Oh yes, about to leave head office in Denmark. Due to work commitments of others, the meeting I had travelled over to chair took place in the two hours between lunch on Wednesday and when it was time to leave for the airport. It is gratifying, therefore, that with such time constraints, the meeting scheduled to last four hours, was over in just over 70 minutes, I packed up my stuff and headed to the car for the 77 mile drive to the airport at Billund.
I am getting used to the drive, but it is good to have the sat nav with me for confirmation of when to turn off the motorway. Anyway, I arrived at the airport with a good 90 minutes to spare, filled up the petrol tank, parked up, dropped the keys off, checked in and headed up to security. Once through I headed straight to the gastro-bar (their words not mine) for a bottle of Imperial Stout and a smoked duck sandwich. All good stuff.
I did manage to keep an eye on the clock this time, so went down to the gate at the first call, not having to run like I did last week. And soon enough we got on board the tiny plane, strapped ourselves in and soon we headed off into the darkness and mist of the Danish evening. I could see nothing out of the window until we were on final approach down the Thames as Clacton and Southend could be seen through gaps in the clouds. London looked as it ever does, busy and clogged with traffic. It was really quite windy, and so the plane shook and as we touched down, the plane was at quite an angle to the runway. As the reverse thrust kicked on, we slewed to a halt, then taxied to the gate.
In a change to the queues last week, we walked right to immigration, went through and our bags were waiting for us. Grabbing those, rushed through the terminal to the DLR station for the dash across east London to Stratford. Getting to the international station, I had 20 minutes to wait so grabbed a coffee and a bite to eat, before heading down onto the platform for the train to Ashford, where, if our plans were correct, Jools would be waiting. This is what happens when you forget to take your mobile with you, you have to make plans and arrangements in advance. As it turned out, Jools had to head to Ashford to pick up my new camera lens that could not be delivered as we were both at work. So, she was waiting as I got off the train and we headed back to Dover for a supper of Scotch Eggs and Christmas Stollen. A winning supper for sure.
Despite how wonderful international business travel sounds, it does become a grind very quickly; so the thought of just driving to the office on Thursday morning was a pleasant one. The office was quiet due to strong winds, so I pretty much had the place to myself. The day passed as usual with the help of coffee and streaming the Radcliffe and Maconie show from the BBC.
Friday evening, we were on a tight schedule, as we had to be in Gillingham by seven for a gig. I prepared chorizo hash for dinner, and at six we set off up the A2. We were off to see John Cooper Clarke; John is a poet who has been through some ups and down in his life, but now he has kicked drugs into touch, he has experienced a surge in interest, and now gigs more than he has ever done. I have been a fan since seeing him on a TV program called Innes Book of Records, and wondering who this wild haired stick insect was.
Along with an eclectic mix of folks, we gathered at a small theatre for the show, and had to wait until quarter past ten for the appearance of the main man. John is now a raconteur as well as a poet, and he spent the 75 minutes talking more than reading his poems. But we didn’t mind, as it was a great show, and a thrill for me to finally see him after waiting over 30 years. Was it worth it? Yes. Did Jools enjoy it? Well, as it was her birthday, and I am sure that she probably thought we might be spending her birthday doing something different. It was just our luck that JCC’s tour only brought him to Kent on the night of her birthday.
And then we had to drive back to Dover, first of all getting out of Medway through their wonderful one way system. At least the roads were empty, and we got back home just before half midnight; which is so beyond our normal bedtime.
We had to be up at the crack of dawn on Saturday to head up to London. We had booked a cruise down the Thames looking at architecture of the City old and new. Of course, when we booked up the tour, we didn’t know what the weather was going to be like. As it turned out, the forecast was grim with heavy rain and wind. Had we not already paid for the tour and train tickets to go up, coupled with our late night on Friday, we might have not gone up to London at all, but as it was, we caught the quarter to ten train.
All the way up, rain fell steadily. We got out at St Pancras and took the Northern Line to London Bridge, and then walked along the river to Festival Pier. We stopped off for a bite to eat and a coffee before the tour was due to board. A wise choice as it turned out as the refreshments on the boat were limited pretty much to mince pies and mulled wine. So, full of vegetable soup and coffee we dodged the puddles on the final stretch to the pier and climbed aboard.
At one, we pulled away from the bank and set off upstream with an professional architect giving a thorough commentary the whole trip. As the rain fell, we could not go onto the deck, so made do with looking through the rain running down the windows. It was a pleasant enough trip, especially as we went as far upstream as Battersea before heading back down stream.
I guess at just about three hours, it was a good trip, and we have many ideas for further trips to London. Once off the boat, the plan was to have a wander around, but as it turned out, the streets were full of puddles, well,, now more like ponds. Photography was just about impossible in the driving rain, so we made the decision to head home instead. A wise choice as we were both to snooze on the train back to Kent. Getting back to St Pancras turned out to be a challenge, as several lines were closed for ‘upgrade’ work. That’s engineering in olde English. So, getting across London not using the Circle Line or DLR was tricky. We ended up retracing our steps of the morning. We arrived at St Pancras in time to get on the train to Dover, and get seats round a table before the train filled up with shoppers.
It is easy to forget that there is a recession on looking at the bags of expensive goods that folks squeezed on the train with. We got off in Dover and stopped off at the chippy on the way home, and back home in time for Jools to watch most of Strictly, and for me to sort through pictures and check the football results. City fought back via a last minute equaliser at Everton to claim a point. 6 games unbeaten now!
Sunday morning we headed off early so I could roadtest the new lens. We went down to the spot under the castle where a friend has been scattering seeds and nuts for over a year, and a wide and varied collection of birds comes to feed, close enough for us to snap. In truth, the results were not as good as I’d hoped, but this is down to me not setting the camera up right; will have to use f7 next time and home to get camera shake on my shots. Still, I got shots of Jays, Magpies and various finches; so, I am quite happy.
The rest of the day, we decided to chill; well, after a quick trip to Tesco for some urgent supplies, which did include mincemeat and frozen puff pastry. Oh well. We had mozzarella and tomato for lunch, and washed down with a glass or two of red, which did explain why I snoozed for most of the afternoon when I should have been listening to the radio.
And that was your weekend, and this week is a whole week in the office with no trip to Denmark and no airline food. Which is a right result.
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