Monday 27th May 2013

And so it came time to leave Esbjerg, climb into my Golf automatic and drive the heck to Billund where I had the golden ticket into the business lounge. I got me my free beer, free wine, free spirits and mixers, free snacks and free internet. But I just wanted to go home.

Sadly, once at London I would have to head north to deepest Suffolk instead as it is mum's birthday, and being the only child, yadda, yadda yada.

So, we took off in bright sunshine, but that soon changed into near total cloud cover, and despite planning the flight so I knew we would be approaching LCY from the west, cloud cover and rain would make for poor, if any shots. The plane was full, but this time with a smattering of of people heading to London for the Champion's League final, and they were in party mood, hitting the free wine and spirits on there too.

At london, we descended through the rain clouds, breaking through at about a thousand feet. I got some shots over Vauxhall, Westminter but at London Bridge we entered a cloud just as we flew over the Shard. We lumped and bumped our way to LCY, and after landing, sat whilst our luggage was unloaded and we were allowed to get off.



Right through immigration, but then we had to wait 20 minutes for our bags. Jools was waiting in arrivals, so we took the DLR to Stratford and then the Central Line to Woodford. Best placed for a getaway up the A12 we thought. We caught a slow train, in the end, so we ambled round the northern suburbs until we trundled into Woodford, got the car, programmed the sat nav and headed off into the evening traffic. It was already eight, and we would be very late getting into Lowestoft.

The A12 was chocked with traffic, and we were held up at every roundabout and set of lights,which seemed to take an age for us to get out of London. But we did in the end, but only to find the A12 full, and the traffic only did thin out slightly as we headed north and into the dusk. We stopped at Colchester for a snack, then got back on the road and into the heavy traffic.

Once north of Ipswich, the road narrowed to just two lanes, and we got stuck in a convoy of car travelling at 45mph, and as ever, it seemed to take forever. But, we did arrive in Lowestoft, just after 11, and made it to Mums, unloaded the car, made small talk for twenty minutes before we headed to bed at the end of what had been a 20 hour day for me.

Phew.