Back in the Village Again

Made it. Back to Terra Firma. Home. England. Hampshire. Farnborugh.

That was 8 days ago and this chunk of binary digits has sat there all this time whilst I got back in to the swing of things... work etc. And I feel naked without a photo for three whole posts so here's a gratuitous "wherever I lay my hat" shot to signify coming home...

Thanks to Rebekah & Erik for the hat; my Christmas present was waiting in Virginia and made it home through a four-year-old's clutches, across 3 states, 3 countries and survived the rigours of numerous airport x-ray machines ;)

I have to admit that it was nice to see old Blighty again, soaring over the English countryside, then approaching London, the big smoke, home of very few English people these days and the capital city of this once-great nation. And I realise once again that I am British and proud of it and happy to be coming home.

Then through passport control it dawns on me how much the country, the world is changing and how quickly too... the seated passport control officers must be British but visually their heritage is from all the corners of the world... only one of them would look at home in the customary bowler hat.

Baggage collection was a joke, but is that down to our great sense of humour or the attitudes & abilities of those sending & collecting our luggage? I saw one of my cases turn up on the baggage trolley at the Madrid tarmac from my seat in the London-bound plane and I simply hoped my other case was hidden amongst the other bags. But seeing the absolute chaos in the London Heathrow baggage hall made me think otherwise. There were piles of cases without owners and owners without cases...

Some jack-the-lad pseudo-chav and his family were pissing me off, talking and acting as if there were a camera trained on them and their self-promoting act were being broadcast live to the nation. There wasn't enough room to stand in the baggage hall with his ego expanding to fill it so I switched off his channel and left behind he and the lemmings that were waiting for the luggage that was NOT coming no matter how hard you waited and I was swiftly efficiently dealt with at the front of the lost luggage queue... Yes, my missing bag was in Madrid still and might be here later today or tomorrow.

Outside Terminal 2 the weather sucked. The sky had turned grey, the wind picked up and the bus-stop for the shuttle back to my car was cold and the tarmac cracked & patchy. Add to this the journey through the dump they call Southall I realised why I'm a country/suburban boy living next to the woods and the lake. I hate cities. I really hate cities. They're OK to experience for a while but they're really just dens of iniquity. Buzzing? Yes, like flies 'round shit.

The oh-so-faithful Subaru wouldn't start back at the car park and the junk & debris left in it from a year's worth of travels had caused more condensation than I'd ever seen. That's what you get for 2 weeks worth of neglect. Poor car. So I got her started with the aid of a booster and drove westwards down the A4, a quick diversion to my 'local' Subaru garage before going home. Let's book the old girl in for a new solenoid/starter motor, an oil change and a service, and I can borrow a decent new ride, maybe a new Legacy or a Forrester?

The A4 sucks. Slough sucks. Maidenhead sucks. Busy A roads suck. I dislike very much the dirt of traffic and I can't wait to be close to the oaks and the pines around Hawley Lake.

So I eventually make it home to a house that smells strange. And my cat, fed every day by kindly friends but alone for 17 days, relishes in the devoted attention and enjoys the homecoming.

But there's something wrong. Something's missing. Have I forgotten something? Or someone? Or someones, possibly? Yes, Becky & Noel are stuck in Pittsburgh for another week, then off to New York *cough* City to the British Consulate...

But then that was last week and this is now. And you know what? My girls come home tomorrow and I am so f'ing excited :D