Wednesday 27th August 2014

Tuesday.

And so work returns with a vengeance. Sigh. To make matters more interesting, I have to be at LCY by about four to catch a flight at five. So, plan how long a journey to Stratford and crossing London so to arrive in Time. But before then, better do some work. And with me having to finish work at about half twelve meant that heading to the office in Ramsgate would be a poor waste of time. So, put a pot of coffee and power up the laptop and get some work done.

That done, I switch the computer off, go to pack, and before leaving decide to have lunch, and in a surprise I find myself wanting pancakes. So, I mix up a batch of batter, oil the pan and soon I am sprinkling sugar and lemon juice on a couple of crisp pancakes. Not exactly the most healthy of lunches, but hey, the hit the spot.

I go drove to collect Jools and hen head to the station so she can drop me off at the station and head back to work, whilst I my ticket and board the train. It seems I spend half my life travelling these days. You know the trip by now up to Stratford and then across to the airport. I did help a lady from the Isle of Man who was getting very lost on the train and did not know where she was in relation to the tube map, so I said, follow me and I;ll get you to the airport. Which is what happened, made tricky by having to change at Canning Town and changing platforms, and then not catching the first train in, but the second. Anyway, it made for some human contact in the naked city.

I checked in, went straight through security. Thing about travelling out of normal business rush hour means the airport is nice and quiet, no queues, no people screaming down their mobiles to sell high or buy low. You know the kind of stuff. I have an hour to kill, so go for a drink at the bar, and settle for a diet coke. Two pounds fifty of your English pounds for a small bottle. I sip it slowly to make it last. So have another.

The flight is delayed, which means more waiting around, and that I will get to Amsterdam an hour later, meaning there is a good chance the hotel will not be serving dinner. A plan forms, to find somewhere to eat at the airport before working out how to get to the hotel.

The flight to Amsterdam is 45 minutes, a quick up and down, and the staff run around dishing out a drink and collecting the trash before we are on final approach. All exciting stuff. We skim over uniform fields dotted with ancient windmills and criss-crossed by drainage ditches. It all looked the same to me, and then there were the acres of greenhouses, some lit up in the twilight. An odd sight. And we land, then spend ten minutes taxiing to the other side of the terminal, which seems to last longer than the flight.

I find a place to eat near where the shuttle bus to the airport leaves from, and order a burger from the joint I am to meet my boss at in the morning.

I find the stand from where the bus will leave from, and a few of us pile on for the short trip to the hotel, The Park Plaza, some fifteen minutes from the airport, far enough away so not to hear the sound of aircraft taking off. The hotel is full of young rowers I guess in town for some competition, all looking so young and healthy. Sigh. I get my room key and find I have been given a suite: I could live in here, it has a bath, shower, separate toilet, mini bar, a huge air con unit and good internet connection. So I spend the evening keeping up to date with the football scores, in particular, Man Utd's game at MK Dons; it was a surprise then to see them losing, and as the game entered the final quarter, going further and further behind, until at full time, they were 4-0 down, and on the wrong end of a spanking. I go to bed chuckling, and relieved that City win 3-1 against Crawley. Four wins in a row.....

Final mention to the musical event of the year. Or decade. Or your lifetime. Kate Bush played her first gig in London, the first since 1979s tour of life, and the ones we tried oh so hard to get tickets for. All of twitter was full of reports of the set list, or alternative suggestions as to what was played. We hope that a recording of one of the shows will be released at some point, so the unlucky ones can share in the magic.