From the last until now

The train trip back to London turned out to be more interesting than expected.  I was wandering up and down the train trying to find my car, following a couple who were doing the same.  We were all trying to find car L, which it turned out had been combined into car M, much to everyone's confusion.  While we were all trying to find whether our prebooked seats still existed, one of the attendants turned to the man who had also been looking for the car, and in a rather loud Scottish accent said "oh, I loved you in Hairspray !".  Poor Michael Ball was terribly embarrassed at having been recognised, so I didn't bother him for an autograph.  Some of you will know who that is.  For those of you who don't, I won't bother with any more detail :)  Suffice to say it was kind of surreal having someone sitting facing me on the train who was the definitive Marius from Les Miserables, etc etc.

Almost to London we stopped and were informed that there had been a serious security incident at Kings Cross station, that the station had been evacuated and that all traffic north of the city had been stopped until further notice.  I had begun to think my luck had run out, delay wise, but was grateful that if something like that was going to happen, at least I was miles away, safely on a train out in the open.  As it turned out it was a false alarm caused by a piece of unattended luggage.  Within 30 minutes or so they had us on our way once more.

From that point on everything went smoothly.  I managed to find my way to the right bus to get me back out to Oxford and Owen's place for the night.  Both he and I had somehow managed to get over our bad moods and actually seemed to have quite a nice 36-ish hour visit.

To help fill my last day while Owen continued his exam preparation I went to see "The King's Speech".  Rather a nice little flick I thought.  Well worth seeing.  Some great performances and a very interesting story.  Also had a wander through the marketplace and found some interesting little photos that simply wouldn't be found at home.

Quick warning... if you are squeamish about where meat comes from, perhaps best not to look too closely at the first one !

• Strange there should be a collection like this in Oxford, after I got back from Scotland

• This was just too cute and random not to capture and publish

Managed to get myself in to Heathrow way too early, once more caught without internet access.  Tedious places airports.  As it turned out, despite my misgivings about Montreal, I think it was a far nicer airport in the end than Heathrow.  Even the much praised terminal 5 is really nothing special.  Way too small for the sheer volume of people involved.

So here I am, in a hotel room near JFK airport.  Somehow I had the presence of mind to apply for free "Best Western" rewards membership when I made the booking, which entitles me to complementary late check out.  My flight doesn't leave until 6:30 tomorrow night, and there really isn't time to get in to the city and back and do anything meaningful.

Very much looking forward to getting home, but now that my cold is pretty much gone I seem to have lost the miserable, cranky, impatient mood.  Just quietly getting on with it now.  I'm sure I'll have more of a summary when I get home.  Right now I think it's probably time to start winding down to sleep.