Less than twelve hours before the flight was due to take off we
got a helpful message from Delta telling us that our flight had been cancelled.
They do not offer any explanation - not even a meaningless one like 'the
flight is delayed because of the later arrival of the in-bound aircraft'.
The only option that we could use for re-booking was to take a flight
first to Detroit, Michigan and then another flight to Buffalo, NY.
In other words, instead of a 1 hour flight of 390 miles we would take
four hours and travel 1009 miles but options were few.
We were in Buffalo to visit an adoption agency, recommended by
some friends of ours. The agency has just moved and the office was still
under construction, in a former Methodist church building. The meeting
was an extended consultation and we came away with a lot of paperwork and a lot
of reading to do. Adoption was always part of the plan but because a
second surrogacy is still out of reach we decided to bring it forward.
One of the parts that struck me most was the need to produce a
profile. We had done it before of course, but that was mainly answering
some set questions and supplying a few photographs. This time it is a
much bigger effort - the agency showed us samples of profiles and it is amazing
the lengths to which some people have gone in terms of making professional
looking booklets.
After the consultation we headed to the hotel. I had booked
it using my American Airlines Advantage miles. American is in Chapter 11
at the moment and by all accounts is an even less happy place than it was before
so we will most likely try to avoid them for a while. I had too many
miles for the cheapest hotels and too few for the most upmarket chain hotels
but just enough for a local 'boutique hotel'.
From the road it looked like an ordinary hotel but as you pulled
into the car park there was an ornate fountain (turned off) that set perfectly
the theme for the experience. The reception had a chandelier that must
have been over 10ft long and all around it was decorated in a style that one
might at first think is over the top. They had made such an effort for
the holidays - there was a large Santa Claus with reindeer as well as a giant
toy soldier and snowman. The minimalist style is so common these days
that to have one senses assaulted by so many decorations (some really quite
bizarre) was unusual and overwhelming.
Harriet loved it of course and we loved the bar and its menu.
There was of course much to talk about.
In the morning we had a few hours before the flight home so we
took the short drive to Niagra falls. It is over thirty years since I
have been there but some parts of it - the spray and noise of the water - are
so familiar. We had only half an hour to climb the observation deck and
take a few photographs before heading back to the airport. As with the
hotel we plan to come back at a future date, hopefully with more time.
The flight home took an hour and was 390 miles direct thank
goodness.
