Of course, it’s been raining this afternoon. A morning on the sun bed, followed by lunch, beer and a Mojito – well, we’re on holiday, so why not? – whereafter we return to our sun beds to first fall asleep and then wake up slightly startled by raindrops which were falling on our heads. Welcome to Porto Santo. Porto where?
Even the departure screens at Gatwick airport – and that’s another story – didn’t seem to know, referring to flight TOM 4310 as destined for Madeira, but here we are bathing under Atlantic clouds for the next few days.
Normally, we like to fly from Bristol but because there is only one flight a week to Porto Santo from the UK, we had to fly from Gatwick, which meant driving and leaving the car in the hands of one of the many parking operators servicing the airport. We could have taken the National Express but instead decided to sell a kidney each in order to afford the charges. Like L’Oréal, it was worth it.
Relatively speaking, the M4 to the M25 was a doddle. We had to slow down a few times for the inevitable road works, but compared to what followed, it was fine. In fact, the sat nav (and Google maps) didn’t even take us on the M25, preferring to navigate a course via some A roads (I am not good with detail) and finally the M3. We arrived around half an hour later than expected, but all around us was gridlock. Thank god for technology.
Finding the TUI check-in was easy enough. Arriving just their check-in technology had crashed, so it took nearly an hour to drop our luggage and head to security, which unlike Bristol, worked like a dream.
The flight, on a Boeing 737-800 Max, was as good as any I’ve been on, although my partner who rarely worries about these things, has developed an allergy to Boeing planes. Apparently, the company is murdering whistleblowers who say the company is producing dodgy planes and said planes are falling out of the sky on a daily basis. Ours, which was barely five months old, managed to make it to Porto Santo airport without killing us all and without parts falling off. Phew.
So far, so okay, but now the fun started. There were all of five flights to the island yesterday and all bar one – ours – were internal. There were two arrivals areas, one for Schengen countries and one for non-Schengen countries. The 200 or so passengers on our flight were, obviously, flying from the UK which is not, and has never been part of Schengen and, since Brexit, we have voluntarily given up our rights to free movement in EU countries. We have demanded the EU treats us as a third country. So, they have to stamp our passports upon arrival. There were two people stamping passports. It took ages. Meanwhile, an internal flight from Funchal arrived after us, passengers disembarked into a separate hall, collected their bags and went about their day a long time before we could. Fucking Brexit.
Porto Santo is tiny. The airport runway takes up over half the width of the island and it took barely 10 minutes to get to the complex. Collecting our bags, one of the young staff members took us to our room, which was immediately next to the hotel reception, restaurant, pools etc ad nauseum.
We can’t knock the quality of the all-inclusive food and booze, which caters for a mainly Portuguese and British crowd, but I do have one quibble: sausages. In an effort to give us Brits what we apparently want, the full English is available as part of the buffet choice. And apart from the cremated bacon – I like mine somewhere between ‘blue’ and ‘rare’ – the sausages appalled me. For want of a better description, they reminded me of a baby’s penis, not, I’m sure you understand an image of which I wish to retain for any longer than I have to. They looked so unappealing, I passed them by. Why not a truly British banger? I know we meat eaters would probably not want to know what’s in the average British sausage – my partner describes it memorably as “lips and arseholes” – but if we are going to have a full English, and I’m not sure I need one everyday in Portugal, then please do it properly.
The sun shines now and the weather is set fair, apart from the heavy rain all evening and a thunderstorm just before dawn tomorrow. I have sent in a written complaint to TUI – there was nothing in the brochure about rain – and expect a full refund in due course. Or maybe I just made that up?
Finally, I know just how lucky we are being on holiday and I know some of you will not be in a position to have a holiday yourself this year, whether it’s due to the cost of living crisis, a family bereavement or illness and I try to take account of the feelings of others when I blog and engage in social media about our good fortune. So much of what I see on social media is rank exhibitionism, by accident or design, and I plead guilty to have been in that number in days gone by. No more.
I have to go now. There’s a beer with my name on it. Weather is here, wish you were nice.
