There I was, adventure-bound, on a Thameslink train, direct from Plumstead to Luton Airport. The Tannoy kept telling me to message 61016 if I saw anything unusual - most of the general public look fairly unusual, but God loves them all.
On arrival at Luton Airport, expecting to be ushered straight to a check-in desk, I had to jump on something called the Luton Dart. It was shaped like a Japanese bullet train, the Luton version.
'Is this free?' I asked the attendant.
'No', but you can use your card.
'What, my Oyster card?'
'No, this is not London'.
'Well I know that'.
'Your bank card is fine'.
'Great'.
I jumped aboard and sat right at the front - I thought I'd be next to the the driver but there wasn't a driver. So I was basically driving a Japanese bullet train, in Luton. My trusty Revolut card (which still won't authenticate me despite me twice having the friendly phone shop pixies fix my phone camera) informed me that I had spent £1.50 on this journey. It took 4 minutes. It should really be shaped like a giant cow, a cash cow.
I was perturbed already as the app I'd booked the flight through had decided to check me in automatically the day before! There I was, lovingly watering my thriving kitchen garden - am intent on living off the land, rather than off Tesco - when I got a message saying I was all checked in! Faithful readers will know how I object to online check-in, on the basis that Jesus might come back in the interim. I hadn't even decided to definitely go on this little sabbatical but I was already checked-in. Great.
Purple was still adorned with her orange ribbon from the last Guide adventure I led - thirty of us went to Cape Verde in May. It is very odd travelling by oneself when one is used to taking a crowd. The sound-off is very lonely - 'Sound off - one! Yay!'
Poor Purple, despite being the ultimate woman's fitted adventuring rucksack, she is not usually allowed with the regular baggage, so she's quite used to being taken instead to 'oversized baggage'. Abdul on check-in assured me that she'd be much happier with the other oversized bags and he knows because he used to work in baggage.
So Purple and I trundled along, following the 'Oversize Baggage' signs, where the kindly supervising lady and I shared a few thoughts on the breakdown of society and the phasing out of paper and pens, before I said farewell to Purple.
I happened upon the Prayer Room, so thought I pop in for a few quite moments before embedding myself back with the general public. There I fell into conversation with Lesley and Malcolm who are part of the friendly chaplaincy team who do great pastoral work supporting people across the airport. In December, local schoolchildren gather at the airport to sing Christmas songs to travellers. Always a good time to do so.
I bumbled my way through security where they seemed to have to do an entire body search which took quite a while; fortunately I didn't have 30 children waiting for me as usual, so it didn't really matter.
I was sitting down, contemplating opening one of the multitude of books I have with me, when I heard a lady in her 80s behind me ask the man opposite if he could help her with something. I'm not sure if he understood, but he declined. She looked at me and I said 'are you ok? Do you need something?'
'Well yes, I need someone to put my socks on. I can't do it myself.'
'Right', I hesitated, feeling sad that she had no one with her to help her. Could I help a complete stranger with her socks, in the middle of an airport waiting area? I asked the lady next to who had a small child on her lap to whom she was reading a pink Fairy Magic book if she could keep an eye on my stuff. She agreed.
The older lady gave me some gloves and I proceeded to haul a giant angry compression sock with a mind of its own onto her foot and eventually into the shoe. Whilst I was doing this, she said that she was thinking of getting a cat, to which I said would be a nice thing as they are good company, but that I preferred dogs. But she said "No, a tat, that's what they call tattoos these days".
She then, whilst I was wrestling with a giant angry compression sock, continued to tell me that she can't get a tat (not a cat) because of what it says in the Old Testament about tattoos. I suggested that perhaps that reflected the nature of when the Old Testament was written, to which she said "could you do the other sock please?"
A man turned up. "That's my husband", she said; "Thanks for doing my socks". And off they hobbled.
The lady reading the pink Fairy Magic book had gone now, and been replaced by another lady similar to my age, with a man and two sons. She said she was looking forward to reading books by the poolside whilst the family were in the pool. She said, 'I struggle to see the letters though, I have to use this'; she produced a piece of tired plastic - 'I got this in Sainsbury's - it's really helpful for magnifying the words'.
"That's good", I chirped.
"I should sort it out really, for work", she said.
"What do you do?" I enquired.
"I'm an optician", came the reply.
The time came for me to advance to the gate. There was an anxious French lady trying to wake a potentially dead man who would not stir, at the edge of the corridor.
"Are you with him?", I asked her.
"No but he is not waking", she replied.
Mutually agreeing that we needed to do something, I headed to the first person I saw in uniform - I like to think that you can generally trust them but usually first check that they are not on their way to a fancy dress party, as I've made that mistake before - but this was an international airport, so that was unlikely. However, it was a Krispy Kreme Donut uniform.
"Sorry, there's a man over there and he looks a bit, well, dead".
"I can't really do much", said the man in the Krispy Kreme Donut uniform.
"Well, you work here, so you can probably tell someone".
"Right", he said, thought for a moment, then picked up a radio.
"Sorry I'm not buying a doughnut" I apologised.
"That's ok".
Boarding seemed to take a long time, but I'd lost all concept of time, so I didn't really matter. I slept almost the entire way, then made an origami crane for a small child who I hope will take good care of it, though I fear she may have left it on the plane. I just hope it ends up in the recycling rather than in landfill.
Queuing up at border control at Bucharest, I fell into conversation with a group of friends who are all A&E Nurses at Kettering General, here for a few happy days together. Probably best to take a lot of care if you live in Kettering over the next few days.
I looked at my hostel reservation and it said something about re-confirm 24 hours before - well, I hadn't done that and I was already in the country! I have various, fairly tenuous links to Romania, ok very tenuous, so hoped the reservation was in some system somewhere. I was surprised a rogue app hadn't already checked me in whilst I'd been watering the vegetables. Then the hostel manager guy, Alex, messaged me and all was well. I have three relatives called Alex so think you can generally trust an Alex, with some exceptions.
I had been warned about airport taxi scams and all sorts, but needn't have been. I think it's more lucrative to scam people online these days. I confidently followed signs to the bus stops and jumped on the no. 100 bus into central Bucharest. The journey lasted about forty minutes and cost 50p. I like buses, just like Andy.
I checked into my little budget hostel, found some dinner nearby and made friends with the kindly Sri Lankan staff. Then I found a supermarket and stocked up on milk and coffee. The supermarket lady didn't seem to be having a very good day, or maybe that is her regular expression, it's hard to know.
Thanks for reading, sleep well all.
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