It’s been a while since the last time the paints came out from their storage box. This is due to being busy and having packed weekends taken up with various things – and time flying by quicker than you can blink your eyes.
However, here we are with a partly free weekend, well, a free Sunday – and what better way to use it than to get back into the painting hobby.
Having not painted since last year, with the last piece being Buckingham Palace following the passing of the Late Queen, it’s been about 6 months since the brushes touched the paper. Having not realised it was that long since last picking up the paint brushes – the endeavour is to not let such an amount of time pass again before the next painting!
Anyway, now, back to the reason behind this one. If you’re new here, every creation tends to have a reason behind it, and this one is no different. Each creation has its own little blog post explaining the reasons behind the creation.
This creation is the first to be inspired by the day job: a planned trip with work. But, with the unexpected ordeal of the travel experience that unfolded.
The day started by making our way to London Heathrow Airport for our scheduled departure to Belfast for a work event that we had been planning and were set to deliver. However, the weather had its own agenda: including snow and low cloud. The snow that the UK saw didn’t affect Heathrow directly, with both runways remaining operational, but did affect Bristol resulting in them closing their runway for the morning of 8th March 2023. The low cloud, and therefore reduced visibility did affect air operations at Heathrow – which resulted in British Airways cancelling our flight to Belfast. The flight was cancelled just after 14:30.
So, back to the drawing board, it was for our travel arrangements in getting to Belfast. We soon found a travel option with EasyJet – leaving Birmingham Airport at 21:30. We travelled onward to Birmingham arriving at 19:20, in very good time for our flight. When arriving in Birmingham it was snowing which didn’t fill us with confidence that the flight would be running to schedule but more that it would be delayed. That was the best we could have hoped for. The runway and taxiways at Birmingham Airport were clear of snow, so that was a relief!
The flight boarded at 22:00, delayed by 30 minutes due to the late arrival of the inbound aircraft. The flight was fully boarded and ready to depart as you would expect until the Captain came over the PA system to inform us that the ground handlers, a service sub-contracted by EasyJet to another company called Swissport, had not arrived at the aircraft to push it back off the stand, and also there was a queue for the de-icing request.
Two hours had now passed, making it after midnight, and we were informed that the de-icer was due to get to us next and the ground handlers were ready to push back when the aircraft had been de-iced. A small sigh of relief was heard in the cabin. The reason for the delay was that the de-icing rig had run out of fluid on another aircraft and had to start the process again. It’s worth noting, even the Captain confirmed, de-icing 3 aircraft should not have taken as long as it did. But, here we were, waiting for the de-icing rig to turn up on stand at the aircraft.
As seen in the infographic above, the de-icing liquid must not be put on the pilots’ windows or on the external probes and instruments located at the front of the aircraft as this can affect their capability, making flight unsafe. Now, no one would expect what happened next, not even the pilots. But here we are, sitting on stand at Birmingham Airport when we see the Captain appear from the cockpit to tell us that the de-icer fluid had been sprayed on the cockpit window and therefore it was likely on the instruments and probes making the aircraft unsafe to fly. This was news to us at 01:30 in the morning. We had been sitting on the plane for 3.5 hours at this point.
We soon found out that there was another aircraft that we could use instead and plans were implemented to move passengers and crew over to the new aircraft. This aircraft also needed de-icing so we all sat on the new plane with bated breath hoping that the same thing wouldn’t happen again regarding de-icing.
Well, thankfully it didn’t. The de-icer took care to ensure the correct parts of the plane were sprayed sure not to put another aircraft out of action.
All of this chaos had taken its time to unfold. After boarding the initial aircraft at 22:00, and boarding the new aircraft at 02:30, we were informed at 03:45 that the pilots’ operational hours had run out and so that the flight would therefore have to be cancelled.
After leaving the aircraft at 04:15, for the final time, still on the ground in Birmingham, we had decided the tide of bad luck had served to cancel our plans to travel to Belfast on this occasion, sadly. EasyJet did offer an alternative flight with an aircraft being flown from London Gatwick to Birmingham, with the plan to fly passengers on to Belfast. We didn’t opt for that option owing to the fact that we’d been awake for near to 24 hours at this point in the journey.
The graphic below shows the scheduled departure time of the new flight, 08:15, and the time it actually departed 12:25. It would have been quite a long wait further if we had decided to travel on the new flight detailed below.
Anyway, whilst it wasn’t a successful flight from either London Heathrow or Birmingham to Belfast, the capital city of Northern Ireland was the inspiration for the creation.
Something that hasn’t been done before is a multi-asset creation, with several things appearing in the same creation. Normally creations only have one focus, but now seemed a good time to try something new. Also, this creation was travel-related but it was a first as the location hadn’t been visited owing to the chaotic journey detailed earlier in this post.
The landmarks featured in this creation include Belfast City Hall, the Titanic Museum, the Big Fish, Belfast Docks – Samson and Goliath Gantry Crane, and the Albert Memorial Clock.
There is also an easter egg in the creation. Have you noticed it? This blog can’t be left at a loose end so the location is the clock face. The time is 08:15 on the clock with the small hand pointing at the 8 and the big hand pointing at the 3. This replicates the date that this haywire journey took place – 8th March 2023, which can be written as 08/03/2023. Also known for being International Women’s Day too.
The process video is below. Thanks for reading and hopefully, it won’t be too long before the next one.
This blog post is available in audio as a podcast and can be found here: Belfast via Birmingham: A Bloody Travel Disaster
Artwork in Progress 