LEAVING HOME
3 LARGE SUITCASES BEING LOADED BY A VERY LARGE CHAUFFEUR
THE BEATLES WAVE FAREWELL TO US AT JOHN LENNON AIRPORT LIVERPOOL
BAGGAGE COLLECTION IN RIGA AIRPORT
LET'S GO!
Day One: Friday / Saturday
‘It’s the most wonderful time of the year’ … I absolutely believe this and have been singing that line for weeks, I don’t know anymore of the song, but I certainly know the sentiment. The other day I was driving into the office singing at the top of my voice:
‘Christmastime, mistletoe and wine,
Children singing Christian rhyme.
With logs on the fire and gifts on the tree
A time to rejoice in the good that we see.
A time for living, a time for believing.
A time for trusting and not deceiving.
Love and laughter and joy ever after
Ours for the taking, just follow the Master.
Christmas time, mistletoe and wine,
Children singing Christian rhyme.
With logs on the fire and gifts on the tree
A time to rejoice in the good that we see.’
And so you can see, I was excited to put it mildly.
Advent, a time of preparation, anticipation, expectancy and I felt all of those things and much, much more as we planned to journey to Latvia to see ‘our kids’ and spend a few days with them just prior to Christmas.
‘I’M SO EXCITED’ … was another line of a song that I continued to sing at the top of my voice. I think I nearly drove Sven insane …lol!
But how quickly that bubble of excitement, anticipation, expectancy burst. We, along with Derek Lucas, one of our summer team from Cwmbran, left our home in Liverpool for the John Lennon airport for an afternoon flight, we waited, and waited, and waited until eventually Ryan Air announced our flight had been delayed until 6.00am the next morning. And so in a nearly eight hour period we had travelled no more than a few miles down the road and we were nowhere near Sweden in order for us to get our connecting flight to Latvia the next day. My bubble was burst and that sense of excitement was very quickly disappearing and changing into dread at the thought of not making it to Latvia on Saturday.
The alarm went off at 3.00am and so up we got, showered, dressed, had breakfast and headed for the airport. You should have seen the queues … but having a disabled husband does have its advantages at times and we were directed to the front of the line of anxious people eager to discover if we were going to get out of Liverpool at 6.00am We were assured we would and as we headed for the departure gate I could feel my bubble beginning to inflate again. I shouldn’t have allowed it to.
Eventually we arrived in Sweden and had to wait for what seemed like forever and a day for our connecting flight to Latvia, snow was beginning to flurries and I could feel my bubble getting lower and lower. Before too long it became obvious we were not going to make it in time to join ‘our kids’ at the circus and by this time it seemed like my bubble had well and truly burst. I even began to wonder if it could be repaired and if I would be able to feel some of that excitement again?
I should not have worried though because the moment I stepped out of our rental car in old town Rigaand walked towards ‘our kids’ waiting outside of McDonalds in Riga, and the children not knowing what they were waiting for; when they caught a glimpse of me walking towards them, they dashed towards me to greet me with hugs as if from long lost friends and immediately my bubble was inflated bigger than my bubble had been before. "OUR KIDS"- OR BETTER SAID, "THE SEDA VILLAGE CLAN..."
IT COULD JUST AS EASILY BEEN KFC OR BURGER KING- RECONCILIATION IN ITS SIMPLEST FORM
Never had a McDonalds ‘Happy Meal’ looked or tasted so good, as we saw the happy faces on our kids, listened to their happy and excited chatter (even though Derk and I cannot understand the language) realized they had, had an amazing time at the circus and were absolutely on cloud 9 as for most they were out of their village for the very first time and with all of this excitement in one day they could hardly contain themselves and neither could we!
Glad, Sven and Derek
More to come...
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