I'm back and I had a wonderful time with the family and had good weather all the time too.
We decided to travel to the airport by bus instead of the train. My next door neighbour took us, luggage etc in his car to the bus stop, only about 5/10 minutes walk for an ordinary person (need I say more re how long it would have taken ME to walk there?) The bus driver too was helpful and put my suitcase, our hand luggage and my walker in the hold at the side of the bus, so far everything was going smoothly until the bus was going round a
busy roundabout this is when a passenger sitting a few seats in front of us shouted out.'It's Open, It's Open!!' We looked out of the window of the bus and there was
ALL our luggage flying out of the hold onto the road
. The driver had to go on a bit further before he could stop and then he went out with my daughter and another passenger to retrieve the luggage. It was really a miracle that it hadnt caused a serious accident. The luggage was put back in the hold and at the next stop the bus changed drivers and then we went on to the next stop where we had to change buses to get to the airport. When we removed our luggage we discovered my suitcase was burst down one side and the bag on my walker was torn and my daughters hand luggage case was damaged too.
Before we got on the other bus we asked one of the officials at the bus station if he had any strong sticky tape to put around my case. Answer was no. Then he asked what had happened it seems the driver should have given us a written report of what had happened his name number etc but everything happened so quickly we didnt think about that. he said we should also examine the contents of the case to find out if anything else was damaged but we didnt have time to do that so he gave us an address to write to. When we got to my daughter's house in France she phoned her sister and now my other daughter is dealing with the problem. (We did get a kind person at one of the check in desks at the airport to wrap sticky tape around my case and I was allowed to put it in the special check in with my walker so it didnt go down the shute)
It has turned out the driver hadnt reported the incident!
My daughter's really annoyed. Not just because she was told it had nothing to do with the bus service it would be their insurance company she would have to deal with. She is going to write again because she thinks they should check the lock on that bus to make sure it doesnt happen again, I said I didnt want to get the driver into any trouble but she doesnt agree with me she said how would I have felt if it had caused a serious accident and someone had lost their life - which could easily have happened given the circumstances where this happened, so I'm leaving it to her now to deal with it. So my shopping trip in France was to look for a suitcase that wasnt too heavy
That was the last thing I wanted to do on my holiday!!
I was told to keep all the receipts and the bus tickets it seems they can trace the driver from the ticket.
My daughter who lives here has tried for a long time to get me to go by bus to the airport because its so easy and you're dropped off at the airport terminal and pensioners travel free.
When she first heard what had happened her first words were, "Well that's finished it, now Mum will never go by bus again
"
She's in for a surprise I think I would do it again if there was someone going with me, On my own
I doubt it!!
Emmy