Just fell foul of the impending weather conditions, arrived at Schipol to find my connecting flight to Madrid has been cancelled due to the weather. Next flight is at 16.50 this afternoon, not a bad place to be stuck I guess, any suggestions out there what to do with my 8 hour wait?, try and keep it cultural I have a young work colleague with me.
Yeh, pay your $30 dollars at the Virgin desk or alike, go and sit down on their computers, lounge, watch tv, read all their books etc, eat their food & drink, use their bathrooms etc and they'll let you know when you need to board your flight. If your not with Virgin, you'll need to try the airline you bought a ticket with and see if they have a 'members lounge'.
Walking the dog this morning, we turned off our street to face a 6ft fence panel tumbling and twisting towards us, followed by a crash as a row of roof tiles hit the deck. Slow tube journey to work, but otherwise, it seems to have passed north London fairly calmly.
Seem to have skirted the worst of it here in Sarf London, decided to take the day off as heard many of the roads are jammed due to closures and debris. The sea at Brighton looks pretty spectacular on Sky News...
Woke up and there was only a few twigs on the ground and that was it. Lovely blue skies and calm weather now. Nowhere near as bad as 87.
A sunny, blustery day here, the sheet of very heavy plate glass I have leaning up against the back wall of the garden (don't ask) has survived intact. But 2 dead from falling trees so far (in Kent and Watford). Madrid,if you still have time, get a train into central Amsterdam find an Indonesian restaurant and stuff yourself with delicious stuff. I'm sure Tourist Info will give you a few names of good places.
Seems that there are quite a lot of conflicting stories. The storm looks to have tracked slightly further South than predicted, which should mean that the South coast was badly hit. However, as flyer said, some places seem to have escaped virtually intact. Others, on the other hand, have seen dozens of trees and power lines down and trees across railway lines. Here in Oxfordshire there doesn't seem to be too much damage, although I've seen quite a few big branches and one or two trees down. My chainsaw has been busy!!
We were fortunate in that it seems to pass by a lot further south than predicted.....only had some rain overnight and the day has been rather pleasant, makes a change for the bank holiday we have here today.......just heard on radio that they are saying that 4 people have been killed due to falling trees...
In 87 I looked out of my bedroom and saw a tree don, multiple houses with parts of roofs missing. The bins werent even blown over and they were put out last night, a motorbike with cover on wasnt blown over, even the for sale signs in the flats opposite are still up. Maybe the IOW sheltered us but you wouldnt even know it was windy last night.
Just got back to Madrid after setting off last night at 23.30. Decided to take the train into Amsterdam centre turned right and not left towards the Red Light district but if you follow the canals you always end up there, funny that!. I haven't been to Amsterdam for a few years but it hasn't changed a great deal although to be honest the window women do look younger and fitter....probably just me being older and less fit!. Well after having some coffee decided to get the train back to the airport only to find the roof had blown off the station and onto the tracks, so no trains were running. We had to get a cab back to airport and you can imagine how big the queue was, me, well I can only imagine the utter chaos there must have been at Heathslow, sorry Stainsy!. Finally got back to the airport and had something to eat and broke my tooth chewing!, the rearranged flight was then delayed further and finally got to Madrid to find that my colleague's bag was not on our flight.....believe me I not making any of this up!, her bag arrived on the earlier flight!....some say this storm was not worse than 87 well I won't forget it in a hurry!.
They said on the radio here that the guy who was killed in Watford was an irish man from Waterford city.
