We are organised people so we have made sure we have plenty of time to get the house organised after the mania of the last 2 weeks. Get things washed and put away, kitchen cleaned and fridge cleared. Take the bins out. You know, all the usual things you need to do before leaving the house for any length of time.
Except Aimi gets it all done in double quick time and then starts doing things like unplugging sockets that are turned off, and running a part filled dishwasher to get it done, so then we have to wash up our lunch plates by hand…
She’s nervous about travelling for so long and leaving Kayto. Not because we think anything will happen to him, Kai and Laura are going to do a great job (aren’t you!?). She just can’t sit still with nervous energy.
Kai turned up bang on time and took us, kayto and our bags back to their house. This is where we were leaving him so we hung about for an hour to let him settle in. I’ll miss him too, so gave him a big squidge before we left. I’m surprised Aimi didn’t cry.
Kai dropped us off at the train station, only for us to find our train was cancelled. I’m sorry for sounding snobbish, but if you have to cancel a train the least you can do is offer an alternative route, or access to other trains travelling around the same time. We are on the way to the airport. It’s not a trip you can just abandon. You have to be there for a particular time. But we were offered nothing, just told to book another ticket. So after a very quick trip around the block, we were back in Kai’s car and he kindly drove us there.
Our flight leaves at 7am, so we would have to check in latest at 5am to be sure of clearing security and bag drop in time, which means leaving home at about 4am. We didn’t fancy asking anyone to get up that early on a BH weekend. So because Aimi and I are organised we had actually booked a night in an airport hotel. So the train fiasco has not affected us really, but UK public transport just seems to be getting worse, which is frustrating.
We checked into an Ibis Budget hotel and while the amenities were basic, they were in good condition, clean and modern. The room was small, but perfectly adequate for one night. I’d like to know the floor area and compare it to the HMO regulations – just out of interest.
Our hotel was opposite a Holiday Inn which actually had a delightfully good Turkish restaurant attached. We ate here as we enjoy Turkish food and had a couple drinks too. It was fun to train our eye for people watching. There was a chap who could have been the founding professor of Jurassic Park, just off to a conference about Dinosaur DNA re-splicing. He certainly had the cotton blazer and bowtie for it.
