Days Like These

Tuesday 12th July

You never know quite what the day is going to throw at you, even when you aren’t standing just to the side of the fan.  Today was always going to be busy.  I am in England, ostensibly to catch up on some work, but also to see some of my Grandchildren.  I arrived on Sunday evening, plane late from Bergerac so I got in about half an hour late at Stansted.  The long walk to Passport Control; I have an e-passport so went through these gates.  Now, as time goes on of course more and more people will be issued with them and have to use the wonderful face recognition machines (strange that Facebook can recognize a blurred snapshot of me form ten years ago but these state of the art machines reject at least half the poor mutts queuing to use them).  To add insult to injury yesterday only three out of about twenty machines were actually working, or had been switched on, so had to wait in line for about thirty minutes while those in the manual section sailed through.  Anyway I eventually got to my wife’s house in East London, where I was meeting some friends and her extended family for a curry dinner.  We ended up having a take-away and watched the football, but they all left before the Portuguese goal.

Anyway I woke on Monday morning and got ready for work.  Last thing to do was to pick up my keys.  Now where had I left them, on the side table I always use, surely.  No, they weren’t there.  In fact they weren’t anywhere at all. Panic.  Mad panic. All my keys are on that bunch.  I searched everywhere; I had certainly used them to get in the house 12 hours earlier.  I looked under seat cushions and on the floor under the sofas, the toilet and bathroom and bedroom yielded nothing.  I had to leave, by now thirty minutes late, for work.  I texted the people who were there last night in the vain hopes they might have picked my keys up.

In fact one of them had.  And it wasn’t the first time he had done this, when they visited us in France the same thing happened.  Anyway I had a spare key for Walton where I was eventually headed and they will meet me tomorrow night to let me in and give me my keys (I hope).  To work, and a mad rush because I had promised to see two sets of grandchildren in the afternoon and logistically this would be tight.  To Kings Cross by 12.15 and bought the tickets.  Misread the Train information and had to catch the next train but had a lovely time in Stevenage with one daughter and two kiddies.  Dash back to Kings Cross and train to Luton Airport to meet daughter number two and her children.  Again a nice time but mad rush to get back to catch train from Liverpool Street to Walton.  On time, just.  But the Clacton train (change at Thorpe Le Soken) was cancelled due to an earlier broken down train.  Got on next fast train to Colchester where I am writing this blog and hope to catch a train from there to Walton.

Madness I know….but hey, my attempt to travel on every train line in England in one day was almost achieved.