back and forth

after not so many hours of sleep, i was off back to the airport to pick up those guests who were arriving by plane. the bus got there at about 2pm, at which time some people had already been waiting for quite some time. i found the second cousins quickly - amazingly, the ex-spouses actually chatting together in a good humoured way (considering he'd told her not to come because of something that had gone wrong in the divorce...). all was good. now it was just about getting the others. most of them arrived off the same flight, which made it really easy. R&L had me paged, as they couldn't find me and after a while, i was just missing 3 people. 2 were delayed an hour and a half and one was missing - her plane had landed over an hour earlier, but i couldn't find her anywhere. i got her paged but nothing happened. i was giving up, having called dad for news of her and we'd just decided i had to go when she managed to call him to tell her where she was.

once we were all onboard the bus, we of course got stuck in Friday afternoon traffic out of the city and then, a little later, behind a combine harvester. we were quite a way out of the schedule and the kitchen closed at 9pm - we were having dinner at a nearby hotel. in the end, i sorted out a timing that worked, even though it meant some people would only have 10 mns to check in and get rid of their luggage. we all made it to dinner - all sixty of us.