Dublin; Sunday, 06 April, 2008

Waking up on a Sunday morning to snow would normally be a good thing, when you are intending on flying it is not such a good thing. With trepidation I left home and walked down to the station. Surprisingly the trains were all running to time, and, 30 minutes later, I arrived at Gatwick. As I was checking in the first sign that all was not well was announced. The runway had been closed for 30 minutes so a build up of snow could be cleared. My worst fears were realised when I got through security to find every single square inch of space occupied by passengers, and at 1040 every flight that should have left since 7am still showing as not yet left. I knew it was really bad when I saw that the 9.15 to Dublin still had not departed. That had to get over to Ireland, turn round and then come back to form my 1240 flight.

With stoicism, I ventured further into the lounge and found it was as full as I had feared. Everyone was crowded into the departures lounge, there were no spare seats, babies were crying, it would be a horrendous wait. So I pulled out the credit card and went to the business lounge and begged. 5 minutes and £20.50 later I was relaxing in a comfortable seat, with a view of the runway, and a nice cup of coffee!

And there I sat, watching the snow slowly stop, the time for my flight come and go, the 09:15 finally depart just before 3 and then, just after half four, the announcement that all Aer Lingus flights had been cancelled, and we had to be "de-controlled". At the same time a host of easyJet, FlyBE and other airlines flights were being cancelled so it was chaos. Immigration couldn't deal with the number of people re-entering, and they hadn't told the security staff about the Aer Lingus flights, so all the passengers got sent back into the lounge, which was thankful, as 5 minutes later the flight was back on!

In the end it was another two hours waiting until a sudden and urgent call for all Aer Lingus passengers to get down to gate 6 and, even once we had boarded a further 40 minute wait to get all of the luggage loaded. Eventually, exactly 7 hours late, and into a fast setting sun, we pushed back and set off. For once, perhaps because of the delay, or maybe because of all the cancellations, it only took a couple of minutes from push back to take-off roll.

An eventless 50 minutes later the plane touched down at Dublin airport, and after a relatively quick passage through the airport, I found myself on the 2115 airbus into town.

Thankfully, the hotel was only a very short walk from the bus stop, so by 2145 I had already checked in and was on my way back out for a quick evening stroll around the city centre.

I had a quick wander around the temple bar and trinity college areas before wandering up to St Stephens green and then on round to St Patrick's and Christchurch's Cathedrals, before wandering back to the hotel. I was quite surprised when I got back to the hotel and realised that it was just before midnight.