I left you....

Current mood: GOOD!!
Category: GOOD!! Jobs, Work, Careers

running out of time on Fish Island....

I had returned from Italy, for 16 hours of keeping the foxes out of the Fish Island kitchen.

I put Fish Island in order.

The rent and electricity bills still aren't paid, but my own personal credit crunch was loosening - and there was extra good news - a new magazine is interested in me writing for them as a once off and maybe as a column...

I WAS FEELING GOOD AND RECOVERED FROM FLU!!! I COULD FEEL THE DUAL BOUNCE OF RECOVERY AND HOLIDAY!!!

I had 4 beers and started typing...

At 4pm, I was still typing.

I was wanting to go through that last piece with some improvements and corrections. I wanted to make the point that immigration is complicated, or something like that - I didn't feel it was reading right, but I was running late - DANGEROUSLY LATE!!!

I hotfooted it to Stratford to get the bus to Stanstead, to get the plane back to Italy..

In Stratford, I needed to pay in checks and convert money.

I was too late for the banks, and there was a queue for the Bureau de Change.

Changed, I had 3 minutes to get across the shopping center to the bus stop.

I miss the bus by about 15 meters...

I have one more bus that has any chance of my getting the plane. If that one runs to time, I should make it - if not, it's over...

I stand and think about alternative plans and hope the bus arrives on time...

A man approaches me.

I immediately decide I will be polite but rude, so as to regain my thinking space.

The man asks me about the buses

I tell him, and tell him I'm running super late..

We start talking.

Andrew works in a bank on the 9th floor of Canary Wharf. It's a private bank. To get an account, you need a deposit of £10m £££. It's a BIG bank for BIG money people.

'How's the mood at Canary Wharf with all this money crisis??'

I ask

'Full Blown Panic, people are shooting themselves!'

He says...

We talk all the way to Stanstead, through the awful traffic.

He keeps me calm..

Andrew is in his 50's. He's clutching a Sainsburys bag that seems to be filled with Prawn Cocktail crisps. He has 4 newspapers for Sodoku. He is from Peterhead in Scotland. He has hairs on his nose. He is flying to Bratislava, then going on to Austria on holiday.

We talk about grapes and banks and the Olympics, about politics and children and travel and youth...

Stanstead Arrivato:

It's 6.30pm. My flight leaves at 7pm. The gate closes at 6.35pm.

I RUN!!!

I muscle my way through the security queue 'EXCUSE ME...I'M LATE..!!....SCUSE ME, MY PLANES LEAVING...!!' I RUN the full length of the terminal to gate 49..

I have extra clothes on, so I can fit everything in the hand luggage.

I am sweating like a 17 stone man, the wrong side of an hours jog...

The flight is delayed 3 hours...

I land in Italy at 12.40am

I arrive at the casa at 1.40am

Get to bed by 2am

Sleep by 2.30am

Up @ 6.50am...