Tuesday 9th February 1999

The rendezvous point for the first wave of the TDC was at Keith and Colin's parents' house in Windsor. Sara, always keen on being on time, was there first, staggering up the drive with a huge pile of T-shirts that she had picked up en-route. Martin F wasn't far behind, and so the visitors ended up waiting for the prodigal sons. Mrs Waterhouse had cooked a huge spaghetti bolognaise, which once the stragglers had arrived we all tucked into. This in hindsight was fortuitous, given the events that unfolded later . . .

Mr Waterhouse took us to the airport, the car once again heaving with four Octopush players and their kit. Check-in was uneventful, and we headed straight for the bar, in true CTDC style. There, Martin F had his first experience of the "Waterhouse Wibble", as Sara calls it. This consists of very very silly conversations which usually hang on key elements of previous very very silly conversations. Sara, used to this by now, was unfazed; Martin F lost the plot very early on and just looked on dumbfounded.

We then hit the Duty Free, but as we were queueing, disaster struck. Next to our flight details on the departures board were the words "Flight Cancelled". This was the start of a couple of hours of waiting and queueing, as we had to return all our Duty Free (woe!), "re-enter the country", pick up our bags, go back through customs and back to the Adria desk. There we were given details of the hotel in which we would be staying for the night, and also of the hopper bus that would take us there.

We all descended on the bus, much to the horror of the bus driver, and headed for the Renaissance, our home for the night. There we had a further bout of queueing, while the staff coped with the onslaught of two flight-loads of people all wanting to be booked in NOW!

Once we had checked in and inspected our rooms (and eaten biscuits, in Keith's case, although despite valiant efforts he didn't succeed in nicking anyone else's quota), we hit the hotel bar before finally flagging and going to bed very tired.

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