The One About Madeira....

A year ago this week, M and I went on holiday for a week to Madeira.  We hadn't been away since we went to Paris the November before, so we were really looking forward to going away somewhere and relaxing, and having some warm weather for a change!  We had an all inclusive hotel not too far from the city centre of Funchal.  (It was 20 minute walk away, which going down hill wasn't too bad in the mornings - coming back later in the day - that was harder!)  Anyway we got there on a Monday and spent the next few days exploring, and doing touristy things, going on a coach trip round the island, visiting the various gardens in the island, and one mad day we trekked up on a very hot day to find a garden/animal park that was at the top of a mountain - we were exhausted by the time we got to the top!  Well on the Friday morning we turned the tv on in the hotel room (we were quite lucky to have some english channels and the news) to find the Volcano in iceland had decided to erupt and throw out lots of ash which started to get blown towards Europe.  We had frantic phone calls from our family, trying to find out what was going on, as flights were being suspended.  Well the first day it said they were only suspending flights on that day, so we tried not to worry about how we would be getting home as we figured things would we back to normal on the Monday.  How wrong were we!!!

On Monday we went to the airport as planned to be told that of course our flight had been cancelled, but they were putting us up in a hotel, and would feed us breakfast and dinner, and we would be there until further notice.  The new hotel was nowhere near as nice as the original one, and it was a good 15mins bus ride away from the city centre.  We were told to just try and enjoy the extra days, and that we would get 24 hours notice when our flight would be ready, so we were fine to just go out on trips out.  Well we didn't like to stray too far from the hotel, and only made it out to the city centre on just one of the days.  Well on the Thursday night we were at dinner and it was about 8:30pm, and the lady from the travel company came in and said we had a flight leaving at 2am and we would get picked up at 11:30pm.  So four extra days, and we landed about 6am on the Friday.  Luckily I had booked two weeks off work so they weren't expecting me back.  Unfortunately M should have been at work on the Tuesday, so despite the lack of sleep he went to work and came home about mid-afternoon.  I will never forget our trip to Madeira, and before the volcano fuss we actually had a really lovely time.  I have more than 200 pictures from that trip because there was a flower festival on at the time, and a parade on the last Saturday.  One of these days I'm going to get round to scrapping these pictures, and the story of being stranded!

So... was anyone else stranded at the time?  Or know friends or family that were stranded?  I'd be interested to find out!

As you will all be aware I took part in Shimelle's class Blogging for Scrappers.  Well starting to today I'm doing the follow on class Beyond Blogging for Scrappers.  And so... its time to think about the theme of my blog.  It started off simply as a tool to take part in one of Shimelle's other classes.  More recently I've been using it to try and keep track of my thoughts and memories so that when I do come round to scrap things I haven't forgotten important parts!  I do like to share my LO's too once I've completed them.  And actually in the last month I've done more scrapping than the rest of the year, so blogging has given me a bit of a boost :) and its nice to find out what other scrappers think of the craftiness that I get up to!  Sometimes I throw in a few stories just about every day life, which one day I suppose will form part of my history for future generations.  So, I guess I'm wondering, do people enjoy the mix that I write about?  Would you prefer to read more about life in general?  Or less life and more craft???  Let me know what you think :)  all comments are appreciated!