Coming home

A long day spent travelling not such a great distance. Prepare for a long rant or just admire the sick bag and skip it now.
#2S dropped me at Liverpool airport at around 4:30am and helped me with my heavy suitcase at the check-in desk. Luckily he managed to sprint back to his car before the £10 charge kicked in (over 20 mins, under an hour). I wore my sling all day just to make it clear that one arm is still not functioning as it should. The only advantage I noticed all day was only being asked to raise one arm in the security body scanner. I had purchased a speedy-boarding option just to avoid the usual scrum to get on and stow luggage, and was first in the queue. This didn’t deter a rude man from pushing in front, and of course no help was offered on the steps down to the apron or steps up to the plane. By then both arms were twitching with carrying cabin bag, handbag and various comestibles for the journey, and my dicky heel, not happy going downstairs, gave out and caused me to lurch drunkenly down while flailing for the handrail with my bad arm. People stared but didn’t offer any help, and mostly tutted and pushed past. At least the stewardess stowed my bag for me, unasked. I was sitting next to a young woman who kept calling to her friend in another row, complaining about how they’d been split up. Eventually the staff moved them both next to me, where they proceeded to talk and laugh loudly for the whole 2 hours. The rude man from the boarding queue was across the aisle and had his seat fully reclined the whole way, to the acute discomfort of the tall young man behind. I had wanted to ask him to lift my bag down after landing, but he scuttled away. An elderly but fit lady hauled it down for me instead. Apologetically I said I’d been hoping a strong helpful man would offer. She snorted and said “You could hope”.
I tried to contact Easyjet all week, the best I could get out of them regarding “assistance” was a suggestion to ask at the service desk in Barcelona. After struggling to get my 23kg bag on a luggage trolley, I went to said desk to ask for help to get onto the shuttle bus. I was told help was only for people arriving for a flight, not leaving one. “Fine!” I huffed, and struggled away to the bus stop. A bus was there but it was obvious the step was too high even if I could lift the bag, so I waited for next one, hoping to ask for help from another passenger. An elderly Spanish couple pretended not to understand me, so my hopes turned to an English couple arguing about how to get to terminal T2B (we were at T2C). I could have told them - a short walk in that direction - but they were in full Brits-on-holiday angry mode and uncaring of anyone else’s problems. The third bus arrived and I looked the driver in the eye and demonstrated how I couldn’t get the bag on. I don’t think he’s allowed to leave his seat, but a young American guy leapt out and helped me on, and later off, the bus, and got a trolley to put the case on. My faith in human nature restored, I settled on a hard metal seat to await the next flight 6 hours later. Tried to read my Kindle but kept dozing off for a few minutes, waking to the sure knowledge that I’d been snoring and dribbling, and that my hand resting on the device had forwarded the book an unknown number of pages. On the plus side I managed to avoid the desigual designer store, which is irresistible even when no sales are on.
I knew I was nearly home when a nice Spanish man offered to carry my bag to the plane, and another lifted it up to the locker for me. The same guy lifted it down after the 50 minute flight and said that will be 10 euros please. I said that was muy barato so he said ok, 20! Charming and humorous too.
Big welcome from the dogs. Happy to be home.
Will backblip rest of time in UK when I can.