I don’t know what it is about Iberia Airlines – I’d have to say that they rank only marginally above Ryanair and KLM in my experience – but three times this year my luggage hasn’t made it back home with me, thanks once again, to Iberia – (fortunately, it’s always made it to where I’m going! – though my lovely mate Alan spent 11 days in Colombia without HIS luggage in July courtesy of Iberia’s co-owner company, British Airways!!). When you’re standing at a luggage carousel, and it’s packed with bags, you have this sort of confidence that yours WILL be on the belt, until gradually, the throng of people diminishes, and there’s one crappy suitcase going round and round on its own, and it’s not yours… yet you wait hopefully that yours WILL appear through the rubber flaps that conceal the baggage ‘tractor’ from the baggage hall…

Mine didn’t arrive back at Heathrow when I did, but I was assured it would be in Belfast when I got there…. one piece was, the other wasn’t… and then you’re desperately trying to remember what was in it just in case you have to make a claim. Who knows how difficult it is to remember what’s in your bag…? Finally, it arrived yesterday evening, so I have to be grateful for that, though the baggage company wouldn’t have delivered it until tomorrow… so it was back to the airport again to collect it.

Then, it’s an unspoken prayer of thanks when you realise what you could have lost…and not remembered you’d lost it until it becomes too late to claim for it. I lost two bags en route from Newport News, Virginia, to Houston, with all my family’s Christmas presents as well as my clothes, on one occasion, courtesy of the dreadful Delta Airlines: perhaps they rival Iberia for the slot above Ryanair! So it was out to buy clothes and a bag for the return journey: which Delta kindly lost again! Anyone want to ask why I refuse to use that airline anymore? (They’re in the same network as KLM…. ’nuff said!).

It’s almost like Christmas when your luggage finally comes home, and you realise you’d NEVER have remembered THAT item in a claim….I’d challenge anyone to remember what they packed in which bag a few days after packing them!

So I’m grateful to be reunited with my boxer shorts, polo shirts, and other sundry irreplaceable items purchased whilst away…

And last night, for someone who, until the past few months, must have been one of the world’s WORST sleepers (until I discovered magnesium aerosol sprays, one specially formulated to help you sleep) I slept from just after midnight to 1 pm. Ooops, sorry, church, but I guess I was tired, and I’d rather not sleep in the sermon as it’s embarrassing, and my bed is more comfortable….

And still so eternally thankful to God, who loves me, and the God whom I love, for such an amazing trip to such a wonderful country, and for sleep, which for the first 59 years of my life frequently passed me by, and now I love sleep…. it’s nice, ain’t it?? Thank you, Father!