GET YOUR SKATES ON !

So today I am flying with a new airline Silverjet to sunny NYC from Luton airport. From this sentence alone you can probably feel the rumblings of problems brewing.

 

The journey began well - or with hindsight maybe not - I was trying to find a big enough suitcase for my month away and found an oversized canvas bag with wheels on top of the wardrobe. During the process of getting the bag down I unknowingly dislodged a pair of retro roller skates. When I opened the wardrobe door to begin packing the skates fell from the top narrowly breezing past my head. At the time I saw this as a good sign. If the luminous 80’s disco skates had landed on my bonnet I could have easily been knocked out.

 

Thanking my lucky stars I speedily packed my bags omitting the dodgy skates. Once all the clothes were safely accounted for I then began the task of locating all the necessary chargers for my trip: cables for the iPod, the camera, the mobile, the speakers, the Nintendo (brain age), the video camera, the computer. Ahhhhhhhh so many different plugs, cradles, and adaptors. Can I make a quick suggestion; Will all the Electronic Companies of the world please unite and provide a 'one fits all' charger. I will happily agree to pay three or even four times more for it so you can all still make your money and help me avoid a suitcase full of tangled spaghetti like cables.

 

Finally packed and out of the house I have a horrid feeling in my bones that we are a little behind schedule. We get to Kings Cross only to discover it is the wrong station. Like finalists in the 400 meters we sprint to the right station which is not an easy task when you have five full bags with you. Airhostesses always look so demure when they strut across the concourse with their wheelie bags. It is not the same sprinting across crowded streets with the bags flying in the air. I felt like a demented women trying to reach the china department at the Harrods sale.

 

At the new station I sail imperiously past the ticket collector avoiding buying a ticket – no time for that. My partner annoyingly has been abducted by aliens as he is nowhere to be seen. By the time he reappears Victor - the non friendly ticket collector - has become more attentive and is not letting anyone through without a ticket. After joining a long queue we now have tickets and descend to the platform. Our bags seem to have procreated and got heavier during all this and the wheels are not terribly stair friendly.

 

Now happily sitting on the train we ask a sweet lady clutching a train timetable what time we are due in at Luton. Helpfully she tells us the train doesn't stop at Luton. We get off at the next station to discover the train we need is on the opposite platform. Yippee more stairs or couldn't we just lob the bags over the track? We are now very late. I have however called the airline to let them know we are running late and they have not called me back to say it is too late so we trundle on with determination and utter delusion that we will make the flight.

 

At Luton train station there are more ascending stairs to get us across the track. On the other side we finally have descending escalators that match my spirit. Like a corkscrew we spiral down endlessly. Dizzy and dejected we reach solid ground, stumble into the back of a taxi and head for the airport.

 

We arrive fifteen minutes before our flight is due to take off. Strangely we are unable to board and crumble in a corner exhausted from the joys of visiting new airports and avoiding low flying roller skates.