Day 1: Durham - Newbury

Gosh, this all seems so long ago. The end of term was a frantic rush - saying goodbye to everyone who was leaving earlier, settling last-minute travel stuff, finishing off the end-of-term assignments, packing and, of course, partying.

To fully appreciate this fateful first day, you need to understand the build-up as well. Basically, it's the usual tale of woe... Before term ended, I had 2 essays and one essay plan due. I'd blown the entire weekend plus Monday, the 11th, working on my essays. This entailed burning the midnight oil and little sleep. The reson for the rush though my essays were due on the 13th (Wednesday)? The 13th was the last day of school and everyone was leaving then, so the 12th signaled the unmissable end-of-term parties. This meant limited sleep on Tuesday night too.

Wednesday was spent shoving clothes into my suitcases and carting them over to store in a place that shall not be named for fear of getting into trouble =) Then, I had to BEGIN packing for my 29 day holiday and do some other chores. 3 hours of sleep after a stretch of limited rest is not exactly an ideal way to start the holiday.

So there we were, 0530 and trudging down the cold streets of Durham on our half and hour hike to the train station with all our heavy luggage. We had to get to Newcastle to catch our flight to Bristol. The thrill of beginning the vacation kept me going though and spirits were pretty high as we arrived at the train station.

Naturally, the first order of business upon arrival at the airport was to get breakfast and a coffee =) I sacrificed straightening my hair for and extra 15 mins of sleep so I had to tie it up.

Ok, so I know that while travelling, not everything's going to go your way. You're gonna hit roadblocks and obstacles and you'll have to react and handle them as they arise. However, I didn't expect trouble to smack my face at the very start of the trip while I'm running on empty. So get this, I was so exhausted the night before that in my haste to pack and sleep, I had put my toiletries into my hand luggage. I was totally clueless to this fact and even walked past the security at the departure gate saying "no I have no liquids in my bag". As I was queuing to get to the X-Ray machine though, I suddenly thought "oh s*it!".

Ok, ok, no problem, all I had to do was to open my bag and throw all the liquids away. I mean, all I need to do is just buy more at Newbury right? Problem solved.

WRONG!!!

The lock on my bag decided at this very moment to jam. I was standing there furiously working the dials and typing all numbers I could think of. I could swear both my locks had identical combinations... Yet... What if I was wrong? Man! I opened this bag just 5 minutes ago after breakfast!!! What's the combination!

Of course, Luke's no help at all. All he can say to me is "this is going to look so suspicious to them..."

We inch closer and closer to the X-Ray machine and I get more and more franzied. I begin to think, they have to cut my lock and I have to buy another. What if they can't cut my lock? If they cut my bag and I can't lock it for the whole trip... Nearly brought me to tears.

So I reach the security guard and give the lock up as a lost cause. I say "I'm so sorry, I have a problem. I just realised I left my toiletries in this bag and in my panic, I've forgotten the combination. Is there anyway you can cut my lock?" And the guy goes "we don't have that kind of equipment".

I think I'm totally screwed, I'm not gonna be allowed on the plane, I can't ditch my bag cause all my valuables are in there... I'm screwed... And this does look so suspicious.

The guard then offers a solution - to go check in my bag instead. However, I only had about 15 mins till the flight began boarding (yes yes, should have gone in earlier... Darn). I rushed down, said I needed to check in a second bag and get whacked with a 10 pound charge for it, but there was no other solution so I handed over my money and ran back up.

The queue to the X-Ray was horribly long and I waved my ticket about madly saying "I'm going to be late, so sorry, can I go first, I'm going to be late". A lot of people are naturally cheesed off. I do remember one woman though who started to talk to me... I stopped thinking she was saying how I shouldn't cut in front of her and just look at her desperately. She then repeated herself, and she was telling me to go quickly and I was heartened by her "support".

So I made it to the machine and made it to the plane alright. Phew.

The long day was not over yet though... Upon our arrival at the Bristol train station, we found that we'd missed the straight train to Newbury by a matter of seconds... Meaning that we had to take a much longer route of Bristol to Salisbury, change train, Salibury to Basingstoke, change train, Basingstoke to Reading, change train, then finally Reading to Newbury (where Luke stays). So there I am, on the train, fiddling with my jammed lock in a vain attempt to open it.

In the end, I created a space big enough to squeeze my two zips past and gave up on that lock in disgust.

We were pretty knackered by the time we arrived at Newbury, but were heartened that the long journey was finally at it's end. And yes, the sun in winter sets at 1600, so it was dark by the time we'd arrived.

So anyway, Luke had run off to the bank to settle some financial stuff. He was to return in 10 or so minutes and his grandma was to pick us up. So there Laura and I are sitting on our suitcases chatting when we see this car pull up and an elderly lady emerge. Simultaneously, we go "oh my god, is that his grandma? What do we say to her? Where's Luke?" and I'm like "she's coming, she's coming, she's coming... What do we do...?!?". We sit frozen, staring at each other when she comes up and asks "are you Luke's friends" and we go "yes" and pile into her car waiting for Luke's arrival.

Turns out that she was really nice and friendly, as was his grandpa. Meeting his dad was such a pleasure since he was a real charmer and joker and we immediately felt right at home; promtly demonstrated by the fact that we immediately fell asleep on the couch in Luke's room until dinner.

There's a HUGE television in Luke's living room, great to watch sports and movies on, and we did both in due course.

And Luke's dog - Bomber - was really friendly and cute. He's allowed on one of the couches, not on the leather one, and he promptly demonstrated this by jumping up and joining Laura and I.

We had a good dinner, I particularly remembered avacados in our salad and also pasta, before retiring. It was a long day...

silkstalkings waves