Wednesday night I went out on my todd to have dinner as Philip was still working. So I wandered into Paddy Go Easy only to find ‘the librarian’ in attendance. That after a few drinks he is hard to understand, what I did gather was that Tesla’s book was censored four times during his lifetime. That remote control planes that hovered were used in WWI. Now, I had a very low freak acceptance level and so I could only stand his rantings for the time it took me to drink one beer before I said I had to search for a place to eat. And I ended up in Bones again, but this time trying out their burger. As you do. It was fine enough, and I like it there as it is well lit, so I can read, and they always have tables.
And so to Thursday: work was, well, work. It began hectic and continued all the way through until I held up my hands and said I had to head to the airport to come back home. Now, by the time it was time to head to Billund, the wind had really begun to blow, and as I drove along it was like driving through the dustbowl in the 30s as huge clouds of topsoil were being blown around. It turned a bright day into semi-darkness, which was really quite odd.
I did think the wind would be too strong to allow flights, but I was able to check in and flights were arriving and departing as normal. This time I did not have the key to the business lounge, so I settled down with a beer before going through security and settling down with a bigger beer. I wasn’t hungry and there wasn’t much else to do. I did have my Bible biography with me, but the truth is it is not for light reading. It is for deep study and not having a head full of work stuff at the same time. So the beer helped clear my head so I did some people watching as once again, the internet at the airport was intermittent to say the least.
On the flight, the clouds cleared and I was able to see the ground below as we headed down the Dutch coast and then flew over the North Sea and over the Essex coast, down into Kent and then along the Thames until we landed. I took pictures all the way. As you can see.
For a change we took off on time, but thanks to the headwind the flight took an extra hour. And we were kept in a holding pattern as is usual. Which meant that we did not land until after seven, and by the time we were allowed off, bussed to the terminal, queued up for half an hour to get through immigration. I had about half an hour to get to Stratford to catch the Dover train.
According to the destination board, there were only trains to Bank: the train on the Woolwich bound platform had terminated. And there were no announcements as to where it was heading. I looked round as it pulled out to see it was going to Stratford. Bugger.
So, I waited 10 minutes for a Bank bound train, and changed onto a Jubilee train for Stratford hoping we would jump ahead of the DLR train so I could get to Stratford International. We did overtake it at Stratford High Street, but as we slowed for the arrival into Stratford, the DLR overtook us. I got off the train and hurried along the platform keeping the DLT train in sight; its doors were still open. But as I neared the end of the platform and less than 50m away, the doors closed and so my final chance to catch the Dover train at twenty past eight.
Jools agreed to come to Ebbsfleet to collect me, so I caught a Faversham bound train, and got off at Ebbsfleet and then waited for Jools to come. I guess I had 20 minutes, and then it was an hour blast down the motorway to East Kent and home.
We got home at just before ten, and then had to do something for dinner: what better than pizza? Ready in 10 minutes and perfect with stupidly strong Danish Christmas beer?
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