A Blip, a Glitch and a Big Uh-Oh!

Well, in spite of all the planning, it didn't take long for the first major hitches to occur on this trip.  I arrived in Vancouver Sunday evening to find that my flight to London was delayed by one hour.  That normally would not have been a problem except that the connection from there to Newcastle was very tight.  Online, however, it showed our arrival would only be delayed by 10 minutes so no problem - I thought!  Everything seemed to be okay as we were circling over London at our scheduled arrival time.  However, heavy air traffic prevented our landing for nearly 3/4 hour so things for me to make the connection were very tight - the first blip.  On arrival the Air Canada ground staff already had the boarding pass for my BA flight to Newcastle BUT (and a big one!), I had to change from Terminal 3 to 5.  That went not badly until I had gone through Passport Control and into Security where my purse was rejected on the initial scan.  At that point my flight was boarding and it was a good 10 minutes until I got through the check.  Who knew that in the UK, iPads have to be removed from your handbag and a small bottle of nail polish is required to be in a plastic bag and not in your cosmetic bag?  Bad Maureen - and the second glitch!  Even so, I got to the gate in time and had my boarding pass and luggage tag scanned and got on the plane.  Our flight was then delayed 1/2 hour because of a missing passenger and, finally, they had to offload that person's luggage.  I had a window seat and, as the trailer with the missing person's luggage pulled away from the plane, I thought I spotted my bag on the trailer as well.  I thought, well, that isn't possible.  Upon arriving in Newcastle, I was proved wrong as no bag of mine arrived.  So, after reporting it missing, filling out the form and meeting Sid and Marie, we set off to Consett with the promise my bag would arrive and be delivered after a few hours when the next flight from London arrived.  The big UH-OH, however, happened when the person at the airport entered the wrong postal code so the bag couldn't be delivered.  AUGH!  Finally today, after a large number of frustrating phone calls - why don't the baggage handling and courier offices answer any calls before 10 a.m.??? - my bag finally arrived.  Hopefully, that is the last "oops" of the trip!!!