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October 18 Did I, or did I not say that something always goes wrong when I try to travel from Stansted Airport?
My flight from Stansted to Trieste was booked for 5th October.
In the few days preceding the hellish journey I would have had to endure to get to the hellhole that is Stansted, my godmother's father died (God rest his soul). When do you think the funeral was? 5th October, of course.
Which was why Thursday, 5th October proved to be a very interesting day. I mean, how many days in your life start at funeral in south wales and end up with you being dropped at border post by an Italian police car? If you're interested, read on:
Because of Peter's funeral, I decided not to take my flight from STN-TRS on Thursday morning. Instead, I would attend the funeral in Cardiff and find some other way of getting to Slovenia: at this point, I call in the help of the legendary Helen, who works for Easyjet (a proper airline). Helen duly gets me on a flight from Bristol to Venice, leaving at 5pm.
Tuesday
For some obscure reason, I have to fly in the morning. Anyone would have thought this is my job or something. I leave Oxford at 13:00 and only just make it to Lewes to pick up my paraglider before 16:00.
Wednesday
A much hurried dash to get a train bound for Cardiff. I sit opposite a bloke who decides what children's toys make it to the shelves of toyshops- his job is basically to play with toys. I think I might be in the wrong job!
Thursday:
Went to funeral in the morning. Then drinks and eats at Mary's house, followed by a swift (if expensive) taxi ride to Bristol Airport, where I arrive a full 3 hours before the flight leaves (ugh!). On arriving at Venice, I get the bus to Mestre where I begin to stress about trains not running on time and not being able to understandi any of the announcements. I console myself with a snack from a cafe. At this point I have learnt 3 things:
- Mussolini did not get the trains to run on time
- My command of Italian is even more shameful than my command of Dutch (is that possible?)
- Italian food isn't always tasty
It's now getting on for 10pm. The Slovenian border is at least 2 hours away, and to really make my day I find that the train is going to stop EVERYWHERE. I finally arrive in Gorizia (the border town) at half past midnight. After wandering around for 20 minutes or so with a large rucksack, it was only a matter of time before I got picked up by some officers of the law, who drop my at the Slovenian border. Needless to say, when I come to go through border controls, it takes me quite a while to negotiate my way through! September 28 I am in a cold sweat about having to travel to Stansted Airport. Every time I go there (and I mean EVERY time) something goes wrong.
The flight for Trieste leaves at 11:15. At most other airports in most other countries, this would mean checking in around about 09:45.
Getting to Stansted
Click here to find out where this hellhole is
There is only one way to get to Stansted Airport, and that is by air. Every other method of getting to this place involves a significant expedition for only the most intrepid, unless of course you live in Bishop's Stortford.
And when you're there-
A flight leaving Stansted at 11:15 will mean that you should plan to be at the airport at 08:15. This will allow you time to spend some quality time in the check-in queue, where upon completing the queing process you will be told that your bags (being slightly larger than a small briefcase and marginally heavier than a bunch of bananas) are oversize and overweight. Your next task is to then pay £75 to a licenced bandit at a remote "Customer Service" desk before being allowed the priveledge of spending some more quality time in the queue for security searching.
After becoming intimately aquainted with one a Bishop's Stortford native masquerading as a "Security Guard" you will then have approximately 4 minutes and 54 seconds before your flight leaves. In this time, you must share the carriage of a small monorail train with a family of sweaty chavs from Walton-on-the-Naze who are going somewhere that sounds remarkably like "Eye-beef-ar". I'm sure it's very nice there.
And that's why I'm dreading this journey. It's almost worth driving to Slovenia instead. September 25 Captain's logbook: date- Thursday, 21st September 2006
Today we surveyed the Luton/Stansted area. Let me just take this opportunity to say:
Stansted Airport is in the middle of absolutely f***ing nowhere
I pity the fools that:
- have to travel to and from Stansted
- fly Ryanair
Which will be me in just over a week... September 12 To summarise the last few days:
Oxford- Gamston- Prestwick- Prestwick- Prestwick- Prestwick- Prest.... oh you get the idea....- Dundee- East Midlands- Norwich- Cranfield- Oxford. PHEW!!!!
And here's how we did it!
Thursday 7th September 2006
05:00 Check the weather. It looks like an aerial survey day today. Because I'm at mum's and I've got a 2 hour drive to Oxford airport, I set off at 05:30.
07:45 Arrive at Oxford airport. The weather now looks not quite so good in the south but Scotland is looking like a possibility. The crew of G-OSGB can already start to smell the sweet scent of haggis and potato scones at the Western House Hotel...
07:46 Discover that we don't have any flight plans for Scotland. The smell of haggis is beginning to dissipate. Bugger.
07:47 Make a plan to go to Gamston (Nottinghamshire) to pick up these elusive flight plans, and then continue to Scotland.
10:30 Arrive Gamston. Sit around twiddling thumbs waiting for Carl to deliver flight plans. 12:00 Carl arrives with the flight plans.
13:00 Lunch (of course!). Discuss our route up to Prestwick, which will take us over the Lake District (oh damn!). Decide to buzz a friend's house in Kendal :)
14:25 Depart Gamston
15:01 Buzzing Kendal at 3000ft AGL, because it's a built up area...
15:40 Arrive Prestwick. Weather not nice enough to go surveying, so it's an early finish. Off to the hotel!
19:30 Curry at the Rupee Room in Ayr. We spare a thought for Carl, probably onto his third Pot Noodle of the day at the Travelodge in Lincoln (Living The Dream, no doubt).
Friday 8th
06:00 It's looking like a good, clear day for some aerial survey. Looks like we might have won!
07:00 Enjoy a nice healthy breakfast of haggis, potato scone, black pudding and Ayrshire bacon at the Jockey Club Restaurant in the hotel. Hard life. We resist the temptation to send Carl (who, by this time, is probably digging into his Egg McMuffin) too many MMS photos of our fantastic breakfast. Still living the dream, we are :)
Breakfast spread at the Western House Hotel
08:40 Take off, and push off to The Kingdom of Fife for some aerial survey work there.
11:45 It starts to cloud over, so we go back to Prestwick
15:45 Take off again, this time we go to Aberdeenshire.
18:00 It's starting to get dark- better go back to Prestwick!
19:30 Mingle with wedding guests at the hotel before enjoying a delicious dinner in the Jockey Club Restaurant again. I have my steak done blue, which the chef does absolutely flawlessly. Richard has his Very Well Done and puts salt and pepper on it. Phillistine.
Saturday 9th
06:00 Looking like another good day for aerial surveys!
Ayr Racecourse at 06:00
07:00 Breakfast again. The healthy option this time- poached eggs on brown toast. Perfectly done, well done Breakfast Chef (I'll miss you!)
08:10 Take off and do the long awaited aerial survey of Biggar
09:55 It has clouded over very quickly, so we dive back into Prestwick
12:00 Lunch. Not up to the standards of the Western House Hotel, but still pretty good. We discuss staying in Scotland one more night and decide that if the Western House have got rooms available, we'll stay.
13:00 The Western House don't have rooms available, but we get told to stay anyway. DOH!!! We have to downgrade to a 3* hotel.
13:30 Weather doesn't look like it's going to allow us to fly again today, so this is our afternoon activity:
16:00 Everton beat Liverpool. Richard heaves a sigh of dismay.
Sunday 10th
06:00 YET ANOTHER good day for aerial surveys in Scotland. What the heck's going on???!!
06:45 Enjoy a reasonably breakfast in the 3* hotel. Not up to our usual standards, but it fills a hole. Dean has a hangover. Richard and I resolve to throw the aeroplane around more than usual today as a result of this.
08:35 Take off, head for Fife (again)
12:15 A good morning's surveying, but we need to land for fuel which we do in Prestwick(again)
12:45 Quick telephone reports (thank you Rosie, thank you Rana) indicate that it's still nice over there, so [after a fashion] we make a plan to go over there, continue surveying and either land at Dundee for fuel, or Carlisle.
13:25 Take off from Prestwick heading for Fife (yet again). Finish surveying Fife and then make a start on surveying the stunning coastline east of Edinburgh.
Our location: somewhere in Scotland
17:25 The "memory card" of the Vexcel Ultracam-D (actually 15 300GB hard disks connected together) is finally full. The plane's also running out of petrol, so we think it best to land at Dundee.
The Tay Bridge at Dundee. As made famous by the great William Topaz Macgonegall
17:35 Make a plan to shoot back to Oxford. By this time we're all on our last pair of boxer shorts and socks. The thought of being home is actually quite appealing now. We check the time of official night, signalling when we must land by, and deduce that we can just make it to Oxford in time.
18:25 Take off from Dundee, and start heading for Oxford- 249 nautical miles away. Heading 190°. We climb to 1200ft AMSL. Now that's what a call a long final for runway 19 at Oxford! ETA Oxford is 20:20, about 5 minutes before Dundee Air Traffic have advised us when night begins.
19:15 Over the Pennines, it's starting to look a bit dark. We switch all the aircraft lights on.
19:45 South of Sheffield, it's getting really quite dark. We ask East Midlands Air Traffic to confirm what time night is. They report that it's 20:08. We remember that "night" officially begins earlier the further south you go...
19:46 We decide not risking landing at Oxford in the dark without any runway lights, so we dive into East Midlands. Oh, another night in a hotel. This time it's a Holiday Inn Express... "living the dream, boys... living the dream"...
19:55 Fortunately, the lovely people at Donair are still there. We are able to land, park, and get to a hotel without too much hassle...
21:30 Richard, a Liverpool supporter, encounters some Everton supporters in the hotel and banter ensues!
Monday 11th
06:00 By a very fortunate set of circumstances, the weather is pretty good for aerial survey right nextdoor to East Midlands airport. So, a quick Holiday Inn Express breakfast, and it's off to the airport.
10:00 After faffing about downloading the "memory card" of our digital camera, we take off heading for Norfolk. We try to lay off the jokes about tractors and inbreeding, but fail dismally.
13:30 Unfortunately, we have to land at Norwich for fuel.
14:30 Norwich Airport- GRRRRR!!!! Expensive and slow. I have to go right the way through f***ing security (in and out) just to get sandwiches for the crew. We have to wait an age for fuel.
14:50 We finally manage to take off again and continue surveying
18:00 Light levels get the better of us, so we set course for home.... AT LAST!
18:30 Passing Cranfield, we are told by the Air Traffic Control that there are heavy thunderstorms in Oxford. Richard and I fancy the idea of flying through a thunderstorm less than the idea of landing at Cranfield, so... reluctantly, this is where we land.
20:30 The taxi which is supposed to take us to Oxford airport finally arrives.
21:30 Arrive Oxford airport.... by taxi!
Tuesday 12th
*** THE DAY I MOVE OUT OF MY OXFORD HOVEL ***
08:00 Start packing the car with the rest of my rubbish. And it really is rubbish.... I mean, when was the last time I wore half those clothes?!
09:30 Leave 23 Howard St for the VERY LAST TIME (I hope) (apart from going back there to collect my bicycle, because I have too much rubbish in the motor- car)
10:00 Arrive Oxford Airport. Weather rubbish. Try to hitch a lift on an aeroplane going to Cranfield, to no avail.
11:00 Richard drives me to Cranfield. Weather still looking rubbish. I don't fancy flying back to Oxford in crappy weather.
12:30 Weather clears, at last. I fly back to Oxford.
... and so, after 125 hours away from base, OSGB is finally returned to its parking spot. And I can go home! September 04 After falling off the mountain in Slovenia (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdtET1hn49U) I was in a reasonably poor state, and had to stop going to the gym for a couple of months.
Fitness suffered, but recently I've been looking at some half-decent (for me!) times on a 2000 metre row. 7:11.4 the other day!
However, what with the move up north and moving out of my gaff in Oxford, I've stopped going to the gym now (my membership has expired), so I need a different initiative to be healthy....
.... I'm giving up drinking (midweek only, mind you)!
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