Carnage

Up early as we had a taxi booked for 7:45am to get us to the airport, which was about 90 minutes away.

As we were waiting for our taxi, word came through that our German colleague, who'd gone in a taxi at 6am, had slid off the road in his taxi.  Thankfully no one was injured and they were able to get the taxi back on the road and my colleague to the airport.  Apparently road conditions were really bad this morning, with lots of ice on the road and as a consequence quite a few accidents.

Time marched on and our taxi was over an hour late.  The pressure to get to the airport to make our flights was increasing.  It was particularly worrisome for my Canadian colleague, who had a connection to make at Heathrow.

The whole morning just highlighted the utter lunacy in driving two hours away from Stockholm for a jolly in extremely bad winter conditions.

I made my flight, I sure hope my Canadian colleague made hers.  It was going to be tight.

The flight took off on time and I thought my troubles were over.  Oh boy was I wrong!  I had a father and daughter next to me, and they spent most of the time trying to get things from the overhead locker.  He then ordered the whole bloody menu when they came around.  And to top it all I had a noisey snorer behind me.  I was being driven mad!

We landed at Heathrow ahead of schedule, but they had changed our gate and we were now on the remotest part of the airport.  The stairs and buses were over 40 minutes late, which delayed our transfer in getting back to the terminal.

Now it was a mad dash to the Heathrow Express to get back to Paddington.  It wasn't quite the 15 minutes advertised, more like 25 minutes.  I was starving and thirsty, so was desperate to get to Paddington and grab some food before my train, which was now about 10 minutes away from departing.

Mad dash to the pasty shop and then desperation to make it to the board to find out what platform I was on.  Really no need to rush, there was absolute carnage at Paddington.  Due to staff shortages for train crews, a number of trains had been cancelled.  Swansea had seen two cancelled trains before mine, so there were loads of people on the concourse.

The train eventually came in about 20 minutes late and as soon as everyone had got off, they announced boarding.  It was a free for all, no seat reservations, and a mad dash to try and find a seat.  I was very lucky.

We were almost an hour late getting into Neath.

I was mightily relieved to get home and enjoy curry and chips.

The past four days have been an absolute nightmare.

Today I am thankful for:

1.  Making it home
2.  Delicious curry and chips after my starvation of the week
3.  Making my flight and train, even allowing for the problems