2nd March 2026
It was a good flight, I didn’t have to get up to use the toilet, much to my relief.
I didn’t fancy disturbing the big guy next to me, who bloody slept all the way.
Arriving at terminal 5 was different. The aircraft was parked away from the terminal so we had to get on a bus to be transported there.
I always thought the building was interesting, designed a decade before it was built, it could not be modified to meet the extra demand it now has. You entered at one level, then climb to another, then go back down to collect your luggage. Crammed into tight elevators was not my idea of passenger conveyance.
I had to wait ages for the luggage to arrive at the conveyor number five. I watched as others collected their cases, eventually I was on my own, watching a few odd pieces taking numerous laps around.
I was getting pissed, I had to find someone who handled lost luggage.
I walked towards a line of people waiting by a counter, obviously having the same issue as me.
When it was my turn I explained my problem.
What followed was a lot of keyboard tapping and screen staring.
Thank god for barcodes.
The lady could see where it was loaded, transferred and offloaded.
Eventually it was discovered on a different conveyor, number eleven!
There was no explanation why, I didn’t care, I just wanted to get out of there.
My next challenge was to get to the coach station over by terminal 3.
That part was painless, apart from having to get a ticket to travel on a free train, more control I expect.
It is always a long walk through grim corridors to get to the coach station, but I walk at a speed that I don’t really notice. There is nothing pleasant about a coach station, it’s deliberately built to complement the miserable feeling of desperation. The plastic seats are cracked, how fat and heavy must a person be to crack an effin’ seat ?
The only refreshment is an order by screen experience, another hateful experience.
My breakfast bun must have been cooked in hell, it was so bloody hot, I had to gulp my coffee to cool my mouth, but I must say, the pattern on the froth was delightful, it almost made me forgot my third degree burns.
It was almost heaven to get on the coach. As it trundled out of the station, the sun shone down on me, I had survived.
As I settled in, listening to my music I was aware how slow the coach was going, then I noticed the “variable speed limit” signs, and the gantries with the cameras, WTF is going on?
I guess that it was a way of extracting speeding finds from the daily commuters who just wanted to get home every night.
I then noticed the patterns in the sky, these are not vapour tails, this is biological engineering.
I used to watch Concorde fly over Bath on its way from New York. You could see the vapour trail stop, and quickly disperse as it slowed down. These trails hang for ages, a criss-cross of white lines, there is something going on, and people are not questioning it.
Seeing my sister Nicola and her husband Colin is the best moment of my trip, it makes all the crap of travel worth taking.
They took me back to the cottage, where the overgrowth greets me. Things that I had cut back last year had grown back, that was on my list to deal with.
I had an invite to Ryan and Louise’s for a spag-bol, my first decent meal on British soil.
That is when I learned that they had scrapped the Shogun, that was a shock, and I was a bit peeved to hear that. “The alternator had gone” Ryan explained. Now in my day you FIXED the effin thing you didn’t scrap it. That one thing had messed up some of my plans, how to get rid of the garden waste? I can’t take that on the bus.
That I will have to deal with.
Another Lifetime to go 