Thursday 1st February 2018

Thursday morning, and time to get ready to go home. But this trip, I travelled back in the evening rather than the morning, mainly to remind myself why I do it that way. As well as all my clothes, there are half a dozen bottles of beers to stash in my case, these are what my friends have brought me. IN fact I had to turn more down from Jesper as there wasn't room to pack them all in a way to avoid breakages. But there is always next time of course.

I check out, then go for breakfast, but always conscious of the pressing need to get out on the road to the office as soon as possible so to miss the worst of the traffic and get a parking space. My empoyer has now outgrown their offices and surroundings, and it is a dash to get there earlier enough each day to nab one of the limited number of parking spaces. Despite what I may hint at in my posts, traffic is pretty busy but it is always ordered, and there is none of the racing around, diving for gaps that is such a factor at home.

I met up with colleagues again for breakfast, sharing coffee with them, and then to the car, let's go-go!

It was the second part of the training, dry as a desert, but it seems we broke the back of it the day before, and completed it all by half ten. Meaning, I had three hours to work, and attend the weekly department meeting. I skipped lunch as the queues for that get ever larger, and anyway, I could get something at the airport. I thought.

As soon as the meeting finished, I packed up my bag and after saying goodbye to the project team, I go to the car and make my way out onto the main road. Too early to be really heavy traffic, so I was able to take my time going south on the motorway before turning off at junction 57 and going cross country to Billund.

B the time I got there, it was raining, so I had to dash, as quick as my fat little legs could carry me, from the parking lot to the terminal, to wait to check in then go through security. My silver card, allowing me access to the lounge, expired at the end of January, meaning I had to mix it with the ordinary travellers, but being a wet Thursday, there wasn't many others about. I go up to the gastrobar and order what they called the "gastroplank", Danish tapas on a board, and a diet coke. Yes, no beer.

The food is very good; smoked salmon, coronation chicken, ham, salami, two cheeses, bread, olives and more bread.

I do some window shopping; I could have spent loads, but as I don't drink whisky much now, I still have the bottle bought on Skye last May (there's some still in it), so spending money for the sake of it seems pointless. The 30 year old port nearly tempts me too, but not quite.

We walk to the gate half an hour before departure, the rain is hammering down even harder outside. When the time comes, we have to dash from the terminal over the pan and hope to be up the gangway and in the shelter of the plane. Others have to wait in line in the driving rain.

We all get on board, and the engines start right away, taxiing to the far side of the airport and turning onto the runway, the engines roar and we spash our way into the air, through thousands of feet of thick cloud and into the clear night sky above.

I sleep for an hour, missing the inflight meal, but then I wasn't hungry after the plank! As we drop down in preparation to land, we enter rain clouds again, and the light rain that was promised by the pilot was every bit as bad as what we left behind in Denmark.

We drop below the clouds just as we pass over Dartford, but too dark to see the traffic, along the river getting lower until we bounce down on the runway. Safe at last.

A bus takes us from the most distant pan, dropping us off at the immigration hall. Through there in a minute, my bag was waiting, so I grab that and rush to the DLR station, where a train to Stratford left in a couple of minutes.

When I get to Stratford I find in less than ten minutes there was a train to Dover, so I call Jools to arrange for to pick me up. Then just wait for the train. Heck, I even get a seat, though nothing to read as we speed through the tunnels and inky blackness of a stormy night in the Essex marshes.

Jools is waiting, I load up the car and we drive off into the rain, along Townwall Street and up Jubilee Way to home. Three cats are waiting, telling me they hadn't been fed since I left, and Molly, dear Molly, looked healthier than ever, having put more weight on. Jools and I have some soup, and all to soon it is bed time, another day and nearly another week gone.