I woke with the sun streaming through the curtains of another hotel room window. Oh well, home tonight and this time for more than a few days. If I'm lucky.
I hadn't really unpacked the previous night, so I get dressed, pile the rest of my stuff in the case and head down to check out.
after breakfast I head to the car, get in, turn the key and nothing happened. I turned the key again. Nothing. I looked at the dash for any clues as to what could have been wrong. Nothing. I try waiting 20 seconds, 30 seconds, a minute to see if this would reset the system. Or whatever was wrong. Nothing worked this time, i even tried to rock the car, bump start it and nothing. At eight I called the car hire place and they said, oh if its a Toyota, there's a micro-sensor on the clutch, it has to be pressed ALL the way in.
So with my foot almost through the floor whilst depressing the clutch, I turned the key, and the engine fired up straight away. I said thanks to the guy on the phone and silently cursed myself for having wasted 40 minutes that morning alone by something so simple. I headed into the office in the light traffic, and was at my desk in 15 minutes. I prepared the meeting room, checked the projector, and all was set for the meeting.
The day passed and so half two rolled round, I closed the meeting and we all shock hands on what was a good day, and hopefully we can move forward. Most of us had flights to catch, so we all waved at each other as we left the car park and headed to the motorway and south to Billund.
At least with the holiday season in full swing, the roads were quiet enough, and I made good time in getting to Billund. I had two hours to spare as I checked in, but the Danes are all in holiday mode, all leaving from Billund heading for some summer sunshine, and therefore all in front of me in the queue for security. In the end it took a few minutes longer, and I headed up the business lounge were my old boss was waiting and he could sign me in so i could get free beer and nibbles.
Yay, free beer!
We chat a little, but we have to be guarded as sitting with us are some more customers, and so all is well and we smile. I smile as I drink the free beer, but then I always smile when I drink beer.
The flight is called and I head through immigration to the gate, there are just ten of us on the plane, so there is the opposite of a charge when we were told we could board. Two businessmen behind me have four bottles of wine during the flight, and talk louder and louder as we near London. And the swearing increases too.
The pilot announces it is 31 degrees and clear in London, after which I think how pleasant it will be on the trains once we land.
In the end it wasn't so bad, I even get a seat on the DLR and I arrive with 5 minutes to spare to catch the ten to seven train, which means I will be home even earlier. And I get a seat on that too, facing the right way and on the right side of the train too. The air con is all the way up and cool enough for me. I close my eyes as we head out under East London and onto the Essex marshes before heading under the river and into Kent.
As we head into Folkestone, the sky is clouding over, and the sky looks darker over France cross the Channel, maybe we would see rain before the evening is done I think. More right than I could imagine.
Jools is waiting at the station, and we head home into the increasing gloom. Once home we make a brew and have scotch eggs for supper. Looking outside it seems fine enough, so as we go outside I see the jet black sky underlined with a long white cloud. Even though there was no wind, this cloud was rushing towards us. We stood and watched, as did our neighbours as the cloud approached, a long white cloud stretching over the cliffs to France. As it passed over the wind began, and in a few seconds a gale is blowing, trying to push the hedge and tree over.
The sky now darkens further, and lightning can be seen and thunder rumbles all around. The mother of storms seems to be brewing, and with the wind now up, it seems just moments before we will see the storm. But it takes its time, but the gap between the lightning and thunder lessens, until we see a curtain of rain heading our way, and then it is upon is. Lightning flashes and day has been turned into night. I try to get some shots to show how incredible it was.
Night fell and the storm raged, moving off back into the channel, so we headed to bed.
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