{"id":24080,"date":"2019-07-19T14:43:36","date_gmt":"2019-07-19T14:43:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/?p=24080"},"modified":"2019-07-19T14:44:07","modified_gmt":"2019-07-19T14:44:07","slug":"a-bad-day-in-the-life-of-a-wine-writer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/uncategorized\/a-bad-day-in-the-life-of-a-wine-writer","title":{"rendered":"A (bad) day in the life of a wine writer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-24081\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/flightdisruption-500x298.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"298\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/flightdisruption-500x298.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/flightdisruption-150x89.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/flightdisruption-400x238.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/flightdisruption.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m currently in Canada. I\u2019ve just spent four wonderful days in the Okanagan Valley, but when it came time to leave, things didn\u2019t go so well. Maybe I should have just stayed there?<\/p>\n<p>The day began with an alarm set for 0450.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>0510: get into my hire car and head to Penticton Airport, for my 0625 Westjet flight to Toronto via Calgary.<\/li>\n<li>0525: arrive at the airport. Penticton is a tiny airport. One of the smallest I\u2019ve flown through, and this is important for later in the story. It has no facilities: just two vending machines and a further two airside. There\u2019s a seating area either side of security. That\u2019s it.<\/li>\n<li>0530: drop the car keys into the National after-hours return box (they don\u2019t open until late).<\/li>\n<li>0535: go through security, where I realize that I don\u2019t have my passport. Panic! I remember putting it into my pocket. I travel so often and so I always put things into the same pockets. I have dropped it somewhere.<\/li>\n<li>0536: retrace all my steps, which doesn\u2019t take long in a tiny airport. No sign.<\/li>\n<li>0537: retrace my steps again. Same result. Peer into the now locked rental car to see if I can see it (keys now out of reach in the return box).<\/li>\n<li>0540: realize with a sinking feeling that I\u2019m going to miss my flight. Call taxi to go back to the Lakeside hotel to see if I dropped it in the car park, or my room.<\/li>\n<li>0600: arrive at Lakeside and do a thorough search. Realise with a sinking feeling in my stomach that I could be in a logistical hell of my own making. Sit in reception and google \u2018lost passport.\u2019 Realise that an emergency passport is not going to work with my coming itinerary (Toronto-New York State-Toronto-Victoria-Portland-McMinville-Victoria-London). And how do I get to a consulate without a passport? Will a driving licence work on domestic flights?<\/li>\n<li>0625: leave a message with the National office at Penticton. Could the passport be in the car still? Would they have a look?<\/li>\n<li>0700: I get a call. They looked, and they found it!! Disaster averted, slightly. Now to the airport again. But how am I going to get to Toronto? Penticton has hardly any flights. But I find that there is an Air Canada flight via Vancouver at 0815. It could be problem solved.<\/li>\n<li>0715: Get to the airport, and buy a new ticket. CA$712. Ouch. But at least I\u2019ll get to Toronto more-or-less on time. Big wave of relief.<\/li>\n<li>0800: On board flight. Engines start and run for 10 minutes (turbo prop: this is a Bombardier 400). Then switch off. Repeat. Mechanical problem.<\/li>\n<li>0830: Deplane. Head to the departure lounge again.<\/li>\n<li>0900: Realize I\u2019ve missed my connection. Air Canada book me onto another flight.<\/li>\n<li>1000: My app tells me the new departure time is 2030. That\u2019s not going to work. Would be stranded overnight in Vancouver.<\/li>\n<li>1030: We have to leave airside. Queue up and get a new flight out, leaving 1245. I\u2019m beginning to feel tired. Also a bit hungry. Don\u2019t have coins for vending machines, and my cards don\u2019t work in them, so no chance of anything to eat.<\/li>\n<li>1315: After another delay we actually leave from Penticton for the 45 minute flight to Vancouver. I\u2019m now on board the Toronto flight which left late from Vancouver.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I think I have been guilty of being a bit arrogant about how well travelled I am, and how good I am at travel. Today has been a self-inflicted, but also partly airline-inflicted hell. It\u2019s a good humbling experience, and it\u2019s also a good lesson in patience, and being accepting of things that you have no control over.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll go to bed (when I finally get there) grateful that I didn\u2019t actually lose my passport, because that would have led to astonishingly difficult situations, and would have probably ended this trip early. And I\u2019ll also go to bed a bit humbler, which has to be a good thing, eh?<\/p>\n<p>[Postscript: I got to White Oaks in Niagara at 0008. My chums were still up drinking so I joined them. A nice end to the day.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m currently in Canada. I\u2019ve just spent four wonderful days in the Okanagan Valley, but when it came time to leave, things didn\u2019t go so well. Maybe I should have&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24080"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24083,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24080\/revisions\/24083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}