A weekend return trip to Blighty provided a satisfactory return, despite travel troubles and weather worries. Temperatures of -8C on Saturday morning had no impact on travel to the airport but once there I discovered that the brand new low-cost terminal was being closed because it was "too cold". Perhaps heating a large tin shed is problematic once external temperatures remain below freezing for over a week. There were however still two flights operating from the cold room, one of which was the one to Gatwick. The bonus of this was absolutely no queues at security and only short ones at passport control, and everybody was on the plane fifteen minutes before it was due to leave. And there we sat for the next 45 minutes while the engineers tried to unfreeze a fuel valve. And as the plane was refuelling the aircraft doors had to remain open. My plan of sitting near the front to allow a quick exit on arrival didn't seem so bright until one of the stewards got permission to hold the door almost closed.
In the end we touched down in Blighty only twenty minutes late, where I made another poor decision, namely to get the train to Victoria rather than London Bridge in an attempt to get to the pub for a swift pint before the game. It cost more and probably took longer because the Victoria line was closed for the weekend due to engineering works, resulting in chaos in the underground station of the same name. And I needn't have bothered trying to make the pub anyway because le grand chef et la petite beaucoup were going straight to the ground. Still, all was well that ended well and the seven goals smashed past the hapless Rovers were worth all the travel travails. And there was hot coffee and flapjack at half time to boot, courtesy of my genial hosts.
Back in Cambridge my ever accommodating hosts provided the usual tasty dinner, fine wine and convivial company. As the parsnip soup, sausage pasta and conversation were ingested and digested, the snow started falling outside. It continued until the small hours, prompting a regression into childhood, a double helping of TV goals, and a late night opera sing-a-long by le grand gooner. Perhaps the wine and house-strength G&T had something to do with it. Never does any harm to see a 21 gun salute in one day.
Six inches of snow on the ground threatened to make the journey home problematic, but snow tyres and a lift to the station from my generous host and trouble-free train journey got me to Stansted two hours before flight time. The boards showed my flight expected to take off nearly two hours late and the length of the queues for security suggested I might need all of the spare time. In the event it only took about an hour to get through to departures, which left nearly three hours to twiddle my thumbs before the flight eventually took off. Over two hours late I finally got home, just in time to kiss my petit ange goodnight. And, courtesy of my vrai ange, waiting for me was dinner and lunch for much of the week ahead and flapjack. Maybe I should go away more often...
