Ireland day 0716. Thursday 14 September 2023- To UK *

Ireland day 0716. Thursday 14 September 2023- To UK

Today’s summary	Took a lunchtime flight back to the UK to deal with a variety of admin tasks
Today’s weather	Overcast but grey in the morning. Light westerly wind. Appx 16C

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where we walked) (No GPX today)

Commentary

(Summary blog only. Last full blog was Day 0368).

Despite living outside the UK, the former homeland still calls back from time time. There are some ties that don’t get severed as soon as you get on the ferry at Holyhead. A couple of these have cropped up lately – related to disentangling from property and health systems – so I made a short-notice trip back to Gatwick today for a stay lasting only just over 24 hours.

The journey was straightforward, despite the 1 hour delay in departing Dublin because airspace congestion over London, and despite the ever-present threat of rail strikes. But once I am on my way, I actually find some kinds of traveling quite relaxing. You’re necessarily constrained by your transport so your options for doing anything apart from reading a book, eating your lunch, or just looking out of the window, are a bit limited. Perhaps I should do it more often.

Anyway I eventually reached my destination so now I’m just enjoying a late coffee and a linguine pasta (courtesy of Waitrose) then am going out to get some fresh air (at last) and to post some letters.

Back to the airport tomorrow!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Plenty of people heading to security today, but I got through in less than 10 minutes (despite my metal detector-alarming hips!)	The joys of duty free shopping 🙁

Healthy(?) lunch on the train from Gatwick into London	Having lived in Ireland for a while, I am starting to be amazed by the size of the railway stations in the UK in comparison with, for example, Connolly



Iconic tailplane, with the fore-runner of Hamburg airport behind