Friday 6th July 2018

Time to go home.

The alarm goes off at twenty past five, but I'm already half awake.

I get up, have a shower, dress and pack. One final check of the hotel room and I leave, catching the lift to the lobby to settle the bill. People are cleaning the marble lobby floor, or dusting, making it just so as staff put the final touches in the breakfast room.

I load the car up and drive out onto the main road, then out along the wide main road to the start of the motorway, putting my foot down to take the car to 110. Kmh.

THe sides of the roads are riots of colours; banks of Willowherb, Lady's Bedstraw, thistles and so on, meaning I am easily distracted as I drive. And the sun shines down from a clear blue sky. I also pass a field that had been half-harvested of its wheat, ahead of what it is back home.

I arrive at the airport dead on seven, as planned. Drop the car off, walk to the terminal dropping the car key off, then a short walk to the BA desk to check in; there was no queue.

Also no queue at security, so though in a couple of minutes, and all set to fly. I do look at the shelves of whiskey, but decided not to buy. Same for chocolate; we really don't need that stuff, so I go to the new cafe to order breakfast of a fresh cheese roll and a huge cup of coffee, meaning I was now fully awake.

We board the plane ten minutes before take off, strap in and have the security brief. Engines start and we taxi to the end of the runway, before the pilot applies power and we lurch off down it, leaping into the sky, banking to the south and climbing.

This is the start of the Danish holiday season, no flights at this time of the day to LCY for a month, just as well I don't plan to fly there for a few weeks either!

We fly out over Esbjerg, across the sea passing over Heligoland, an interesting place you might like to read the history of. Now its a wildlife reserve. We fly on. Over the Frisian Islands and the Dutch coast following the North Sea dunes, over Ijmuiden before banking west and striking out for Blighty. I could make out the marina and Holiday Inn near the beach where I used to stay.

The wind is in the west, so no flyover of Central London this trip, just down along the river, over Dartford Crossing and Tilbury before finally touching down, first on one wing wheel, then two. Down, almost safely.

Again, no queues inside the terminal, I can't get my bag as BA lost it, so I fill out paperwork and it will be delivered when it arrives. With just a two minute wait for a train to Stratford, arriving with ten minutes before the train to Dover. So I am back in Dover at quarter to eleven, and home in ten more minutes, only six hours after leaving the hotel. Not bad, not bad.

I make a brew and before work, tour the garden to see what has grown. All is in flower, but the lawn and soil is bone dry and baked like concrete.

In my case was the power lead for my work computer, with no back up, I work until if finally gives up the ghost, half an hour before the first game of the day; France v Uruguay, which isn't a bad game, France scoring twice and easily seeing the game out, despite some bad tantrums by the South Americans.

Jools comes home, we have coffee, then dinner, so to be ready in time for the Brazil v Belgium game; which followed the pattern of the early game, Brazil looking better, but Belgium taking their two chances well. Brazil pull one back 15 minutes from time, but can't quite get the leveller, so are out, a round earlier than last time!

Phew.

We sit outside for a while, I sip sloe gin as we wait for the stars to come out. Planes fly high over the house, we can hear them and can just make them out through the thin cloud.