Palatine Wood Gnome

There are many that spread over a much larger territory; that host a wider range of peculiar plants or give shelter to much more interesting wildlife species.
But the Palatine Forest is the largest coherent wood in Germany and, most of all: It's my home.
Why "Wood Gnome"?
Well, I have been named thus because I turn into Rumpelstiltskin kind of regularly when "visitors" come over from the other side of the Rhine Plains (where they have lots of forest as well...) with their huge cars, jamming the streets of my village, drive up to a forester's lodge, have lunch there, return home after a final cup of coffee and then claim "Oh, we have been to the WOODS this weekend"

That's why.

Saturday 23 February 2008

Getting there is half the fun?!

Well, not in this case.
When we arrived at the airport in Frankfurt (5am) rumours went round (the flight itineraries depend not so much on pre-scheduled, well arranged flights but on rumours and coincidence, it seems) that Terminal 4 in Heathrow was closed for travellers checking through because the conveyerbelt system was broke.
Which means our whole flight was not going to happen but we would be booked unto another flight with whatever airline whenever was to take off.
Sighing we met our fate and prepared mentally to spend the whole day at the airport. After being sent to several desks for new tickets we got the all clear signal; miraculously the conveyerbelts were working properly again so all went back to normal ("normal", eh...) and off we were.
Normally when "London Heathrow" gets mentioned my neck hairs stand on end. It's obviously not known for clear sign-posting or logical structure. But all went as easy as stealing a lollipop from a child. Changing from Terminal 1 to Terminal 4 took no longer than 30 min. which left us two hours for bumming around.
Fun really only started when we boarded for Singapore\Sydney. There was this lovely couple sitting in the row in front of us with their cute 1 1\2 year old daughter.
You know were I'm heading here.
While the rest of the passengers coped quite well with withdrawal of sleep, crammed seating, aching bodies and the like, this gorgeous girl kept screaming at the top of her lungs. And I'm not speaking of crying because she couldn't sleep well with all the noise around her or that pressure balance caused her pain in the ears or something similarly comprehensible. No, you could tell that she was screaming because she didn't get what she wanted and most of all she didn't get it NOW. You know, the kind of squealing that drops every 30 seconds to check if the parents are giving in already. Even the stewardesses flinched.

But every nightmare ends eventually. This was no different; and now we are in OZ.
Beware I'm coming!
As soon as I'm good and ready and resembling a human being again.
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