Saturday 13th February

It is a truth universally accepted that the faster you travel the sooner you will reach your destination.  But not quite.  Despite my internal reservations I have become a very frequent flyer, almost commuting to and from Bergerac to London Stansted every four weeks.  Here is the timetable yesterday (Thursday) returning from London.  I left the house at 8 in the morning, 15 minute walk to DLR station and 45 minutes on tube.  10 minute wait for train, then 50 minutes on the train.  Arrived at Stansted at 10 – so that is two hours just to get to the airport (and the coach, though cheaper is far slower).  Then half an hour to get through security and the long wait until Flight time of 12.00.  And my experience is that you do need those two hours; trains can be delayed or even cancelled or it can take over an hour to get through Security, so actually allowing two hours may be a bit risky.  Eventually your gate is called and the long walk with bags in tow begins; at Stansted this is up and down escalators and long corridors and then you have to stand in line for ages.  Eventually you are on the plane and your luggage is stashed and you can relax for the hour and a half flight, or actually it is 15 minutes longer than that by the time everyone is on board and the hapless stewardesses go through the safety procedure while we all try to ignore them.

Arriving at Bergerac we slowly disembark, then about a half an hour to get through French customs – as they now (since Paris) record your name and passport number into a computer database, it is half past three (2.30 UK time) by the time you are through, then half an hour to home.  So home to home is 7 hours, for what is advertised as a 90 minute flight.  If I had the choice I think I would go by train, though as there is no direct train from Paris to either Bergerac or Eymet, this would be both expensive and much longer.  And though we all moan about Ryanair, thank goodness they are flying here – and quite cheaply too, even if takes almost all day.