today we leave Sevenoaks. so far so good.
Our last breakfast at the Dorrington, cooked English, delicious.
We pack up and leave. Easy.
The GPS shows an hour and ten to the next hotel. We have plenty of time.
Here's our plan: Drive straight to the next (and final) hotel. Leave our bags at the hotel. Then drop off the hire car.
Unencumbered, get back to the hotel. Check in. Relax.
It's a good plan.
Deb misses a turn, we have to circle a roundabout and go back five km. Well, that's what Deb tells me, I don't notice the backtrack.
Nearly all of the drive is on a motorway, the M25. Google maps shows a lot of the M25 as red, congested.
Yes, it is congested.
Traffic still moves along. Lane changes are a challenge, not many gaps between cars. Not to worry, Deb does well.
But it's slow.
after an hour or two, we take a break in a services area.
We share a Krispy creme thing. Deb rather likes it. It's a disgustingly sweet bit of sticky fluff. We also share a very weak coffee.
Mostly, we are stopped for the toilets. So many of them! There's a wall with perhaps twenty urinals. Deb reports plenty of stalls. crowded but clean.
Just as well we stopped. The motorway is still very slow -- and we need to watch signs, to make sure we get to Heathrow. Not a time when we want a driver needing a toilet.
The car GPS gets us to the airport, then I take over navigation, the car does not know the hotel. Watching Google maps on my phone and telling Deb where to go.
Occasionally holding up my phone so that Deb can see a tricky bit.
Deb can't watch the phone all the time, she has to watch the road.
The car speaks directions but not clearly enough for this area.
Surprisingly... we get right to the door of the hotel.
Well, it's a door, no reception in sight.
We unload the bags. I stand with them and send Deb inside to find reception. No use me going in, I'd probably not find reception. Or not find the car again.
A few days ago we parked the car at a, walked to b and back to village a,I could not have found the car.
When I walk I have to look very carefully as i walk away, or i will get lost coming back. that's why i get lost in toilets, i can't recognise the door that i came in by. Bit of a nuisance, really :-)
It's an awful drive but we do find the hotel...
Heathrow, Hilton, Garden Inn.
Instead of an hour ten, the drive had taken two hours twenty. But we have made it :-)
we're still early for a3pm check in -- but our room is ready.
we are checked in.
We take our bags to our room.
With great difficulty.
I claim some glory, I'm the one to spot why the lift will not work, we have to wave our electronic key at a security thing.
And now, we are in our room!
For just five minutes. then we go downstairs again. We have to return the car.
According to google, it's a five minute drive. Perhaps. We don't have an exact address to car return.
After a few minutes getting nowhere,
Deb phones budget, they provide a six character code that gets us, with only a little difficulty, to the car return.
I'm not sure if the code is from Google or more general. it's unique to a location but not as exact as an address.
it works.
we return the car.
Our plan was, we could walk back to the hotel. it's not far. We have no luggage to carry.
Google shows... no way to walk.
there's a shuttle bus back to terminal 3. the driver takes us a little bit further, to within sight of our hotel.
Now, back to our room. phew!
Tomorrow, we depart from T3. I chose this hotel because it is "at T3" So, tomorrow, we are as good as there.
Not.
Rather than relax, we decide to find the way from hotel to T3. And get some lunch.
Deb goes to the front desk to get directions.
Twenty minutes later, we return to the front desk and ask for directions.
The way to T3 leads through carparks. along travelators. up lifts, down escalators, vice versa, along many corridors.
All amongst hordes of other people.
I have learnt to hate the sound of people rushing by while dragging a suitcase with its noisy little wheels.
But... at least we are not carrying luggage while we scout the way.
From hotel to T3 flight check in point takes us 45 minutes. This from a hotel which is "at T3".
Anyway. We eat, we drink, we go back... going back still takes 25 minutes.
Tomorrow we will allow at least an hour to get to T3.
We've had enough. We buy extra sandwiches. We eat them in our room and that is dinner.
.
my mobile phone has roaming, so i can use it overseas. probably expensive but so is a holiday.
i don't use my phone for much.
navigation while driving and some geocaching.
Deb buys a month of uk Sim, so her phone works here. mostly used for allTrails walks. the Sim expires tomorrow, good timing.
For most purposes, we use hotel wifi.
one hotel wifi has one of those complex passwords that are the height of security.
several passwords are simple, based on the hotel name.
one password is 12345678
several are unsecured, no password.
every hotel provides free wifi. most are as fast as we need.
And if we are away from the hotel, and desperate, we use my phone.
Tomorrow, we start for home.
We leave from T3... LHR, arrived at T3... PER... fifteen minutes earlier, but the next day.
Today is awful -- for the driver. Okay for the passenger.
neither of us enjoy the search for T3
now, we relax.
.
-- Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
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If everyone is thinking the same way, then someone is not thinking.
