Two Icebergs followed by a Great Surprise

Anyone who knows me well might already know that I am regarded as something of a micro manager. I do like paying close attention to details, and trying to make sure that all the proverbial bases are always covered. Perhaps that is why I always like to arrive early for appointments. I just like to think that, with any complex task, I have always done everything I can to make sure that nothing is omitted. Sometimes it works.
This particular adventure has been almost two years in the making, At times it looked like the logistics were just going to be too complex to be able to put together successfully. A couple of times I came close to giving up, however eventually all the details started to come together and the final plan was formulated. With such a long lead time, I would have absolutely no excuse for not having everything perfectly in order when the day of departure finally arrived. And I really thought that was the situation.
My bag had been packed and repacked several times, weighed, labelled and secured. I even put it just inside the front door so that it would be ready when the airport driver arrived to pick me up about midnight on Saturday night. Throughout the day I paced around the house, watching the clock slowly mark off the passage of time. I just wanted to get going.
At 9 pm, for some strange reason I decided that I should do one final quick check of everything in the case. After all I could think of nothing better to do in the final three hours before departure, I started pulling everything out, just to make sure that I had not missed anything. Shirts ? Tick. Underwear ? Tick. Socks? Tick. Trousers ? Trousers ? Where was the special pair of lightweight travel pants that I had bought just for this trip ? (And just in case you were thinking that I was wearing them, no, even I am not that stupid). They were missing. How could that possibly happen?
I frantically went through everything again, No pants. I started to think that maybe I had forgotten to pack them. I went through my entire wardrobe, just in case they were still hanging there. No pants. The clock was ticking. This was making no sense. I was starting to slightly panic (in fact, maybe more than slightly panic). There was just no sign of them. How could a pair of pants just disappear?
After about twenty minutes of frantic searching, I had an epiphany. I knew where the pants were. They were in my luggage all along, except I had packed a small selection of vital clothing in my carry on, just in case my main bag was delayed in transit. In hindsight it was a simple mistake. But at least I knew where the pants were. All I had to do now was to repack the pcase and wait for the driver. Simples. Actually it turned out to be anything but.
As I was zipping up the main case for the twentieth and last time, disaster struck. The zipper suffered an aneurysm, just at the worst possible time. Now my heart really started to pound. I struggled and fought to try to rethread the slider, but to no avail. What was I going to do now ? Pack everything into a plastic garbage bag? Of course I called for Maggie to solve the problem. We both battled without success. The clock was ticking steadily. The only thing I could think off was to unpick the end of the zipper to expose the end. Hopefully it would then be possible to rethread the slider.
So out came the pliers, scissors, thread cutters, etc and we both set about destroying the case. It was not my finest hour. It is never pleasant to see a grown man cry. I won't go into all the details of what transpired over the next 30 minutes, but somehow we managed to get the little fellow back onto the zipper and the case secured again. Maggie had to then hand sow the end of the zipper to make sure it could not come off. It was not how we planned to spend the final evening.
After the great zipper catastrophic, I still had an hour or so to wait before the driver arrived. I was not going to risk further disaster by doing anything at all. The driver did arrive right on time, the luggage was loaded and I was finally underway. Fortunately there was little traffic and I arrived without further incident. I was soon met by the other members of Group 1, Tim O'Connell, Mark O'Connor and Mark Madler-Edwards. We were soon checked and began the wait for the plane to depart at the ungodly hour of 5.15am.
At this point I have a confession to make. After putting together so many of these trips and after spending so many hours sitting in sardine class at the back of long haul flights, for the first time in my life I had lashed out for business class. I had been looking forward to the unfamiliar experience of actually having lots of space and comfort on the flight. It certainly did take some of pain out the long 14 hour leg to Dubai.
There was only an hour of transit before we boarded the second flight to Paris, much of that that was making our way from one side of the enormous airport to the other. It was at that point my luck changed dramatically. Just as we were boarding the plane, the steward took my boarding pass and issued a replacement. I looked at it and could not believe that it had FIRST CLASS printed very proudly on the top. I don't understand what happened, but I certainly wasn't going to complain. Never in my wildest dreams had I thought that I would be hobnobbing with the rich and famous in First Class, but here I was.
So how was the First Class Experience ? It was a bit overwhelming to be honest. The sheer amount of food and sweets was enough to give me a blurby feeling in my stomach. At least it was something I could tick off my bucket list, even if it was not something I would ever have put on that list in the first place.
The plane touched down at Paris CDG Airport right on time at 8 pm. We were met by a driver waiting for us with a prominent sign and we were soon being unloaded at our home for the next four nights - the Claude Bernard Hotel in St Germain. Needless to say I wasted no time in getting straight to bed. It had been a long and very eventful day.Read more