The words "Why didnt you bring the satnav?" Were said to me at 5.45am as we hurtled through Ashton in search of Bristol Airport. The signs for the airport werent very good so we turned around and tried to find other directions. Now we were heading to Backwell, I was sure we were heading the right way.

Jayne had booked us a holiday in Tenerife & in my ignorance I thought it was in Spain, Sombreros & Donkeys. As I hadnt paid any attention to any of the details of this trip, I finally made the effort the day before leaving, to go on the internet & find out where this place was.I then had a bit of shock. I thought it was in Spain, an easy hours flight away. It isnt, it,s off the west coast of Africa, adjacent to the Sahara Desert. It was going to be a 4.5 hour flight to get there. We could have flown to India!

We stopped the car in Backwell to see if we could get some info regarding how far we were from Bristol Airport, but there was no internet. So on I bravely drove. Jayne was in a panic saying we werent going to make it & telling me it was all my fault. I then saw a sign for the airport, took a sharp left and within 5 minutes, were at the airport car parking place. Jayne was still in a panic as we jumped on the shuttle bus.


Tenerife became officially Spanish on Christmas Day, 1494 after the local rulers were deposed of by the conquestors a few weeks earlier. The main island is about 430 miles long, hosts a volcano, has a pleasant climate and proved to be a good stopping off place for the Spanish before heading off to rape South America. A lot of the locals here also shared the same fun of dying from previously unknown diseases such as measles & smallpox.
Welcome to the New World.

I still couldnt work out why Jayne was in such a panic about this flight. Iassumed that we were here 2 hours before take off. I had taken no notice of any of the hundreds of pages that Jayne had made me print off. I then asked why the panic? Jayne said that we had to be the boarding gate 20 minutes before take off.....it was 6.10 am.... so what wasthe problem? Jayne then told me the plane was taking off at 6.45am.....oh, so we were cutting it rather finely. We rushed up to the Fast Track check in which Jayne had paid for. We had made it despite getting lost earlier on and laughed at our earlier arguing. We scanned our boarding passes and were told by the nice man that the plane had already departed. Yes, that's right. We,d missed our flight.