The wise man was bloody right

So the simple 'Go to Warsaw and get the visa' job was met with the usual home office difficulties - safe to say that it's probably a good thing that David (Patience of a Saint) and nice bloke went rather than me.  The quick job meant that he was not back again until well after 10 when I was kidding on that I was asleep.

It did however bear fruit. Ms Patel's underlings provided us with all the visas required.  A few phone calls and a flurry of emailed boarding passes later and it was decided that we were to check out of the hotel that night and head half way towards Calais once we had dropped off families at the airport and picked up our new arrivals from Riga.

At 2320 I decided that looking again at the hotel options in Germany would be a good idea

I fell back over

At 0115 the alarm went off. Showered and dressed and bus loaded with 7 members of 3 departing families we headed off into the darkness to Warsaw Chopin airport.  Arriving at 6 the check in was very busy - lots of our family members had never flown before so there was a fair bit of excitement mixed with trepidation.

First two families left for Doncaster Sheffield on time although the flight seemed to take an age to leave on Flightradar.  We went to the main bus station to collect our mum and daughter from Kiev who arrived via Romania, Budapest, Prague and a 20 hour bus journey from Riga - with Lou the dog and Leonard the cat.

3 hours to kill we pretended to sleep before returning to the airport to say goodbye to Mum and daughter from Sumy who were going to Luton.  They were delighted to hear other Ukranian voices as they checked in to the flight with the most sullen guys in Poland or as they are known - the Wizz Air customer service team.

I have to say that the Warsaw Main Bus Station is weher the human aspect of the conflict hit me quite hard - I wanted to take photos but it seemed wrong, too voyeuristic

(Looking down the escalator at the bus station / train station - the areas downstairs to the right and left were overcrowded with people / luggage - I didn't want to photograph their suffering)

There were lots of women and young children here- the male toilets were not open solely to males.  There were security guards on the door to control people in and out one at a time.  The women looked tired, it can be seen in their faces - they care for their children, they drag their luggage around - some have a little, some have a bit more - nobody has their entire worldly goods with them.

We collected our precious cargo - a 39 YO mother and her 14 YO daughter - from Kyiv.  They had travelled from Kyiv to Romania, then on to Riga to stay with relatives - all via Budapest and  Prague.  They had been in Riga for a month bur despite the hospitality of their family - were uncomfortable living there due to the attitude of the local Russian population.  So a 20 hour bus trip later they got in our bus - along with their cat Arnold and dog Lou!

So we had 3 hours to kill in Warsaw - we tried to get some sleep but the sunrise was beautiful and difficult to ignore

Back to the airport - more to follow