Spaces

Before we left the party yesterday we noticed that Greater Anglia Trains had already announced that service from Stansted direct to London would not resume today. So, again, I went through the ritual of cancelling the train ticket and buying a National Express coach back to Victoria. 

We got up this morning and went down to breakfast at about 8:30am which was just in time to see my brother off. He was flying back to Edinburgh just after 10am and the taxi to take him to the airport arrived at quarter to nine.  Other family members joined me, PY, mum and Dad at breakfast. I grabbed Mum a coffee before we went back to the rooms to pack because she did not have any breakfast. PY had a few minutes of work to attend to before Dad gave us a lift back to Stansted.

The airport is notoriously difficult to get to if you are dropping-off - or picking up - people. Often there are charges for just driving a few minutes to the terminal. So, we got dropped off just outside the car park and made our way - like two very lost souls - through the car park to find a bus to take us to the terminal.  I found it interesting to see that there were lots of car parks marked closed with signs redirecting people elsewhere, yet they were all pretty busy.  Our shuttle was packed with people heading off to sunnier places. We, of course, only needed dropping off at the terminal so we could get the coach back to London.  I had bought flexible tickets which allowed us to board an earlier bus than we’d booked and, the end result was, we were in Wimbledon before our scheduled coach had even departed. My brother got back to Edinburgh easily but it seems that Mum and Dad’s journey was not so good as the weather was bad all the way to Shrewsbury.

We stopped off in Wimbledon so that PY could pick-up some new glasses and then walked home.  I made a shopping list and did the weekly shop, which was a 15 minute whizz around Waitrose because I’d forgotten that Sunday trading laws meant it closed at 4pm.  Nonetheless I managed to get everything.  Feeling productive I then went to the gym to try to work off some of the excess breakfast I’d eaten.

Interestingly, the picture this day last year also featured a big yellow sign.