

I’m quite good at ‘flying’, I’ve done it a lot and it’s never really caused a problem. 

It would have been easy to get fed up and lose my rag but Callum and I managed to turn it into something a little bit better and just a little bit special. 

Maybe that’s a lesson I need to learn much more going on from here.

 

Blog Post Number - 2961  

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Colin Campbell
Written by Colin Campbell
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