Tag Archives: journey

Before the deluge

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Amy does something creative with Chrissy's hair

Still feeling very jetlagged. My uncle rang at just after 9am to confirm arrangements for Kathleen’s funeral on Monday, and said I sounded “very distant”. An accurate diagnosis: I was half asleep and midway across the Atlantic. Still, it was probably a good thing, because it got me out of bed and in the direction of resuming normal service. It would have been even better if I hadn’t been awake for an hour or two in the night. The weather is dull, cool and threatening rain; so I know we’re home. Walked to Budgen’s to get a loaf and ran into Keiron and family on the way back.

Yesterday passed in a blur, with some necessary catch-ups being achieved in the paperwork department. Dot was at Diocesan House for half the day, and “lodger” Matt, still in residence, was saying goodbye to his school at Acle on the last day of term. I barely left the house.

Our journey home had gone smoothly enough. The Murrays dropped us at the airport in loads of time, and we enjoyed a long but fast-moving queue at Air Transat check-in and a short one through Security. The duty-free part of Terminal 3 at Toronto is nothing to write home about, but we grabbed a snack and bought the children a present each before I spotted that the departure gate had been changed, and we got seats in the new area before it was deluged by other travellers.

The plane left almost on time, and the flight seemed to go quickly (it was 6½ hours). I guess I slept for an hour or so, and the children for much longer. Bit of a queue at passport control, but the bags arrived quickly, and we managed to get the 11.01 train from Platform 4 to Luton Airport Parkway – a pleasant enough journey for which I’d purchased advance tickets. Bit of a squash at first with all our luggage, but we sorted ourselves out after a few people got off at London Bridge.

A taxi from the station at Luton got us to Caddington by about 12.40pm. Dot and I stayed for a couple of hours, some of which was spent asleep, before we left for Norwich. Heavy rain between Luton and Royston, and we saw an unusual number of crashed cars, but we got home safely after stopping for egg and chips (or a bagel in Dot’s case) at the “world famous Comfort Cafe” near Cambridge. Not quite as comfortable as we’d expected, but good chips. Bought a bit of shopping at Morrisons in Norwich before entering the house shortly before 6pm.

Matt had left us a bottle of wine and some chocolates and flowers, which was really nice of him. He didn’t appear till we were heading for bed at the surprisingly late hour of 11.30pm (6.30pm Canada time).

11 March 2007

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We’re home. Started out from Captiva just after 9.30am yesterday, had breakfast at the Lighthouse Cafe and then drove to Tampa, where we reached the airport at a ridiculously early 2pm. This was entirely my fault: I’m neurotic about being late for planes. Had to wait two hours to even drop our bags off (we’d checked in on line the previous evening), then went through customs, where my rucksack was closely examined and I set the buzzer off. All well, though. We emerged at Starbucks, and I had a caramel apple cider to see what it tasted like: surprisingly good, despite its sweetness.

So we were in the departure lounge by about 4.20pm. Only two shops, so we had to spend most of our time reading. I bought another Randy Wayne White thriller. Saw our plane arrive just before 6pm, and we atarted boarding about 7.10pm. Everyone was on board by about 7.35pm, and the plane left at 7.45pm – five minutes earlier than its official schedule, and half an hour before its slot.

Dot and I had the same two seats as on the flight over, but this time there was someone in the window seat – a young Angolan guy who seemed almost as nervous as Dot. But he only disturbed us once during the flight, which seemed to go reasonably quickly, though we didn’t sleep much. We arrived at Gatwick – or as the pilot called it, Heathrow (you have to worry) at about 8.30pm (half an hour early) and it took the usual hour to get through customs and collect our luggage. Whereas in Tampa all the customs officials were allocated to the American arrivals, at Gatwick there were about a dozen for non-Europeans, and just three for us – reduced to two halfway through. Being English just doesn’t pay off anywhere.

Reached our car with no trouble, if you can call hauling three heavy bags no trouble, and left Gatwick about 9.45am (4.45am Tampa time). Traffic not too bad: we called in at the services on the A11 and had a Kentucky Fried Chicken. Reached home at 2pm, which meant we had been en route for just about 24 hours. Very tired in last stages of drive. It’s now 8.30pm and we’ve kept awake by doing lots of stuff – unpacking, washing (in Dot’s case), sorting the mail, and so on. But by the second episode of Desperate Housewives, we were both falling asleep, so we’re now going to bed.

For the sake of completeness, I should mention that I went for a walk Friday afternoon and at Tween Waters met Barb and Dot coming back from having their nails done. In the evening we went to Redfish Blu(e)fish, which was excellent again. Before leaving yesterday morning I walked down to the dock and saw a couple of manatees.

While on the dock either then or the previous day, I saw a guy wearing a teeshirt with the excellent inscription: “Be patient, and you will achieve everything. Be impatient, and you will achieve everything quicker.”

The picture (by Dot) is of the antiques shop mentioned in the previous blog.