After finally arriving in Edinburgh, about 2 hours later than expected, I left the ginger mentalist behind and we made our way to the luggage carousel to claim our luggage and begin our little weekend mini-adventure.

It was soon after this that I learned that any sense of excitement you may have fades after waiting more than 30 minutes for your bags to appear.  I learned this because our luggage did not appear. In fact, very little appeared. I watched the same orange strapped suitcase go passed 23 times before going to the BA assistance desk.

“Our luggage doesn’t appear to be here” I said politely.

“It should be.” replied the lady in a surprised tone.

“I know that, but it isn’t”

“Hmmm, let me check, can I have your luggage tags?”

I handed over our little green luggage receipts and she tapped the details into her computer before disappearing into the back room for a couple of minutes. She returned with less than good news.

“It appears the was a problem with a beltway and your bags are still at Heathrow, I’m very sorry.”

“Right. OK. Hmmm. When is the next flight up here to bring us those bags?”

“Well, because of the cancellations due to the security alert, that’ll probably* be tomorrow, we can send them to you, do you have your hotel details?”

“Yes”

“Err, can I have them then?”

“They’re in my hand luggage. Which is still at Heathrow apparently”

“Can I have your mobile number?”

“Certainly, but have a guess where that is too.”

“Right, of course, sorry. Perhaps you could call and tell us where your hotel is when you get there?”

“A cunning plan, thank you”

One of my friends had seen into the future and had written the hotel address on a piece of paper before we left London, so we gave that to her and headed off to the city centres Travel Lodge with nothing but the shirts on our backs, and a slight sinking feeling in our stomachs.

(Continued tomorrow)

* We shall refer to this incident as missed warning sign number 2.

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