Monday 3rd December 2018

I am needing less sleep apparently, and laying awake soon after four waiting for the alarm to go off. Needless to say, it is dark, wet and windy.

Jools’ alarm goes off, so we climb out of bed, and get ready for work in the 50 minutes we have, so we are out of the house at ten to six so I am at the station at five to, with enough time to buy a ticket before the train arrives at five past. Only the ticket machine is not working, so I will have to buy it on the train. So I stand on the platform with other sleepy, hardy souls as the crows roosting in the trees the other side of the line squawk at each other in the darkness.

The train comes and we get on, and soon I am in the middle of a mile allergy attack, as is usual. I am not bothered that much as I know once I am off the train it will be OK again. It is too dark to see outside, so I look at my reflections, and the flashes of lights from traffic on the motorway as we zip by. And as we reach Dagenham, it is just light enough to make out buildings and the landscape, only to plunge into the tunnel under east London.

I get off at Stratford and go straight to the DLR as I am to meet a colleague for breakfast at the airport.

Turns out we were on the same DLR train, so the same high speed one too as we see each other in the departure hall as we wait to check in our bags.

We meet at the restaurant and order something small and expensive. I have breakfast brulee, which looks like a sundae, but is fairly healthy. Its OK. But best is two cups of strong coffee which make things better.

We then have an hour to wait for the flight, so sit at an empty gate to wait for the gate to be announced, and as usual the 30 seater is little over half full, so we can sit where we want.

Cloud is breaking as we take off, so I get some shots of busy London way down below, there are jams on the M25 and on the Dartford crossing, but soon Blighty is lost in the clouds, with only a brief break reveals Felixstowe far below as the plane continues to climb higher and higher.

For a while it seemed we might have fine weather in Denmark, as the skies are clear over the North Sea, but soon thick clouds are seen, which we have to fly through to begin preparations for landing. The plane lurches and jumps, just enough for me to wish we were back on the ground.

I am given a big black BMW 325, which has lots of horses, so once I manoeuvre myself in, I set course for Odense, some 90 minutes away, I engage the gears and I am off, into the grey and drizzly afternoon. Down one motorway to Velje, then down to the big junction, turn east towards Copenhagen and drive into the incoming rain.

I have time, lots of time in fact, so much so I need to find something to while away an hour or so. It was then I saw a sight that I pretty sure said “Denmark’s National railway Museum” I turn off and go searching for it, going round and round, but getting nearer the city centre. In the end I resort to searching on the sat nav, I find the addy, set that in, and off we go, just 5 minutes away, and right beside the main railway station. Of course.

I find a place to park opposite, seems to be a place that charges with number plate recognition, so I just park and hope it’ll be OK.

It is 80kr to enter the museum, set in an old round house, stretching round a turntable, with locos and carriages on the roads in the roundhouse.

I take plenty of shots, and apparently walk out of an unlocked door, through an open gate and across some live running lines to look at the roundhouse and turntable, take a shot or two and go back inside.

In 90 minutes, I was done s walk back to the car and reverse it out of the space, narrowly avoiding a couple of other cars, and am back out on the road, driving the half hour to the hotel.

I say hotel, it was a “kro”, or a Danish Inn, which sounded OK, but in fact was like the 1970s sit-com, Crossroads. I check in, all seemed pleasant enough, but the rooms were in joined cabins, that has last been updated at least two decades ago. The heating was on full, and so was like an oven, which on a cold day, was still too hot.

I settle in, and try to contact my colleague who was driving up from Hamburg to say that the kitchen will stop severing at eight, or maybe half seven if they could get away with it.

I do to eat at seven and was told there was no choice; just pork with potatoes and a few vegetables. That or nothing, so I have the pork, which was OK, but I’m not a huge fan for roast pork, but it was better than nothing. Tim arrives so joins me, and is as unimpressed as I was with the food and the rooms. In the dining room were a group of Polish workers, who were also enjoying the fare on offer, and a large family group of Russians, the men in overalls who clearly had also been out working. And the owner of the hotel was able to speak to us all in our own language. Clever lady.

But it is just for one night. So we will cope.

Tim shows me his new car, an Audi Q2 or something, which is quite nice, and has an earsplittingly loud hifi system, which he plays the whole motel Iron maiden, very loudly.

At nine he goes to his cabin next door, and I am alone with just the internet and silverfish for company.

A glamourous life it isn’t.