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Published: June 12th 2017
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Geo: 55.9503, -3.18761
The night was short but very cold, and the heat in our B&B was far from ideal. We all methodically got dressed and slowly warmed up, before the sun rose. We ate the breakfast left for us the night before and were in the frosted-over car by 0700 for our short drive to the airport.
Jane and K were flying to Amsterdam, and Anna and I to London, on flights which were to depart within minutes of each other. Anna and I took all of the luggage, leaving K and Jane each with a small carry-on. They wanted to minimize what they had to lug around Amsterdam, and it was far easier for us to take all the bags with us. Anna and I originally had a nearly nine-hour layover in London -- again necessitated by our award tickets and stupid British Airways. Originally we had planned to try and visit the new Harry Potter movie studio tour during that layover, but as it had only opened two days earlier, there had been absolutely no way to get tickets. We then had planned to take a bus directly from Heathrow to Hampton Court Palace -- a perennial favorite of Katherine's, but Anna and I never been. As we checked in for our flight in Edinburgh, I looked at Anna and asked her if she still wanted to visit Hampton Court. With a guilty look, she asked me if I wanted to. We both realized we were both "castled out" and just wanted to get home. I then asked if they could book us on an earlier flight from London to Washington, There was an earlier departure, which would save us six hours of layover. They sent us to ticketing where they reissued the ticket -- no problem.
As Edinburgh Airport is so small, we were through Security in no time and Anna and I were just lolling around. We ran into Jane, and then Katherine arrived. We still each had more than an hour before our respective flights. As I was talking to Katherine, she looked at me and said, "they just paged Allen and Anna Steele. Did you hear that?" I had heard nothing, but thought to look at my boarding pass. It was then that I realized that in addition to putting us on the earlier London-Washington flight, they had also booked us on the earlier departure from Edinburgh to London. The ticket said the gate was closing at 0805am, and it was exactly 0805. I grabbed Anna and we literally sprinted to the gate. As we ran up to the gate, an agent was closing the jetway door. She looked up and said, "Steele?" I nodded, as I was out of breath. She then yelled down the jetway, "Hold it! Hold it!" We continued our run down the jetway where the attendant still had her hands on the aircraft door. We collapsed into our seats and they closed the doors. Thank goodness Katherine had heard the announcement, or I have no idea what might have happened.
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