Wow, well, yesterday (Thursday) was a travel day from Satan's arsehole. I barely slept, so I knew that was going to hit me hard later. The flight from Oslo to London wasn't bad, just a couple of hours, and very pleasant. British Airlines is a lovely, traditional kind of flight service with food included and polite service. The captain's updates were very Britishly funny. We actually took off early which is perhaps the first time in the history of all flights on the planet that that has happened. From London airport, we jumped on the Picadilly Line tube (The Underground) to Holborn and it was bloody hot and it was about an hour's ride to our stop. But that was nothing compared to the second tube, the Central Line which we took Liverpool Street station and was sweltering and more packed than the Picadilly! Thankfully, that ride wasn't terribly long and we were soon attempting to cool off a bit as we grabbed a sandwich and a couple of train tickets to Norwich. Other than me losing my ability to be pleasant with the heat making me glisteny & pink (and once I go red, that's the end of my tether), things were looking good: not too long of a wait for the train, enough time to pee, yada yada yada. Then we board the train. And oh how we were mistaken that things could get no hotter than the tube. Ooooooh, so mistaken. The (2 hour) train to Norwich had broken down a/c, and no openable windows. The more people and wiggly, heat-generating little monkey children boarded the train, the hotter it got. This wasn't just heat, this was like shoveling coal and stoking the fires of hell's inferno for two solid hours. Our only respite, which wasn't a secret for long, was taking trips to the train joints or whatever it's called where you find the loos (oh, and I think I failed to mention that at least one of their toilets was out of order) and where you can open the windows to the exit doors. Standing there at just the right spot we found a little slice of bliss as the wind gushed forth. I mentioned it to one poor business man who was wearing a suit, and he came back for his briefcase after about 10 minutes and said, "Thanks for the tip. I'm not coming back here!" And off he went to bask in the glory of train wind.
Finally we met Dave at the train station where the whole train bled out sweaty occupants emerging for air. We walked to meet Julie at the restaurant where we had dinner, and a sandwich and chips (French fries) with a 16 ounce side of Guinness never tasted so good. Catching up with them made all the hell of the train ride slip away and we had a really lovely evening. We stayed up late gabbing over tea, and though I was running on little more than a few hours sleep, it was worth it to hang out and eek out every minute of this reunion. It is still hard for me to sleep, I think because when it's midnight here it's 6pm at home, there's only so much I can jimmy my internal clock.
Dereham is just a charming little town. We got the first tour of the town late after dark as we walked to their flat. More about Beach Day, introductions to the cats, Sam, AJ (Sam's gal pal) and Patricia (Julie's mum) tomorrow. I'm a day behind posting, so York is on schedule for tomorrow with Sam and AJ. So excited! But it's after 1 am, and we've set the alarms for 7. Send me wishes for snoozes! John is already sound asleep.
Love & hugs, R&J
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