Scilly 2007 - Monday 9 July

This is our travel day. We drove across England to Stoke Gifford, where our daughter is working on a year out. Having made contact and enjoyed a coffee and a piece of cake, we proceeded to Bristol Airport. We arrived massively early. We gave our car to the car park people to look after and were taken to the airport, less than a mile up the hill. We'd been there a while, waiting for checkin to open when I discovered I'd left my phone in the car! They were kind enough to retrieve it and bring it to the airport.
Is that three hours before or two hours before? Anyway we checked in and after waiting around some more went through security. We were eventually called, and watched the safety video on the ground. I should have realised what that meant, but I didn't. A large airport bendy-bus picked up the 12 or so of us and drove out on the apron. We passed a jet, and a turbo-prop, and then parked in front of our plane.
In our party there was one trio of note, a mother, here grown up daughter, and her small grandson. Its only worthy of note because it annoys me so much. Why will modern parents only whine at their children, instead of speak to then intelligently? I really believe they would behave better if things were EXPLAINED. We got on the plane and she asked if there should be such a smell of petrol. They had just filled the plane with fuel, so I was rather glad of the smell - it's reassuring to know you have enough fuel.
I sat on the front row, and watch the pilots all through the one and a quarter hour flight. It was fascinating trying to guess what all the controls were for, watching them constantly balancing the plan, dealing with the icing up as we flew through clouds, and pumping fuel from one tank to another. Landing on St Marys on a short runway that runs up hill and then on to grass was also a surprise. Apparently this is one of the harder airports to land at in the UK.
We had not planned onward travel from the airport, but I was pleased to see that he airline had, and we were transported in a mini-bus to our accommodation. There are no road name signs on St Mary's, so its just as well the drivers know where all the guest houses are. We stayed at Colossus. After we'd unpacked we rushed into the town because it was getting late, and all the restaurants would be full. We ate take-away fish and chips in a small park, and started to get acquainted with the sparrows.