Thursday 24 April 2014

A homecoming to quiet

We got up at five and breakfasted, then Peter arrived at six to take us to the airport. By six twenty we were waiting for our check-in to open, as the Vueling desks were coping with an influx of late arrivals for their Amsterdam flight. By a quarter to seven we were through security and having a second breakfast on the long walk to Departure Gate 18, few of the shops were open, so there wasn't much to do except sit and doze. We took off punctually, and landed ahead of schedule in Rhoose, ten degrees cooler than Malaga. The bag handling crew can't have been prepared for the early arrival, as it took half an hour from landing to retrieve our luggage, but we only had five minutes to wait before the Airport Shuttle arrived to take us to Cardiff. By half past eleven we were home, six and a half hours from door to door.

Being away for two months, there was a huge pile of mail for me, which I sorted and selected stuff requiring a prompt response, like renewing my driver's license photo card, and information about road resurfacing in our neighbourhood. Late afternoon, I went into town to get some fruit and fish for supper from the market, and visit the office to catch up on what needs to be done next. I stayed for a couple of hours. My first job, to update computers which have not been regularly used in my absence, but need to be instantly usable if they are required - the usual boring stuff to get out of the way as soon as possible, to make office life easier.

It's amazing to return to Meadow Street and realise just how quiet it is compared to all the places I've lived in the past four months. Being an urban area, the background noise of traffic, or of people socialising is usually present to some extent wherever you are. So it's been a quiet enjoyable evening, updating home PCs and reading back numbers of Linux Format, a pleasant re-adjustment to a different place and way of life. 


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