Rainy journey

I spent most of Saturday packing, cleaning up and tidying the house so that when I get back, it'll be easy to refocus on what needs to be done next.

It rained heavily in the night on Saturday and again on Sunday morning. During a break in the showers, I went out with the rubbish, but before I'd got a hundred metres, it rained again even more heavily, so I got soaked and had to try out the trousers that I'd decided to travel in.

Michael picked me up at eleven to go to L'Ampolla for the United Eucharist. It hardly rained during our journey, but it would seem the earlier heavy rain deterred some from travelling, as there were no more present than there would be for the usual service, around twenty. Afterwards, fourteen of us lunched at L'Ampolla's Station Cafe, which is run by an English couple. We were served an excellent British roast dinner, with a choice of three different meats, and half a dozen different vegetables to choose from.

At three thirty, before pudding, Les kindly ferried my to L'Aldea station, ten minutes away for my Inter-City train to Barcelona at five to four. By twenty to six we arrived at Barcelona Sants station. The rain seemed to have followed us, as a heavy downpour of rain made it impossible to explore beyond the station precincts before going out to the airport on the Rodalies shuttle train. Tourist information services at the station had given me a list of hotels in the vicinity to enquire about a room for Friday night, as my return trip arrives too late to get a southbound train down the coast. It was too wet to venture out, however, so an internet booking will have to be made when I get home.

Heavy rain distrupted the flight schedule, and so we were twenty minutes late getting to Bristol. I changed a hundred euros and got only sixty one pounds. It outrages me when the BBC tell us that a euro is worth seventy nine pence. I needed enough sterling to pay for the airport bus and a taxi to Owain's place, so I had to grit my teeth and let myself be taken advantage of by demons of market exchange. I got there just after midnight.

We were up by seven thirty and walking into town together along a cycle route also busy with pedestrians heading for work. We parted company just before nine, Owain to his office and me to the station, both in the Temple Meads locality. Thankfully the wet weather didn't extend as far as the West of England. I was home in Pontcanna just before eleven, glad to be reunited with Clare after an unusually long journey, due to the lack of Vueling flights into Cardiff in the winter season. I wonder how many others, like me were travelling on into Wales, by one means or another, from Bristol airport.