Wednesday 3rd February 2016

Tuesday

Five o’clock still feels like it is too early, but after the close call last week where I only just made my train, we left 15 minutes earlier. We have coffee, then load the car and set off. It is before six, traffic light and I arrive at the station in Folkestone with 20 minutes to spare. Not sure why, but the train is less crowded than last time I went up, there were seats spare even after leaving Ebbsfleet, and it was nearly light by the time we crossed into Essex, showing that the year is aging well, and will soon be spring.

One of my colleagues loves Crème Eggs, so I search WH Smiths at Stratford for them, and find them on a display stand all for themselves, I buy two boxes of six, which should be enough sugar for Charlotte for another year! They are too sweet for me now, and I can’t remember the last time I tried one, I seem to remember last year the recipe changed, which seem to have upset people more than most other news events in all of 2015.

The airport is being improved, there are now many more places to sit, but the departure boards seem to be getting worse. I am hungry again, so have a fry up in the grill, along with two coffees, I won’t eat now until the evening, which seems about right. I find a place to sit down and read a magazine until the flight is called. A colleague is also on the flight, so we catch up some, and seems she has moved from being in the service side to now being in construction, and is traveling as much as I am, and is really enthused by the cut and thrust of it. Heck, it even rubs off a little on me, I know how lucky I am sometimes.

We board the flight, it seems calm enough here, but I know in Denmark it was going to be lively to say the least.

I snooze on the flight, waking up as the pilot announces we are descending towards Billund. It was going well until we dropped below the clouds and then the lumping and bumping began as the strong winds buffeted us. If flying level was bad, when we banked onto final approach the turbulence was so bad it felt like we might drop out of the sky. But we don’t. As we drop to the runway, the front of the plane is crabbing some 30 degrees, but swung round as soon as the wheels touched down; and we were safe!

I get a Toyota stationwagon thing, which is fine, but is no A6 as point out to my friend in the hire car office. It has a sat nav, set to England, which explains why it took me half an hour to program it to go to Arhus.

I drive straight to the hotel, which is just as well as when I am checking in, a meeting invite pops up on my phone giving me seconds to get to my room, pop the laptop on and join. So it begins. Again.

At six I go out to meet my old mate Shaggy as we are to try out a new bar near the hotel. He arrives on a train from where he lives out in the boondocks. We walked up from the station, turning right along past the post restaurant, the Chinese, the Peter Gift bar and on the right, yes, there it is, Mikkler. A simple bar, but with 16 beer taps, a menu above.

Where to start? Oh, smoked lager, that looks interesting. But not as interesting as it tastes that for sure, wonderfully smokey. We try a couple of others, then wander along the street to the diner, and have huge burgers, more beer and crispy fries.

Oh yes, we know how to live. Even better we walk back to Mikkler for some more beers until ten when Shags has to go to catch his train home. Now, I should point out we were not drinking pints, or even halves, but wine glasses of beer. Enough to get a good taste, but small enough so you can try and enjoy several beers.

I follow the football on the interwebs, City slump to a 3-0 defeat against Spurs. It seemed so poor and lackluster. Villa away on Saturday, a real must win game for both teams. Lets hope we win that then. I watch Leicester play on TV, and Mr Vardy scores a screamer from 25 yards. I leap around the room to celebrate as they beat Liverpool 2-0.