Saturday 5th September 2015

Thursday

Thanks to me heading to bed the previous evening before I could get carried away with the beer. Although, clearly now I am 50, I am older and much more sensible, and the other thing is, it takes so long to get over a hangover these days. Did I used to drink, party and stay up late three nights a week? I guess I did.

It is time to leave the hotel, so I pack then go down to settle the bill, load the car and go back inside for breakfast. Over the summer they have spruced the place up, and it looks OK, but several of the staff I used to know seem to have left, so it is just a sea of new faces to me.

Another crawl round the ring road to the office, then a meeting with my new boss. My to my surprise, they have had a collection for me, and present me a belated birthday present, a fine A3 photobook my Steve McCurry, a National Geographic photographer, and it is wonderful. I am lost for words.

The day progresses, I get lots of work done, meet with people and generally have a really productive day. And so at four it is time to pack up and drive to the hotel at the airport. I go outside, and despite there being bright sunshine, in the west there are incredibly dark storm clouds gathering. This could be an interesting drive I thought. And I was right.

Damn.

As I have the whole evening to get to the hotel, hand the car over and have inner, I drive slowly down the motorway, behind a line of trucks, 90KMH, not fast but not stressful either. Until we reach the south Arhus intersection and the heavens did open, flashes of lightning cut the sky in half and thunder rocked the car. The rain fell like water out of a shower, the road became a river and the traffic crawled along, which was probably just as well, really.

The rain does let up, and traffic gets going again, but people are hammering past me at stupid pace, whilst I get to junction 57 safe and sound. From there it is a half hour drive to Jelling, then to the airport, down good roads, and with plenty of passing places for the race car drivers to get past. All around massive storm clouds build, looking stunning in the low sunshine. I really should have taken a photograph.

I arrive at the hotel, check in and dump my bags. I drive to the car hire return lot, then to the terminal to drop the keys off. And as per usual, it is dinner at the terminal cafe, which means burger and beer. I am not concentrating when I order, and all I hear is would I like extra cheese and bacon? I say yes, and wonder does that mean it came with an extra burger too. It does, I am hungry though, and do munch my way through most of it, but I know there will be meat sweats all through the evening.

I write some mails, then find the England U21s are on TV, so lay on the bed watching the game, despite it not being the best of games, and England ran out beating the US by a single goal. That done, I switch the computer off and go to bed, early start in the morning.

Sadly, I now have to point the finger at the lack of humanity of the British press. On Thursday, photos emerged of the body a three year old boy being washed up on a Gree beach. Until this point, the mass of humanit fleeing conflict in the Middle East and North Africa had been described by the forth estate in horrific terms, with one column writer for the Super Soaraway Current Bun saying how she would send gunships to the Med rather than rescue ships and would not be swayed by the pictures of bodies floating in the sea. Until now. Now, of course, everyone is saying how dreadful it is, and now that Britain like the rest of Europe must take its share of refugees. Up to this point we have accepted less than 270, whilst other European countries have accepted hundreds of thousands. Our glorious leader, call me Dave, David Cameron described the refugees in Calais as a swarm, and even at the beginning of this week refused to retract that term. He may have already backtracked on accepting more refugees, but we shall see. When we read that 500 people drowned when a ship capsised, what did we think drowned people looked like? Of course they were labeled as 'migrants' as if they had a choice to be on a boat in the middle of the sea when they died.

Britain has a grand history of accepting refugees from conflicts over the years, but then even as the shadows of war were gathering in 1938 and 9, the wonderful Daily Mail were complaining about the number of Jews getting into the country. Hoorah then for the freedom of the British press, nice that they choose to use it so well.

In the end, I suppose we should be tankful that some have been moved from their zenophobic views to remember that all these people, moving, struggling and dying are people and all life is precious, not just the tiny children.

Friday.

The alarm goes off at six, and already I can hear the sound of aircraft engines starting up: it will soon be my turn!

As ever, my clothes are spread out all over the floor, so I manage to squeeze them and the large book into my case, get dressed and go don to reception for breakfast. At least the coffee is good, and with a good dose of caffeine in me, I walk over to the terminal to check in. The year moves on, a month ago the airport would have been packed with Danes heading to the sun, now it is deserted, just us checking in for the London flight. There is no queue at security, so I get scanned and walk upto the departure lounge, find a table to sit at so I can power up the laptop to do some work.

I knew what time my flight was due to leave, and ever since I have been flying from Billund it has always taken off from one of two gates, right at the end of the terminal. So at eight I walk off towards the gate, and I glance at the departures board to find it was leaving from one the other side of the airport. I spin round and quick march myself over there as the flight is boarding.

I take my usual seat in 8A, take off my coat and a magazine to read and get ready for engine start up. Sadly, after a few months where we have been blessed by the proper jet engined variant f the Dornier 328, we now have the turboprop version back again. Now real difference inside, but the flight takes a third longer with the turboprop. However, I am in no hurrry, and anyway, I enjoy hearing the engines start and the rotating props cause vibrations in the plane.

We take off and are swallowed up by the thick cloud, but soon emerge into the bright sunshine of the day. Once we reach cruising altitude, we are brought fruit juice, then a cold breakfast followed by coffee. Whilst we pass over northern Europe, all covered in clouds.

Halfway over the North Sea the clouds part and I can see the sea below. The light is so glorious, I take a shot.

More coffee? Yes, I think so.

We descend into London, passing over the familiar landmarks. But it is low tide, so there are wonderful patterns in the mud along the Essex coast and as we turn over the Thames Estuary, I get a glimpse of the two windfarms we have installed north of Whitstable, I snap those too.

Over Sheppy and Grain, then down along the Thames, passing over the Dartfod Crossing before we get lower and lower until, bang, we are down. Welcome to London and all that jazz. I just want to get off the plane, as if I am quick I can make the quarter to ten train and be home by eleven. However, once we get off the plane, get through security and wait for our bags, I know I have seconds to get onto the platofrm to get the last DLR train that will get me to Stratford in time. I get onto the platform to see the door of the train closing, and it begin to pull away.

It means that I will have just under an hour to wait, which will give me time to have a coffee. Which is what I do. I am minding my business, with my head in the clouds, queuing up, when the Barista calls out to me 'gingerbread latte with and extra shot, yes?' Yes indeed, I didn't realise I cam in her so often. But clearly I do.

I go down onto the platform to wait for my train, and a couple of Eurostars hammer through, going to either France or Belgium. We must do that soon again.

The train arrives and as children have stated going back to school, there is plenty of room, so I get a seat on the right hand side of the train so I can look at all the stuff I like to, and in doing so mark off the progress of my journey home.

I had called a local taxi company when I was waiting for the train, and the cab is waiting for me to take me home. And only charges me eight quid!

But before I can relax for the weekend, I have a meeting with a customer on the phone, which I have had little information with which to prepare. I wing it and do OK, they want to meet me face to face: are they sure?

And that is it, the weekend has arrived, so I can switch the computer off, make another cup of coffee and have a look at that wonderful book i was given the day before. Lovely.

Jools brings home fish and chips, which suits me just fine, so I have drinks ready, so we can sit down and chat whilst we munch.

And now the weekend has arrived, let us relax!