Phil Hawley Photography

Two weeks in Spain

Normally I would welcome a couple of weeks away from the grey Autumn in Moscow, but the circumstances were not great. My dad was taken into hospital when I was still in Kuwait, so I booked the next reasonably priced flight out from Moscow to London, and then from there to Alicante.  This left me with 5 days in Moscow but without any great need to unpack properly.

I arrived into Heathrow, got a coach over to Gatwick and left my suitcase with left luggage and spent a few hours in London, including lunch with a friend. Having got back to Gatwick, checked in, cleared customs and done a little shopping my flight was delayed. I was travelling with Easyjet, and had purchased their speedy boarding (mainly to jump the huge check-in queue for all easyjet flights at Gatwick), this meant I was meant to be amongst the first to board.  This would have been good if I could get through to the boarding desk at the gate, but the passengers had formed some kind of protective barrier around the boarding gate so that none of us could get through.  The staff did nothing about this but turn people around who got through to them without speedy boarding, thus making the ‘barrier’ of people deeper.  And still no semblance of organisation existed. Have finally fought my way through and making sure an older couple that were stuck with me behind this barrier also got through.  Anyway when on board I sat with this couple and had a nice long chat which was actually great, especially as I usually prefer to sleep, or sit listening to music and reading.

I was collected at the airport by friends of my parents, but upon arrival at my parents’ house it was unusually quiet and deserted (parents in hospital, the dogs in the Dog’s kennels). I went to see my dad the next day, he seemed to have picked up from when I had been speaking to him on the phone which was great. So the pattern began, I would usually go to the hospital with one of their friends, they would go and have some drinks and food with my Mum whilst I chatted with my Dad.

So, he did finally come out of hospital for a while at least a few days after I left, but whilst there and in London I did get to take a few photos, and the excitement of extended driving on the right hand side of the road for the first time surrounded by the Spanish drivers.

So now I am back in Moscow, and I have gone from getting used to 35-40C temperatures down to around 2-6C at best, and that along with the constant rain means that I haven’t yet been able to get out to take any more photos of the city, but soon I will.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 at 6:07 pm and is filed under All, Life and tagged with Life, Photography, Spain, Sunrise, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.