Monarch

Not the butterfly this time.  I did see one or two during my wonderful week, but none were pausing long enough to be blipped.

This Monarch is the plane I took home to Birmingham. You may know that I normally say awful things about this airline. I complain about the price (usually at least twice as much as TAP, the Portuguese airline or BA). I moan even more about their hand luggage allowance which used to be 5kg including your handbag.

Today they were brilliant.

They emailed us a few weeks ago to say that the hand baggage allowance had been increased to 10kg. Today it was a comfy and charming flight. Although the plane had arrived about twenty minutes late because of serious headwinds, they managed to get us into Birmingham early and the luggage was on the carousel when I got to it !

As you can see from the photo, landing in Funchal is difficult. The plane here has just landed, perilously close to the houses and, in certain winds, they have to redirect all air traffic either to Porto Santo or to the Canaries. The wind changed in the half hour following this shot and we took off in the opposite direction from this, and from the previous flights.

Weather in Madeira is interesting. I've included a second photo, showing the grey clouds and interesting sky.