Lost and not yet found

I write today's blog post from the long-stay car park at Florence airport. Had the day gone according to plan, I wouldn't be here at this time (19:55). Mom, Kerys and Ben should have landed here at 14:45 on a Flybe flight from Birmingham, but at about 11am today (half an hour before their flight was due to set off) I had messages from both Mom and Kerys saying they had been delayed due to bad weather in Florence. That came as no real surprise really, as the weather was beyond biblical here this morning - fierce winds and lashings of rain, sideways fashion. So when I got up at around 7am to find a dripping wet wife giving up on her turbo training session, I checked flight arrivals on the Florence airport website - the majority seemed to be landing close to their scheduled arrival times, so other than some small delays there seemed no real concerns. By the time I received the messages, the weather had calmed down a little (although still very wet).

We messaged back and forth for about an hour until they were finally told that their flight was being re-routed to Milan(!) and they had to board promptly. This was at around 1pm Tuscan time. I received a last-minute message from Mom saying that they were going to be taken from Milan to Florence by coach. They had been told it would be a two-hour journey, but a quick check on Google Maps put it at more like three hours twenty!

So that was it, radio silence followed as they prepared to depart. I checked the Flybe website, the Florence airport website and the Milan airport website, but none had any information for me, so it was a waiting game. Assuming that their flight had boarded at around 1pm, and took off around 1.30pm, I reckoned that they should be landing in Milan at around 3.30pm. Allowing half an hour for the transfer to a coach, and three and a half hours for the coach trip, I expected that the soonest they would get to Florence airport would be 7.30pm, so with nothing in the house for lunch I went out to buy some bread at the local alimentari and while I was at it, buy a plug for the new oven and collect Helen's replacement printer, hopefully by the time I'd done all that someone would have some info for me.

When I saw the shutters down at Amanda's alimentari, I realised that it was Monday - her closed day (not only hers though, Monday is a common day for shops and businesses to be closed in Italy). Indeed, it seemed that the torrential morning-long rain had kept many a shop keeper away today, and Pescia was like a ghost town, so I had no joy with finding a plug or collecting a printer either. I decided the only thing to do was to attempt to do a supermarket shop without the shopping list (we had originally planned to do it with the kids later this afternoon, but that clearly wasn't going to happen).

So after filling my trolley in a very quiet store, and loading the car while a Nigerian tried to sell me an umbrella, I headed home for a quick lunch of bread and liver pate while looking for any information I could find... NOTHING!

Guessing I wouldn't get any news now until they landed, I went back to work in the apartment. I had a good day in there today and it's really taking shape. I still have a long list of finishing-off jobs, but there is enough in place now to not need too much imagination to see how it will look.

The drill, screwdrivers, saw and other assorted tools are not intended to be part of the overall look.

Of course, the sink and oven don't work yet, but they look good! (And will work soon!)

I had been checking the various website since 3.30pm, but Flybe was still insisting that the flight to Florence was 'on-time', Birmingham airport couldn't tell me what time the flight did take off as it was too far in the past, Milan airport seemed to be unaware of receiving a flight from Birmingham, and Florence airport likewise unhelpful - so there was nothing else for it but to head for the airport at 6pm to get there for around 7pm or a bit later if the traffic was bad, so I would be there for when they arrived.

I went into the terminal, found the customer service desk, and slowly crashed my way through as many useful words as I could muster. The woman seemed to follow OK, but when I stopped and searched for the Italian for coach, she said (in English) that I could speak in English, it was fine.

Having got her to understand what I was looking for, she talked with her colleague and both seemed to be trying to call someone without luck.

After a few failed attempts, they told me that Milan airport should have told them when the coach departed, but had not done so, and they were trying to call to clarify. Fifteen minutes later, she put the phone down and told me that the coach had left at 5pm, and that I should expect them here between 9pm and 9.30pm!

So here I sit in the car park making the most of my time and updating you on my predicament, well, it's not exclusively mine but I can only tell my side at this point.

For those wondering if we had tried calling anyone, Flybe don't advertise a phone number (an annoying trend on websites these days), Mom's mobile doesn't roam abroad, and Kerys's seemed to ring out but then went to answer phone and now that's all I can get. I know this because I used Skype to try calling both phones, of course, I couldn't use my own mobile because our pay-as-you-go tariff  doesn't allow international calls! 

I can, however, use my data allowance and connect my tablet PC to it so that I can blog. I'm very glad I brought it with me, otherwise I don't think you would have seen a post tonight as I have left Helen holding the fort, i.e. finishing her day's work, moving duvets and linen to the apartment, making pizza dough for the kids and some form of dinner for the grown ups... oh and she's just messaged me the word 'ANTS'. Must be serious for an editor to be using CAPITALS!!

UPDATE 9.15pm: The missing family members (the weary travellers) have been found. Phew!! Stuart is on his way back from the airport with them now. Relief all round. Helen :-)