Last week started early for me I travelled to Heathrow on Saturday evening to spend the night in a hotel in order to be up early to collect Anna and Danna the speakers for our conference from their long haul flights.

 

06:45 on Sunday morning saw me up and on the way to Terminal 5 to meet Anna off her 07:00 flight from Uganda. You can imagine my mood when I arrived to find the flight delayed until 08:40.

 

08:40 came and went the flight from Kampala showed on the arrivals board as landed, then waiting for the bags to arrive, then baggage arrived, then it disappeared from the board altogether still no Anna! By 10:30 I was beginning to panic I didn’t relish the task of telling Sheila I had lost her keynote speaker, I already had three missed calls from Sheila on my phone. When I say three missed calls they weren’t exactly missed I just never answered them. I searched in every coffee bar, restaurant and shop in T5, no sign.

 

I tried to call Anna on her phone; ominously the dialing tone was not a British one.

 

I emailed her, no reply, I sent a text asking where in Heathrow she was, nothing. In my desperation I was now searching behind every potted plant in the terminal, I had been thrown out of the ladies toilets twice and two heavily armed Policemen were eying me suspiciously I had now been in the terminal for nearly three hours, and Danna’s flight had already landed at terminal 3

 

The phone rang it was Sheila, I had to answer, “hello luvvie” was her jaunty welcome to me “I’ve been trying to get you on the phone for ages, have you got them? Are you on the way home”?

 

My knees had become quite week and I had to sit down, I was sweating profusely and finding it hard to breath. The Policemen were starting to move towards me their firearms at the ready.

 

“I haven’t got anyone yet” I said in a voice that I didn’t recognise……..to be continued