Carpe diem - and boy did we seize it early!

Yesterday the sun shone beautifully in Vigo all day. And we had a splendid sunset - the best this visit!

We arrived two weeks back to good weather and left to fine and sunny and quite warm for the time of year. We did see some very mixed dull and gloomy stuff with occasional downpours in between time but, hey, it is still only March! What can you realistically expect. Cue for my favourite quote from Che Guevara: lSea realista, pide lo imposible! = Be realistic and ask for the impossible!

Today we got up at the crack of dawn to go and catch a bus from Vigo bus station to Porto airport, which remains the “airport for all Galicians”, as the powers that be cannot come to any kind of arrangement to manage Galicia’s three airports in any kind of sensible fashion.

Our flight to Manchester was due to leave at 10.00am Portuguese time. The 9.00am (Spanish time) Autna bus would get us to Porto airport at 9.45am (Portuguese time) just too late for the plane.and so we had to catch a bus at 4.Vigo bus station is not the most pleasant of places at the best of times. At 4.15 in the morning it is really spooky. And we were harangued by a beggar who presumably is homeless and finds that the bus station os one of the few places still warm(ish), dry and more importantly open at that time of day, with a captive clientele!

Looking at the departures board in the bus station we found a bus leaving for Porto at 7.30am, run by a company called Flixbus, a company we have never heard of before. 7.30 is still rather uncivilised but it is better than 4.30. We shall have to investigate this service for possible travel to the airport in the future.

Porto’s Sa Carneiro airport at 5.15am (Portuguese time) is only marginally more welcoming than Vigo bus station at 4.30am (Spanish time). It’s still dark outside at this time of year. The airport itself is partially closed down. None of the coffee places in the main body of the airport before you go through security is open, which is very bad for the poor souls who want to check in luggage as the checking for the 10.00 flight was not open either. Once through security and 8 to the main body of the airport, we were able to buy some breakfast but even then quite a lot of the more complex food outlets and certain of the retail outlets don’t open until 9.00.

So we had rather a long wait but eventually boarded the plane and slept most of the way back to the UK. We must have had a following wind because the plane arrived in Manchester some 25 minutes ahead of schedule. Then they would only allow passengers to disembark through the front doors. A rumour rapidly spread through the plane that they were not opening the rear doors as it was too windy! Storm Gareth is apparently gearing up to have a go at blowing us away.

You can grow weary of storms, even if they are given names. I assume that the naming is an attempt to make us find them less worrying. Make the storm seem like a bad-tempered friend and all will be well. Rather like naming the Cape of Good Hope optimistically in an attempt to placate whatever gods kept making ships founder there.

They obviously have no qualms, or at any rate  no such optimism or God-fearing/placating ideas in the North of Galicia, where the coast is called the Costa de la Muerte , the Coast of Death.

 Storm Gareth notwithstanding, our house is still in good order here. Not blown away! Mind you, Gareth has not got going properly yet.

Goodness knows what tomorrow might bring!