Gatwick, the other London airport

I thought that flying directly from Atlanta to Gatwick was a fabulous idea. Don't let anyone tell you Gatwick is in London the way Heathrow is in London. Gatwick is out in the middle of nowhere. I didn't discover this until I explained to Linda, my cousin with whom I had reserved a free bed that I would be arriving in London via Gatwick.

I started researching options for traveling from Gatwick to my cousin's house. A cab from Gatwick was way out of my budget. Linda suggested I take the Gatwick Express train to Victoria and then ride the tube or take a cab from Victoria to her house. It started sounding rather complicated but I 'm talented at denial or is that optimism?

In an effort to rationalize why it was good I was flying into Gatwick, I decided Gatwick would be faster to get through than than the sprawling Heathrow. After all it's smaller and out in the suburbs, right? The last time I'd been through Heathrow, it had seemed to take forever and that was before the 9/11 travesty occurred.

Well, Gatwick is smaller and Gatwick is out there. But getting through security checkpoint and customs at Gatwick took over two hours and even though it was October it was a blistering 90 degrees F in the airport.

We foreigners were told to queue up one way and then another airport representative came and had us reshape our queue so I ended up losing my spot. The Gatwick personnel didn't seem to understand the unwritten rules regarding line or queue breakers.

There were hundreds of us and the line wasn't moving for over an hour. They had us queued up in Texas cattle corral formation and when the line finally began moving, I spotted the infamous 60something Atlanta trio and thereafter every 100 feet or so that we we inched along I met them again. We weren't the only people fanning ourselves. It was unbearably hot there. I was ploughing through Gatwick with a huge peice of brand new luggage from Proffits (or was it Macy's?) that was jam packed with as much clothing as I could stuff into it plus my carry-on, my laptop computer and my purse. Being a packrat ensures an automatic talent for getting more things into compartments than other less evolved humans. My point is that I was carrying a huge load. Did I mention I was insane enough to be wearing new shoes and had a sprained ankle?

After paying £14 for a train ticket for the privelege of a ride to Victoria station, I had originally planned to take the tube to my cousin's house but I had been traveling for well over 12 hours and was exhausted and took a cab. The cabbie had trouble understanding American even though all I was trying to translate from American to real English was my cousin's address.

It was four hours after I was expected that Linda finally opened the door to my knocking. I had never been so glad to see a relative in all my life. Funny thing about it is that we hadn't seen each other in 26 years since our grandfather's funeral. Linda is a year younger than me. When we were growing up in the 60's and 70's, her family would visit ours every summer. Her mother is my father's younger sister. Linda's sister Donna is a year older than I am. All those summers the three of us spent together must have counted for something because as Linda welcomed me into her home, the years fell away and our relationship fell into the comfortable realm it always had, affectionate and humorous.

Linda told me she had begun to worry about me. She tried my mobile phone but I never heard it go off which is very usual for me. I explained the problems I encountered at Gatwick.

Even though it was October, London was warmer than Atlanta was when I left. I was wearing autumn attire and all I wanted was to take a shower and fall into a bed for an hour or two nap.

That's my cousin Linda and her son Daniel at the top. I was trying to figure out how to get the picture somewhere down here but I'm too lazy to worry about it. Just remembering the Gatwick experience, I'm forced to admit that fatigue has conquered my intention of working on my belated travel diary and so I'm going to bed.

A Trio of 60somethings at the Atlanta airport

Right after establishing my blogspot, I left the country for most of October.

Jim drove me to the Atlanta Airport. The drive from Birmingham was excruciatingly tedious because all the way through Atlanta we kept getting stuck behind FEMA's houses on wheels on their way to Mississippi and New Orleans.

I got to the British Airways gate after going through the cattle corral, ehrm, I mean, the security checkpoints at Atlanta's International Airport. I deposited all of my accoutrements (laptop plus carry-on and purse) on the seat next to me. I was early enough that very few seats were filled in the gate area but 15 minutes after settling in and beginning to peruse my mother's journal of childhood memories, a small troop of retired Atlanta ladies surrounded me. They were wearing tour badges that would identify them to their guides and to each other. The three ladies were somewhere in that nether region of age that is impossible to pinpoint but they reminded me of my mother and Aunt Eleanor. Their obvious excitement about the trip was contagious and they were fun.

They engaged me in conversation and we became quick friends the way only southern women can. When they went purse diving looking for change for one of the ladies to call her daughter from the pay phone I offered her the use of my mobile since I have free roaming and long distance. The lady let her daughter know she was safely delivered at the airport and then had to explain why she was calling from a Birmingham number. Then another one of the ladies liked the novelty of using my mobile and called her son and so of course the other lady did the same.

I was enjoying the trio and even showed them photos of my cats when they started talking about their cats. They liked that I had photos of my cats on my phone. Yeah, I know, having your cats' pictures in my mobile phone practically sentences me to spinsterhood but I'll have you know I'm married (for the second time) so there. Anyway, back to my story. Just when the BA folks started calling rows to board, the jolly lady sitting to my left leaned over to whisper in my ear, "I was as scared as a negro at an election..." as a footnote to the just ended discussion regarding the first time she flew. Then they were gone and though I caught a glimpse of them at the Gatwick security corral, I never saw them again.

1978 Hobbit Desk Calendar

The passion with which one feels things in youth never really leaves us, we just learn to suppress the yearning, disappointment and bliss in an effort to repel the inevitable pain that is left in the wake of time's regardless passage.

Traveling backwards down through time and visiting my own past has as usual, been both painful and giddy. Painful because the vague air of trauma that clings to certain memories and giddy for the passion that hails from my heart long ago.

Thanks, Rusty.

I used to know you

There was a time when I could sense your mood, read your thoughts by the bend of your neck or the way you held your pen. Touch you and your living pulse excited something in me. I knew you. I never doubted you. Your dreams held my hopes and all was right with the world.

What happened? There are no more dreams and my hopes are dashed. I can't see you anymore. Your face is hidden in shadow. Who are you? I whisper in the dark hours alone, haunting mirrors for a glimpse. Hoping for a clue.

Crazy right wing people at Estate sales

Of all places. We ran into Ken Weezel as he so proudly calls himself at an estate sale this afternoon. Jim and I were trying to keep him onto subjects that were neutral....like gadgets and radios. It worked for a short period of time. Ken loves to give advice in a godfather sort of way, expecting you to do something for him in return. But then someone else came up and Ken started into his wreckless and demeaning dribble about politics. He is the first person I've met who actually believes that FEMA's Brown did a good job (well okay, besides the president, ala "good job Brownie"). Ken is a social darwinist though and his bottom line take on things is that the people who couldn't get out of New Orleans and Mississippi and died are only demonstrating his idea of attrition. All this I heard in a matter of minutes today. He went on though....regarding Iraq, we ought to just "nuke 'em", keep fighting all the muslims until they are all dead. For him that is the ideal attrition. My only excuse for him is that he insane. Jim and I try to avoid him when he becomes a maniac and works himself into a frenzy. He is loud and obnoxious and I can barely stand to be around him. His words just serve to remind me that there are others like him out there. He thinks we should send more troops over to the Middle East. He's never been in the military or volunteered for the U.S. but he thinks that it's okay for my sons to go and die in the desert so he can have more oil for the generators he is stockpiling.

I guess that is why I am living in a great big fat red state when I'm a blue person. We need more blue people down here in Alabama.