My husband 
turned to me this morning and muttered the words "Monarch have gone bust."
"Ay Caramba Batman!" I shouted back, though my language was a little more fruity than that. I’m speaking at SteemFest next month and we booked our flights pretty soon after SteemFest was announced with Monarch Airline, so at this point I was in full panic mode.
I think the neighbours may have thought we were being attacked by wild cats as all you could hear at 7am around our house was the high pitched squeal of my voice ranting about our cancelled flights.
Plan B
"We will get there, after all there are other modes of transport," I yelled at my husband from downstairs as I powered up my laptop ready to search for travel alternatives.
"What about boat? Lisbon is by the sea," I asked. A quick Google later and I shouted back, "OK, no ferries to there from UK but we could hire a boat right?"
"You can’t sail" hubby chuckled back at me.
"I have a month to learn!"
I think at this stage the image of The Wolf of Wall Street’s Jordan Belfort on his Yacht in the middle of the storm may have been going through his mind, with me being airlifted to safety and asking to be flown onwards to SteemFest.
Apparently by boat was not an option, so time for Plan C.
Plan C
"We could go by train," I said staring at the Eurostar booking page. "We could take the train to France then from France down to Lisbon."
"That would take days!"
Apparently this was also not an option, but I still marked this one up as a possibility, quite literally as at this point I had the whiteboard out and a selection of coloured marker pens.
Apparently I have a rather nostalgic view of train travel!
Plan D
"I’ll find another flight,"
At this point I was leaving the house, I could hear the frantic taping of keys coming from upstairs. Now I will admit (obviously not to his face) that his idea was probably the more sensible alternative to my travel plans, but I like to get a bit creative!
I’m a natural optimist and a big believer in silver linings. So I’ll wait and see what this little glitch to our plans brings. I count my blessing that we weren’t abroad when the flights were cancelled, as many other people are waking up this morning to find themselves stranded abroad. I hope they get home safely.
I'm determined to get to SteemFest no matter what happens!
