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Back in the UKKK!
If you want to listen to an upbeat and positive view about the state of English Nationalism from 15 years ago, when the rise of the far right seemed impossible and JK Rowling was one of my potential candidates for a statue in Trafalgar Square, then knock yourself out. It's a lot funnier than I thought it would be, but also, in hindsight a lot sadder. I am charmingly rude to a flag expert though, which is worth the entrance fee alone. The entrance fee is free (as long as you have a licence).
It had been a fairly smooth journey back to the UKKK, though it became less smooth once we were here. The kids behaved themselves on the plane (apart from a stint about 45 minutes from the end where Ernie became to proclaim how bored he was). Remarkably our kids were quieter than almost anyone else's Certainly the unruly mob in front of us!
When queuing for the toilet Ernie did insist on singing the Macaroni song for the flight attendant, who took it in good spirit. The mum in front of us waiting for the loo seemed entertained too. Ernie has a whole sketch planned to go with the song. This morning he asked if I had a big pair of pants he could have, so he could cut a hole in them for the denouement. I have created a monster. In my own image. Just like God.
On the plus side, whilst waiting, a girl couldn't lock the toilet door and the flight attendant did it for her from outside, so I now know the secret of how you can open a plane toilet door..... I'm never going to use it. I am just glad to be privy (no pun intended) to the secret.
There was a bit of a panic when we landed and I turned my phone on. I had booked a cab to pick us up at 7.15pm but apparently the wrong flight number was on the form I'd filled in and so the taxi company thought the time had changed and had come to pick us up at 4pm. In hindsight it seems unlikely that I just plucked the flight number of another plane from thin air, so I suspect the initial forms given to me by the travel agent had had the wrong number on them. But also if my flight had left 3 hours early I would certainly have contacted the cab company.
I have to say that the cab company were very good about it though and even though they'd already sent someone earlier, they got us a car at the right time too. They had been, if anything, too efficient and none of this was their fault. So if you're in the Herts area and need an airport taxi,
do go with Hitchin Airport Taxis. (I think they might have other names depending on which town you're in! So hopefully that driver got another job easily enough).
It's amazing how guilty something like this makes me feel.
The bus ride from the plane was shorter than the one we'd taken to the plane that took us on holiday, but our luck ran out when we got to passport control. You can't use the electronic gates if you're under 10, so we had to queue with all the families in a section that seemed to not think it was important to have more than one or two people on passport control. We barely moved for the first 20 minutes. It seemed a dangerous exercise to gather all the under 10s who'd just been on a long flight and then keep them waiting. At best there would be some noise, at worse the holding area we were in would be awash with urine.
I didn't time how long we waited but I'd guess 45 minutes. Somehow Ernie, despite needing the loo, did not disgrace us either with a dirty protest or by repeatedly singing the Macaroni song. Another kid in a stroller cracked and cried out "No... No...No." He was saying what we were all thinking.
The cab driver couldn't have been nicer (though he wasn't the one we'd inadvertently stood up) and even asked to divert to a Waitrose on the way so we could get something for dinner. It was now way after 8pm or 10pm in Crete time (when will Keir Starmer look into this discrepancy?) and me and the kids hadn't eaten since lunch (BA gave us a pack of biscuits - but only Catie was hungry enough to pay for some food - I don't need to eat for a fortnight with the reserves I have created in the last 10 days). We decided just to get home.
Only ten days away, but it felt so weird to be back. I thought I'd be able to live like a king forever, but now I am just a regular guy in Hitchin who doesn't have a swimming pool right by his front door and has to make his own breakfast.
The good thing about eating way too much for 10 days is that I now never want to eat again and am determined to finally get back on the path to fitness. My watch actually beeped to tell me that I had been burning fewer calories a day over the last 8 days. I wonder how that's happened.
I can turn this around. Like all the other times I've said that.
The first part of a truly remarkable RHLSTP with the loveliest and funniest of men, Bernie Clifton, went up today
. Please do listen to it. It's magical. And there's still about another hour to go!
