Travel Guide for Flying Part II

Stanstead to Dublin!

I love London, there’s always something going on, a comedy show, a live gig, an impromptu street jam or just people watching!  Throngs of lost looking tourists, smells of burgers and stale ale, the ding of one-arm bandits, flashing neon signs, shop fronts so minimalistically modern as to have a single, round, clear plastic table sitting in the window with a designer sock perched on top of it and the call and mystery of the West End.  I was there with a pseudo boyfriend who was in love with me but in a long term relationship and thus nothing happened (thankfully) and he went into possessive control mode.  Now believe it or not I’m the kind of person who will happily get lost abroad or miss the last bus home, thinking it’s not the end of the world, just a new experience and adventure – not him!  So needless to stay when we were going back home we were uber organised.  We left on the bus for Stanstead three hours before our flight was due to board and disaster strikes!

There is pelting rain, the like of which I’ve only seen in summer thunder plumps that lash down in torrents and everything is disrupted.  The Stanstead train Express isn’t running, the roads are at a stand still and it takes us four and a half hours to go for London to outside of London!  Needless to say we missed the flight – everyone missed the flight - through no fault or our own but do the airlines care?  No!  They flew that budding 737 with ten passengers and cashed in on charging everyone an extra £60.00 to get home – THE NEXT DAY!

We had to spend the night at Stanstead airport.  Now if you haven’t been there (and this was almost a decade ago back when I was in collage) all they have are those bolted together seats, with occasional metal arm rests and even they are few and fair between.  Everywhere there was people passed out on the floor like some emergency medical tent in the war and nothing to do but wait.

We did get home the next day (and the flight was delayed) with sore backs and sleep deprivation and an urgent sense of injustice.

Not a flight tale!

A randomer’s story on getting on the ferry!

My friend and I were in holiday mode, preparing to travel to Exeter for the brilliant and bohemian ‘Beautiful Days’ music festival and we needed a rucksack.  So off we pop to our local wilderness store and the chap behind the counter is typically Northern Irish and therefore chatty and conversational.  He tells us about the time we was returning home on the ferry in his car.

Now he sells firearms (no this isn’t a common occurrence in Northern Ireland despite what the world may think!).  He trades in guns for game shooting, clay-pigeon enthusiasts and things like that and he has a trunk load of guns (all clearly marked by brand in their little boxes) and ammuniation.  Of course, he has all the paperwork and legal documentation and permits etc and is used to some discourse when passing through customs but that day they pull him over and spend over an hour questioning him about Wind Screen Cleaner!  Yes, you read correctly – the trunks open and all these potential weapons are on full view and the guards don’t mention them or glance at them once, no, what they want to know is what he’s doing with twenty litres of window cleaner!

Driving to the ferry he stopped to top up his wind screen water sprayer thing and ran into the garage to pick up some scented soap cleaner.  Well they only had a 500ml bottle and were charging through the roof for it so he drives on to the next service station and though and behold finds an offer on 5litre bottles of the stuff for more than 80% less than the 500ml bottle and thinks ‘Happy days!  I’ve room in my boot, might as well stock up as this is something I’ll always need and won’t find it cheaper anywhere else,’ so he does just that.  Little did he know that strawberry scented car soap would involve the summoning of several guards for advance and almost make him miss the ferry!