Thursday 6th December 2018

I hope that this current bout of allergy attacks is coming to an end. Each day gets a little better.

Which is nice.

But I wake up in Aarhus at twenty past five with a very wooly head indeed. I feel like another few hours sleep would be nice, so after listening to the traffic outside, I get up and get ready for the trip back; get dressed, pack and after one final check of the room I leave and go own to check out.

I am the only guest about, so I wait while the computer wakes up and decides to print my bill. But then I am free to leave, load the car and drive out of the city. Outside it was still dark, obviously, but raining gently, making the drive, once I was on the motorway, interesting to say the least.

I have plenty of time, but still put the hammer down, I was in a beamer after all, and so could out-accelerate most cars on the road. But it was a relief to turn off for the last half hour drive to the airport, driving in convoy at the speed limit, and arriving at the airport at just gone seven, meaning I had 90 minutes to fill before the flight left. I walk to the terminal, drop the keys off at the office, check my bag in, and then have to wait for ten minutes in line at security, as the late arrivals for the cheap flights heading for some winter sun file though.

In the departure hall, half drunk big glasses of beer are scattered around, and a line at the cafe, so I don't have breakfast, that would wait until I was on the plane.

I wander round the duty free shop, looking for gifts for the family, but there isn't much that really makes me think anyone would like anything. So I go to find a place to sit down and wait. And much to my surprise, do some work.

Time flies, and soon it is time to go through immigration to the international gate, wait some more there, then board the plane, which was full.

I have started to read the Bruce Springsteen autobiography, and it is wonderfully written, with a wonderful flowery descriptive narrative style. It is very enjoyable indeed, I just need time in which to read it. There's always Christmas. I say that because once I had breakfast once we had taken off, I fell asleep.

I wake up with the plane shaking, as we dropped from cruising height through rain clouds. I gripped the arms of my seat and thought about how wonderful the solid ground will feel once we had landed.

We were still in cloud as the landing gear was lowered, the engines whined to help the plane maintain height, and just before we crossed the river at 100 feet, it was brown with silt and mud, but soon we were back over land and bouncing down on the runway. Sold ground.

We taxi to the terminal, wait for the ground staff to get the plane safely choked. We file off, hurry down the corridor to the border, where we wait for our passports to be scanned, like always, there is a hard border here as at all broder points. I get my case, hurry out through the arrivals hall, walk to the DLR and am just on the platform when a train arrives. I check my watch, I might even make the earlier train.

As it turned out, once I was out of the train, up the escalator and across the rad to the International station, I had 90 seconds before the train was due to leave, not quite enough time I thought. So I shrug and walk into the shopping centre, seeking out a coffee bar, which turned out to be a Costa, and had a gingerbread latte and a bakewell Tart, which was really good, and all while I read more of Bruce's prose.

In fact I am so taken with the book I read it on the train once it arrives, and all the way to Folkestone where I reach the end of one of the short chapters.

I get off the train and get a taxi to run me home. We end up talking about Brexit, and he asks me many questions as I appear to be knowledgeable. He thinks we have been had, and that is hard to argue with. What will happen? Who knows, but its not going to be pretty.

He dropped me off at the end of the street, so I walk the 100 yards home, open the back door, where Scully is waiting.

Meow.

Meow indeed.

I have dinner, watch some recorded football, and at two get the work computer out to reply to mails.

So the afternoon passes.

I am whacked again, but I am home, and will be home for 5 days now, which is nice. But then away for 6 days out of seven with just one day at home in the middle, but by then it will nearly be Christmas.

I make pasta carbonara for dinner, and lots of garlic bread which I will wash down with red wine. As you do.

We listen to the radio in the evening, me feeling not quite so tired.

Sadly, as we get ready to switch the radio and computers off, news comes that the Buzzcock's lead singer, Pete Shelly had passed away at the young age of 63.