My Dad and sister came to stay with me here in Germany last week.

They had booked themselves on the same flight from London Luton, so that they could travel together, despite the fact that my Dad does not live in London.

He lives in Manchester, you see. And so, on the morning of the flight, he travelled by train from Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston.

He planned his journey very carefully so that he had a lot of time to get from Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston to London Luton airport. He figured that if there was a delay of some sort, he’d factored in a big enough buffer to still arrive with plenty of time to spare.

This was not the case.

The train he was on stopped dead, only an hour or so into his journey.

It did not move for nearly an hour and a half while the train company dealt with “An Incident”.

Time ticked away. My Dad did a lot of sweating and panicking. So did my sister and I as we text back and forth, trying to figure out what he should do and how we could help him.

I stress hoovered my entire house while I waited for updates. I Googled hotels in London and checked flights for the next day. I ate my way through a packet of vegan cookies that I’d bought as a gift for my sister (sorry, sis).

Time kept ticking.

It all got a bit more fraught. And then a bit more.

In the end, the train company decided it was best to let everyone off at the nearest train station than continue to make them sit there on a hot, sweaty train.

And so my Dad took a very expensive taxi straight to London Luton airport.

He figured that this way, he might just be able to make the flight by the skin of his teeth.

The taxi driver drove very fast.

While he was travelling in the very fast taxi, my sister—who was already at the airport—found out that the plane had been delayed.

This bought my Dad extra time and he made the flight. Hooray!

Thank goodness the flight was delayed!…

says no-one ever….

…..other than me, my Dad and my sister that day.

On any other day, a day when the train had arrived exactly on time, that delayed flight would have been THE WORST, right? It would have been SO ANNOYING and SO FRUSTRATING and HOW DARE THE FLIGHT BE DELAYED, WE’LL GET THERE LATE NOW.

But on this particular day, that same delayed flight was THE BEST THING EVER!

Funny, isn’t it? Because that delayed flight was just a delayed flight.

Everything else that happened came as result of our thinking about the delayed flight and what we made it mean.