Friday 9th October 2015

Wednesday

If I were to tell you, dear reader, that when I drew the curtains open and looked upon another Arhus dawn, that it was still throwing it down, would you be surprised? Surprised, no. But, maybe like me, disappointed. It was hoofing it down, and was still almost dark, but already I had the feeling it would get no lighter that day. Which, was pretty much the case, but as I was going to spend most of the day in meetings, it dodn't seem to matter much.

As usual, I shower, dress, pack, check out and have a quick breakfast. I am ahead of schedule, but even then I have a meeting at eight, nad just have enough time to dash to the car in the driving reain, bomb round the ring road to the offices, get a parking permit before and get into the offices just in time for the course to start. Whay do all IT course on new software always begin with the phrase, "its really easy once you get to use it" Hurumph!

Two hours of my life pass, and it is straight into another meeting, how do I keep this pace up? I don't know. There is time for a rushed lunch before I have to prepare for another meeting, which takes me to three and the day is nearly gone again. I have some lose ends to tidy up, others in the office leave, but for me there is no point as I have to travel south on the E45 which will mean jams, even before I get on it, and again at the Arhus South junction.

I give in to the desire to leave the office at half four, and there are jams leading to the motorway, and a bad one at Arhus South, but I keep moving, and so turn off at Junction 57 for the 46km to Billund. The rain is still falling hard, and driving is really little fun, especially in the tiny Mitsubishi thing with its 3 cylinder engine, roaring away a few inches from my feet. It is free, kinda, so I should not complain, but the gearbox is making some odd noises, as is the exhaust. I am glad to pull into the parking lot to drop the thing off.

Its just a short walk to the terminal to drop the keys off at the office, then as the only place here to get a cooked meal is in the terminal, and as they do a fine burger. Guess where I eat? Do I want an extra burger, cheese and bacon? Hell, yes!

It is good, but too much really, but then I will not have a meal for 24 hours, or so I tell myself. The walk back to the Zleep is into the driving rain, and I am pretty wet by the time I get there. I check in, and so settle down for an evening of catching up with the Radcliffe and Maconie show on the interwebs. Outside, planes taxi, land and take off. Not constant, but the noise is always there.

At half ten, I try to get some sleep, so with earplugs in, I drop off quick. Tomorrow I go home.

Thursday The alarm wakes me up at six, and as I take my earplugs out, I hear the first flight of the day struggling to get into the air. I look outside, and it seems to have stopped raining, but the clouds are still thick enough to hide the sky. The night before the Northern Lights should have been visible, and would have been splendid from Denmark, but through 30,000ft of cloud it wasn't.

I pack again, dress and go down for breakfast of cereal and a roll. Most important was the coffee Always the coffee.

It is mild outside, so the walk to the terminal is not so bad. I get my boarding pass, check in my bag and am through security in ten minutes. The departure lounge is rammed with people, soon enough two budget flights are called and then there are many free seats.

I check mails and Twitter for travel news in London: all seems good, so I can ready my book and wait for the flight to be called. At eight I go to the gate, and find that the idiot businessmen are queuing up to go through the gate, and as I watch they begin to queue at the barrier too. We all have reserved seats, so why bother? I wait outside the gate and am last in line to enter the gate then walk out to the tiny plane.

It is full, but I have my favourite seat, 8A, and with the Danish business types rustling their business pink papers, we taxi and then accelerate down the runway and leap into the air, leaving Denmark below the clouds before we even get to the end of the runway.

Before it does vanish from sight, I see that Denmark is wearing her autumn colours, browns, golds and yellows, but tinged with browns, so subdued. All is ready for the short days ahead, crops are harvested, and farms seem to be still sleeping.

I have a coffee, but skip a second breakfast, as some quich adding up in my head reveals that I would have nearly an hour to wait for my train home in Stratford, and I thought a hot sausage roll would hit the spot.

Clouds clear as we cross the Channel, and by the time we sight Blighty it seems it will be a fine morning, with sunshine! As we head down the Thames estuary, the rays of the rising sun catch the cliffs at Kingsdown, something like 60 miles away, but clear as a bell to me. I imagined I could see slightly beyond to where Chez Jelltex should be. Nearly home.

Lower we get, and we cross the Essex coast at the usual place, to the left I see Shoebreyness, Southend and then Canvey Island. Down over the docks at Tilbury, the busy lanes of the M25 as it crosses the river between Dartford and Thurrock. We're on the final stretch, getting lower and lower, one final jump over the river and we're down.

As soon as the plane stops, the stupid business types jump up and begin to queue to get off, despite us being at one of the distant stands, which means getting on a bus, and last one off the plane and into the bus would be first off at the terminal. I am last off the plane, but as usual there is no queue at immigration, so there is a short wait for my case, and just to confuse matters, each video display for the DLR is displaying different trains and times. The only correct one is on the platform, I have a four minute wait for my train.

It arrives, and apart from when two classes of school kids get on, the trip is uneventful. As I suspected, I have missed a train by less than ten minutes. I go to the cafe and have a gingerbread latte with an extra shot and a hot sausage roll. As I hoped, it hit the spot.

I read more of my book, and time passes.

The train is over half empty, and I smile to myself as we pull out of Stratford on the last leg of the trip home. It is a glorious day, the sun is bright and shining in my eyes to the south; best close my eyes a little. I might have snoozed!

The taxi is waiting for me, and it quickly gets me home, weaving in and out of the traffic heading to the port. Away up Jubilee Way and along to St Maggies.

I open the back door and there are no cats waiting. I boil the kettle and still no cats come to say meow.

I do some work, answer the mails that had come on during the morning. At one point when I went out for some fresh air, Mulder realised I was home so clearly, it was dinner time. No?

No.

Jools brought home fish and chips, meaning I was left off cooking duties. Which was good. But due to a late finish and the queues at the chippy, she was not home until half six, and what with the clearing up and shower, before we sat down it was half seven and time for Top of the Pops from the summer of 1980.

But, that was really it, we were both shattered, so at nine, we and the cats headed for bed.