Dursley RFC

Having spent Thursday night in a Swindon hotel in readiness for a meeting yesterday, I was looking forward to getting home as I drove into the hire car return area at Bristol airport at around 4.30pm yesterday afternoon...

I had already checked in on-line (one of the marvels of modern technology allowing one to bypass the check-in queues as long as one only has hand luggage...) Making sure I had put all my liquids, gels and pastes into the small resealable plastic bag purchased especially for the trip the day before (I'm not entirely sure why all gels, pastes and liquids have to be packed in such a way, or why the limit is 10 containers of 100ml each, but I am told it is to reduce the terrorist threat (?!)), I went straight through to the security check...

And at that point I knew that the next 3 hours were going to be tough... for there, just in front of me in the security queue, was what must have been the entire membership of the Dursley Rugby Football Club... each one dressed in team shirt and tie.... each one donning a different type of silly head-dress, and each one having already consumed a large quantity of alcoholic beverage. My heart sank. My co-travellers' hearts sank. We turned to each other and tried to give encouragement... 'they won't be going to Newcastle' we said... 'they must be going to Benidorm / Ibiza / Dublin' we hoped....

Hopes were dashed almost immediately, when the collective DRFC started chanting.... 'Shearer, Shearer, Shearer....' We knew they would be on our flight... One lovely American lady, en route to see a cousin in Durham, commented that she hoped she would escape being covered in vomit.

The wait in departures was long - what was actually only 50 minutes seemed like an eternity... DRFC continued drinking in the bar, and then proceeded to announce, to the entire departure lounge, who was sharing which room with whom when they arrived in Newcastle... in case you were wondering, Jonno is sharing with Dave, despite his demonstrations to swap with Matty...

When we finally boarded the flight, we were all relieved to see that DRFC sat together at the back of the plane... at least we were out of vomit range.... but not out of range of the paper aeroplanes which periodically winged their way down the cabin, landing on the laps of unsuspecting passengers at the front...

This, coupled with the constant queue of DRFC members at the toilet (standing just too close to the aeoplane exit door and fiddling just a little too much with the buttons next to said door for our liking) and the non-stop singing of 'Swing low sweet chariot' and 'Bread of Heaven', interspersed with chants of 'Shearer... Shearer...' made for what could be described as an interesting flight!

The cabin crew did their best - stopping the safety demonstration twice to chastise the merry DRFC for not listening properly, and threating them with the Captain's wrath should they not do as they were told...

But is was with some relief that it was all nearly over, when we touched down at Newcastle (to the applause and cheers of DRFC and more 'Shearer' chanting...)

Home at last!