Loving and leaving
Good to be going home. Slept fitfully last night. Alarm went off at 7am and I snoozed it 3 times. Didn’t need to be up that early for a 10.50am flight.
Hung around in the room in the belief that breakfast didn’t start until 8am which I thought a little unusual but this was based on a notice in the lift. Googled the times only to find that really it started at 6.30 so I headed down. Realised that the sign in the lift alluded to how busy the restaurant was. It said Start – 8am not busy. I took this was 8am being the opening time. Doh.
I’m now sat on an uncomfortable bench at Joe & The Juice juice bar near to gates C. It’s 9.21 and I still have a ton of time to kill. Not having lounge access I’m slumming it. Drinking a “Pick Me Up” that comprises strawberry, banana and apple. Fine.
Taxi en route had wifi again. Quick through check in/bag drop and security though was bemused by the fact that the woman at security insisted I empty all my pockets. I made point of offloading an old hotel room card and an unused napkin. The napkin didn’t make it through.
Where I am at I can see a woman with a book entitled Far From True by Linwood Barclay. A nom de plume surely. Who gets called Linwood Barclay. Sorry if this is you Linwood. It’s fine:)
As I said I’m looking forward to be going home. It’s been almost a month away living in B&Bs and hotels with three nights at home in the middle where I was mostly recovering from the coast to coast walk. Now I’ll be mostly recovering from two weeks in Europe.
Copenhagen was great. The venue for the social last night, Wallmans Cirkusbygningen, was impressive with a great cabaret. Rich and I would appear to be the first to bale out and had a coach to ourselves. I’d definitely consider returning for a weekend with Anne at some point.
…
Later on the plane;
Bit of a miserable woman at the desk in the airport. She called business class passengers and gold card holders first followed by silver. I hung around waiting for her to call bronze. instead she announced general boarding from rows 25 and back. I was in row 24 and challenged her as to why she hadn’t called bronze. She begrudgingly let me on. Huh!
I wish I’d downloaded a movie. I’m somewhat bored. I have positively no inclination to do any work. I need internet access anyway. The cart is coming along, It will be chicken and bacon sandwich – same as on the previous 4 or 5 flights. Something to do. Good job it’s only a 90 minute flight.
So yesterday’s big news was that Hannah has finished her last exam at Durham University. Knowing how ecstatic that makes you feel makes me incredibly happy for her. It’s one of those dual edged swords. You have a fantastic time at university and then it comes to an end.
For Han it is time to move on. She has a good job lined up in London with Colt Telecom. I’m very proud of her. All the kids have good things happening. We are very lucky parents.
The rubbish cart makes its way slowly down the aisle. Very good timing in fact. Having seen it I was able to nip to the loo and get back just as it reached my seat allowing me to both sit down and dispose of the cardboard packaging at the same time. Hey presto.
Looking at the map we are about half way to London. Eta 11.45. My train is at 15.08 so I will have a little time to kill in Kings Cross. Will put out a call on Twitter and Facebook to see if anyone wants to hang out for a bit.Perhaps a cheeky lime and soda. I’ll probably have 2 hours spare. The others are leaving this evening. At least Rich is. I have a lot further to go than him.
We have a great summer in prospect: Hannah’s graduation, Elton John at the Showgrounds, Ladies semi finals at Wimbledon, JoeFest, Latitude, the Isle of Man. The Pylons are starting to get Festival invites too. They have already announced Brownstock in Essex and will be releasing other dates as soon as the official announcements have been made.
This aircraft is not full. I’m in seat 24D and there is plenty of space further back. Not worth moving now though. I’m listening to my faves playlist in random mode. Now playing Bronchi Beat, Smalltown Boy. Saw Jimmy Sommerville live at the Flashback Festival a couple of years ago. He was brilliant.
192 miles to go. Dive dive dive. Or is that a nautical/submariner term?
One of the nice things about getting back to the UK is the restoration of mobile data. This time I’ll have to get in touch with EE because they have charged me for the complimentary 10GB I received on the last day of the coast to coast. Their systems are rubbish.
We are now over the North Sea. Cold down there. Brr. I’m sat behind the emergency exit row. This one has a huge amount of legroom. I tend not to go for exit rows because the seats don’t recline and I don’t like the responsibility of having to open the door if we crash. Never happened ops, cross fingers etc. In fact I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of an aircraft that has ditched and when’re passengers have had to make their way out through the emergency exits. Normally you only hear of the search for bits of the plane after the accident/incident.
Looks like we will be coming in over the Thames estuary. Don’t have a window seat so won’t see much. I don’t normally bother with a window seat for ease of access but the view could be quite good today.
House the Rising Sun. One of my party pieces.
Feeling reasonably good. Glad I had an early night last night. Early ish. Not as bad as the 4.40am I saw Paul Thornton announce on Facebook. Urgh. I’d say we were now over mainland Uniteeed Kingdurme. Nearly there now. Feels as if we are getting a straight run in although I’m not an expert on these things.
I have listened to music all the way.
Just been told we are in a holding pattern! Doh. It’s 16 degrees in Landan. I’m wearing jeans and a Hawaiian shirt with linen jacket. Shorts would have been preferable but they need a wash. Both pairs. Och wheel.
Nothing really rocks and nothing really rolls and nothing’s ever worth the cost.
The featured image btw is of last night’s show and not Copenhagen Airport although it looks as if it could be a flying piano coming in to land:)
Tags: diary