A gentle journey to departure

Not true for every journey

Monday morning, and the family were on Facebook talking about happiness being a journey and not a destination. It’s a well-worn idea that’s worth remembering, but when we turn the statement back to front, the converse doesn't always hold true: a journey is often an uncomfortable way to reach the destination of happiness.

I write this, having spent the best part of a day schlepping three suitcases in and out of trains. I worked out a way of avoiding stairs and subways, but it was a huge relief, eventually, to exchange my luggage for a boarding pass.

Travelling is made so much easier when there’s no time pressure. The stress and anxiety of wondering if I’ll catch a connection has often been an absolute killer, so these days I take my time, and schedule my travel to get the airport with an hour or two to spare. Today, everything was going fine to start with, but it was too good to last.

Lincoln railway station

An estate car taxi swallowed my suitcases and whisked me to Lincoln railway station in comfortable time to catch the branch line service to Newark. 

At Newark Northgate station I was in the buffet, enjoying a hot bacon roll and a passable (well, almost passable) Espresso, when my phone pinged with  a message. 
It was a text from BA.

The flight would now leave at 11pm instead of 8.30pm..  My plan had been to have a very late, leisurely lunch at Gatwick and relax over a drink or two before boarding. Ah well! “When Man makes plans, God smiles.” I’d have to hang around in the functional splendour of Gatwick departure lounge for an extra couple of hours – but let's get back to describing the next leg of the journey.

The early afternoon train to London is often under-subscribed, so I had taken advantage of a special fare on offer for First Class. Since this meant a complimentary snack and a large Scotch, I not only travelled in comfort but also started in the holiday spirit, with the added surprise of travelling in the company of a fellow member of the Sunday morning congregation at Lincoln Cathedral who, like me, loves church music.

Driver Joe Duddington and fireman Thomas Bray, set the world record
of 126mph  with this Mallard locomotive on July 3, 1938.

 I soon forgot the impending boredom of the delay at Gatwick and spent the rail journey talking about the famous locomotive, the Mallard, and the steam train speed record (set by the Mallard on this line, on the stretch between Grantham and Peterborough,) and discussing pure mathematics, and medieval liturgy.

 Even though BA had tossed a spanner in the timetable with the switch of service, the journey had reverted to happiness and we were soon pulling into Kings Cross. Here I commandeered a luggage trolley and marched purposefully across to St Pancras, from where a mercifully empty train trundled down to an off-season, semi-deserted Gatwick.

Looking forward to a better way to spend
 their Winter Fuel Allowance

As the afternoon drifted on into evening, the handful of remaining passengers were visibly all bound for Mauritius – ours was to be the last flight of the day. To put it kindly, the majority were clearly funding their holiday bar bill from their Winter Fuel Allowance: It was, for the main part, an Oldies Special.

There were exceptions, of course. A clutch of keen game fishermen were talking marlin and tuna; an English woman and her Mauritian husband, were clearly taking their very young son to meet his grandparents back on the island, and one or two affluent Yuppies posed with a louche air, clearly anticipating somewhere different after the been-there-done-that monotony of Thailand and the Caribbean. On a more romantic note, a smart young man clutched a suit-carrier as hand baggage, betraying the probability that he was to be Best Man at a friend's wedding on the beach, under the palm trees.

Unlike all hours at Stansted, there were no clusters of  lads sinking lager, or hen parties in outrageous costumes. There were no women with hair extensions, - just one or two with discreet and well-camouflaged hairpieces. For the men, sartorial elegance was a displayed by a polished pate with a few white tufts.
In 2010 I had fallen victim to the volcano ash disruption when Eyjafjallajökull erupted and grounded airlines in Britain. I had then travelled overland back to Italy, rapidly adjusting to frequent spells of waiting around at train stations, or staring at dull landscapes flashing past the windows of the railway carriage. It had taught me the valuable skill of total inactivity that now stood me in good stead at Gatwick. I scrounged the bins for newspapers with Sudoku and other time-killers. I lingered over Eggs Benedict and Bloody Mary's in one of the deserted restaurants. I spent my BA refreshments voucher on boxes of chocolates that I squeezed into my hand-baggage. Then, eventually, the display board flashed its final announcement for the day and a couple of hundred passengers raced for the gate - as they always do - in the firm conviction that they might miss the flight or, worse, that someone might seize the one remaining copy of the Daily Mail and then push on and steal the seat they, the mature and sensible travellers, had chosen and reserved.