Tuesday 24th May 2016

And here we are, awake at half four on a Tuesday morning, after 20 days off, with another trip to Denmark to look forward to. I lay in bed, listening to the sounds of nature outside, and Mulder pacing around waiting for breakfast.

I get up and make coffee, feed the cats and just do the stuff one of us does in the mornings. I am at least all packed and ready to go, just have to get dressed. All exciting stuff of course.

At quarter to six we are walking out the door, locking up, and me gone until Friday lunchtime.

It is a wonderful late spring morning, all of Kent seems to be either in bloom or the darkest shade of healthy green. Seems a shame to be leaving. And I had failed to check on the weather, so it could be doing anything in Denmark. Three years back we had snow in late April up there.

She drops me at Folkestone Central, so I buy my ticket and walk up to the platform to wait for the train to arrive. I start my mobile phone, but can't get it to sync with my mailbox, so the avalanche of e mails will have to wait until I'm in the office.

The train arrives and I take a seat on the left hand side, and get out the latest copy of WSC to read until we move off. And I continue to read even once under way, missing the passing of the familiar landmarks

The train isn't even that full even after stopping at Ebbsfleet; maybe some are starting their holidays early? We cross into Essex, then under east London as usual. I get off at Stratford, and with two and a half hours to kill, I stop at a cafe for breakfast and another coffee before making my way to the DLR station for the 20 minute ride to the airport.

You know the drill by now: check in, immigration, security and through to the lounge before I find a place to sit and begin to deal with issues on the laptop.

There are just eight of us on the flight to Billund, a row of three seats each, near enough. But I have 7A as usual. We take off in the opposite direction we normally do, I so I don't get the grandstand view as we turn north. Instead I get a good look of the marshes as we climb into the air, crossing the river.

I read another magazine, have breakfast. And by the time we are half way to Denmark, the good weather has gone and we are surrounded by thick cloud. And it should come as no surprise to hear that as we descended towards Billund and we broke through the cloud, we found it grey and raining.

Welcome to Denmark.

But I am spoilt at the car hire by being given a brand new BMW 320D stationwagon, which goes like shit off a shovel, as Dad would say. I know the way to Esbjerg, so after working out how to switch the engine on and find a gear whilst getting the electronic parking break to disengage, I was ready to move out of the car park and on the road to Esbjerg. Just as well I din't find the sports setting on the car until I was parking the car at the office.

I get some work done, plugging way for two hours until it was time to go to the hotel to check in, do some relaxing before the evening hunt for food and entertainment. I had called on Steffan to see if he wanted to meet. He did, so it was a short walk to Dronning Louise and beer n burgers and catching up.

It is now light up here until well into the late evening, and this will only get later and later as we near mid-summer. I walk home in daylight, the sit on the bed looking out the window as the light fades the floodlights at the port come on.