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May 16, 2005
Unfortunate ways to spend an evening
As you drift off to sleep tonight in your comfy bed, spare a thought for my stranded girlfriend, left to fend for herself in Stansted Airport owing to the Stansted Express not being quite as Express as they’d like you to believe. She missed her flight home, and was the first person to be told that the following (final) flight this evening was now full.
This means that she’s booked onto tomorrow morning’s 6.30 am flight, with a check-in time at the decidedly unpleasant time of 4.30 am.
We were somewhat relieved to discover that Stansted is actually the second-best airport in the world to spend the night in (after Heathrow). There are lots of sweet stories about strangers watching out for each other, and where to find the best places to sleep, over here. The internet to the rescue.
How will she spend the 8 hours before her flight leaves? Well, she managed to get a book, which would usually help; but the only one she could find was Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. Because clearly, reading the WORST BOOK ON EARTH will make the time go by more quickly. I am seriously concerned that she will claw out her eyes.
(come home safe, miss, preferably with your eyes still in their sockets x)
Posted by Oliver at May 16, 2005 10:18 PM
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In February, when my brother and I were coming home from London, we arrived in Totingham Hale just in time for the 8.11am Stansted Express to the airport. We were cutting it very fine at that stage, considering our flight was at 10am. Imagine my horror when I looked at the monitor and saw that our train had just been cancelled! No announcement, apology…nothing. We had to wait for the 8.26am train, which had 2 scheduled stops, which meant we got to the airport at 9.15am. A 15-20 minute queue to get to the security gate, a 5 minute halt because of two ‘random’ checks, one after the other (me AND my brother), and finally we had 10 minutes to get to our gate…which was a 10 minute walk from the shopping area. Talk about stress. Fortunately, we didn’t miss our flight, but I now think I’ll fly via Gatwick in future. The Gatwick Express leaves from Victoria Station and seems that little bit more reliable and frequent.
Hope all has righted itself, and she got home this morning! And The Da Vinci Code is NOT the worst book in the world. The beginning had such promise that the end did not live up to. Certainly not the worst though!
Posted by: Audrey at May 17, 2005 10:18 AM
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