One Day In London Town
Ruth Truman
Image by wal_172619 from Pixabay© Copyright 2024 by Ruth Truman
One Day In London Town Ruth Truman Image by wal_172619 from Pixabay© Copyright 2024 by Ruth Truman |
“All set? Everything packed?” My husband Lee was always worried about being on time.
Later, innocently, we picked up our travel bags and stepped onto the inter-airport bus. Two great weeks in London had come to an end…a tear ran down my cheek. So quickly the time had gone.
Settling in the seats right behind the driver where we could see our last glimpses of the city, Lee commented, “Good traffic. We ought to make it to the airport in twenty minutes.” He checked his watch, already concerned that we were on the only bus scheduled for the day from our hotel.
Five minutes later the driver brought the bus to a screeching halt, almost throwing us out of our seats. “What in the world?” Lee exclaimed.
Every lane was stopped. “I hope this won’t last long…”
And there we sat. Fifteen minutes, then a half hour…an hour. A fire engine drove by on the curb, sirens at full blast, then a poison rescue truck, an ambulance…and we sat. There was no toilet on board; people began to climb up the banks on either side of the freeway to relieve themselves behind the bushes. And we sat…and waited…
“That’s it,” said Lee, holding up his watch for me to see. “Our plane for the U.S. just left. This is some pickle we’re in!”
“Don’t you think they’ll hold the plane? Probably most of the people on this bus are headed for that plane.” I tried to soothe his anxiety.
When we finally arrived, the sun had gone down. We headed straight for the TWA desk. It was closed. There had only been one flight to LA that day. It had left on time, the employees had gone home and left a sign: “Open at 8 a.m.”
A line was forming at the ‘Hotel’ desk, so we joined it. By the time we were one person from the window, we heard the clerk say “it’s all we’ve got left, sir.” He signed up the man ahead of us for ‘The Country Club’. Lee stepped up to the window and I heard him say “I’ll take what you gave him.”
“It’s out of town. The bus doesn’t leave for an hour,” responded the clerk as he handed Lee the tickets. “It’s quite a distance. Sorry for the inconvenience, but that truck spilled gallons of oil all over the road…terrible mess to clean up…”
So that’s what happened, I thought. Just like the freeways at home…
We wandered through the airport shops, buying nothing. In our minds we had already left London.
Finally on the bus for ‘The Country Club’ we rode through England’s farmland, not able to enjoy the scenery because of the dark. Through one small village after another till at last we pulled up to a door with a single light fixture overhead, showing the sign ‘The Country Club’. Lee and I shared an anxious look that said ‘what have we gotten into?’
Meanwhile it had begun to rain (of course; it was London) so we hurried inside. We were shown the smallest room ever. We had to put the travel bags on the bed, take out what we needed, and put them in the closet. The TV was hung on the wall; at least the shower was adequate. And speaking of showers, the rain was now a full-blown thunderstorm.
Lee went to the front desk to call our son who was to meet us at LAX. Back in our room he reported, “They said the credit card phone is a couple of blocks away, so I’ll be back in about fifteen minutes”, and picking up the umbrella, he was gone. I showered and put on my nightgown. It was raining hard now, lightning, thunder. I climbed into bed and waited… but no Lee. At almost midnight he came in, dripping wet. The credit card phone box was not two blocks away, more like two miles!
Putting his wet clothes into a plastic packing bag, and with dry pajamas on, he climbed into bed beside me.
Almost asleep, the alarm over our heads went off along with what sounded like every alarm in the hotel. We laughed. What else could happen? Probably just a false alarm. But when the ringing kept going, I got up to check what was happening. Opening the door a crack, I saw people in all manner of dress streaming down the hall; women in hair curlers, carrying babies, draging toddlers, fathers hurding families along…
“Lee, this is real. Pull on your robe. We need to go to the lobby. Now!”
With a groan he joined me, and together we became part of the hall parade. The young boys behind the desk didn’t know what to do, but had the good sense to call the fire department. The firemen announced that the building had been struck by lightning and the alarms were ringing in every room. So our motley group waited while firemen checked each room in the hotel before they gave us an ‘all clear’. Bed never felt so good…
Next morning after an early breakfast we checked our reservations for the bus to the airport. “Sorry, sir, but we’ve lost the bus. We think it broke down somewhere.”
We had seen a taxi come and load three people. “Oh no,” exclaimed the clerk. “I wanted to put six people in that!”
“Well, call another one!” Lee’s voice was edgy. Then turning he told me, “Grab your bags. Here comes one now.” Only the two of us rode in that taxi!
Back at the airport our tickets were reissued without question, but we scarcely had time to board, so we climbed onto a cart that could go faster than we could run, and just made it. Time to thank God!
The
flight was, amazingly, uneventful. Of course we had to check our big
luggage from the hotel, and you guessed it: at LAX it was nowhere to
be found. So we went home but our bags stayed an extra day in
London…probably waiting to see what would happen next!
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