The usual morning-of-travel flurry - ramming everything in my car, last minute packing and literally just throwing anything and everything I can into my suitcases. Yes, if you haven't worked it out by now, I have two suitcases. I pick up my wheely-suitcase and omit a sigh, as it is heaps lighter than the holdall case. As the wheely one is easier to pull around, that's the one that ideally should be the heaviest as it requires minimum pick-up. But all that requires planning and planning when it comes down to packing is not something I tend to do...
I have to say I'm pretty chuffed with my attempt to load my car up - it is all very neat and tidy, everything I'm leaving in England is neatly jigsawed into my car boot, and my suitcases fit on the back seat. My petrol is saying empty and I'm already 10 minutes late leaving as it is, so decide my car has been loyal in the past so a quick journey 10 minutes through and out of town won't hurt... Well that was mistaken. Fortunately i'd hit country terrain and was 5 minutes from my destination when suddenly it lost all strength as if I was in a too-high gear or the terrain was slippy... it rapidly slowed down and stopped perfectly near a drive entrance - so still reasonably loyal not to just breakdown on the dual carriageway or something! Anyway, help came very quickly to hand in the form of a Landrover and a can of ancient petrol (i.e. my Dad), and we made it back to the workshop to park my car and load up his land-life-saver. Now 20 minutes later than planned, we headed off for London with my suitcases in the boot and Louboutins on the back seat.
As we hit London, we got stuck behind every overly-cautious and goddamn-slow driver there probably could have been in London, along side all the buses and vans heading to Wembley full of footie-fans. I remained calm though, because despite the fact I didn't want to get overly stressed out and have to pay for another train journey, it wasn't as if I particularly wanted to leave the life of friends, freedom, cheap and cheery shops and BlackBerry emails and return to the life of the unloved-mother... By the time I'd arrived we were definitely past check-in time, and a small part of me just hoped I could beg my way through onto the train. It turns out the train time was 20 minutes earlier as I'd thought, so as I arrived into St Pancras, the train was seconds away from leaving. Still not stressed out though, I left my bags by a pillar, still clutching onto the parcel-paper brown Louboutin bag (I had no time to wrap each shoe up in clothes in my suitcase) and made my way to a small group of Eurostar staff and asked where the ticket booths were. The one guy there gave me a huge Christmassy-smile and asked if I wanted to print off my tickets, so I calmly explained without an ounce of remorse that I'd just missed my train so would need to buy a new ticket. He then asked for my tickets and said those amazing words that makes you feel like Madonna: 'let me see what I can do.' He took me over to an empty check-in booth - so no queuing, and then managed to fit me onto the next train (leaving in an hour), free of charge. OMG. Thank you Mr. A. Morris. You are my Lucky Star today! So I went straight through to passport control and luggage - none of which was checked (three golden lemons at the slot machines!) and in the lounge area plenty of seats, so I calmly loitered around, having a last Nero's session of the month and visiting WHSmiths, and calmly boarded the train half an hour later where I was the first one on so had all the choice of luggage space... It was pretty perfect. So I actually really do have Eurostar to thank for my non-stressful travel day!
At the other end it was just as stress-free, the metro's were working, no one tried to mug me and I didn't run my suitcase wheels through any piss-puddles.
To be honest I'm not ecstatic to be back, but then again I have 40 days (and 40 nights) until I'm back home for good. I should take a leaf out of Moses' Survival Guide perhaps... We'll manage. After all, what could possibly go wrong in 40 days?
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