Friday 9th January 2105

Tuesday.

After the excitement of the phone call from the home about Nan. Well, excitement is the wrong word I know, but it set our hearts racing. Since then news is slight about her: I have been here in DK, and Jools has been working. As Jools said this evening, bad news travels fast, so things must be something like stable I guess.

Jools left for work after dropping me back home, I powered the laptop up, sent some mails, and did a few hours work, before it was time to pack, and get ready for the white-knuckly experience that was Tony driving me to the station. Because his use of signals, road lanes and such things is at his discretion, and has be holding on for dear life, knuckles indeed white.

It is a relief when we reach the station in one piece, he lets me out and I am free. The train is waiting, so I get a ticket, go through the barriers whilst a member of staff watches. It might be a better use of his time to check tickets by hand instead of laughing when someone can’t get through in time to catch a train.

In the gathering gloom of the winter afternoon, we speed off through Folkestone, Ashford towards London, it getting darker all the time. I doze as darkness surrounds the train,a nd then a real darkness comes as we head under East London at Dagenham.

I cross London as usual on the DLR, there is no queue at the airport check in, nor at security, and so I am sitting down ordering dinner at twenty past 5, sipping on a nice pint of Hoegaarden. The flight has about a dozen passengers, I take a double seat to myself, and settle down to read a copy of Rail. I have three to read on the trip to catch up. I stop to look of the window as we take off, and fly low over East London, heading out over Southend and Chelmsford before climbing through the few clouds. The night was illuminated by a great big yellow full moon, a fine sight.

Needless to say, it was cloudy over Denmark, once again we only getting a glimpse of the ground a hundred metres from the ground on final approach. I get my case, collect the car keys, and drive in deserted roads to Esbjerg, check in and am gulping down a diet Coke by eleven, the day finally over.

Wednesday.

At least I can lay in bed until half seven, have a long shower, put on all my new safety gear, go down for breakfast. And then have a simple half hour drive to the factory. This is beginning to feel like ‘normal’ to me.

The day passes slowly, and then we change location, drive to Esbjerg, and then wait until seven for a talk to be finished so we can witness a move. Once night fell, the temperature dropped like a stone, and the minutes crawled, only moved along by drinking coffee. Lots of coffee.

At seven, I drive the short distance to the hotel, then walk to Dronning Louise, where I have a dark local beer with a huge plate of nachos. A great end to the day, even better with a second pint.

Cheers.