MONDAY, 16 SEPTEMBER 2024

(Oslo, Norway – Home, UK)

The alarm went off at 0745 and we were up and at it. Ok. We weren’t. But we were up not long after 8am, and we headed down to breakfast, before then getting ready for the day. For Andrew that meant classes all morning, starting at 0930 as usual. For me, it mostly meant packing. We didn’t have to check out until 12, but by the time I’d got myself ready, collected all of our items which had become scattered around the room, and condensed them into the suitcase, it was 1045. 

I went downstairs to mingle with people at the coffee break, and chatted with Jamie who had joined for the class. I then went back, finished the packing and checked out of the room. I sat in the foyer and listened to the music wafting through, until the class finished just before 1230, when there were the thank you’s for those involved in organising, teaching or playing. Then it was one final lunch, final farewells, and we made our way back to the train station. 

The express trains to the airport are every ten minutes, and it took about half an hour. Once there, we dropped our luggage and the accordion off, and then made our way though security, which was a very speedy affair, with hardly anyone in front of us. We sat for a while, before deciding we were hungry (yes, again!) and we had dinner at TGI Friday before going to the gate to board our flight.

The plane seemed to be only about two thirds full, we pushed back on time and made our way south west in a level of light haze. We reached our cruising altitude of 38,000 feet, and were served coffee despite some ‘light turbulence’. The pilot left the fasten seatbelt sign off at first before resorting to turning it on, but conditions smoothed out after a while. We started our descent somewhere over the North Sea, and crossed over land with about 25 minutes to go. It was shortly after that, that I spotted the moon rising above the high cloud layer, tinted pink by the setting sun. It was, quite simply, wow.

As we crossed the hills towards Manchester I was struck by just how many reservoirs there are, tucked in amongst them, particularly as they caught the light in the early evening. I then saw ‘our’ reservoirs and home, as we turned final approach to Manchester.

We touched down at 1928 (UK time) and we were soon off the plane, and through passport control where there was no queue, and our luggage was amongst the first bags off the plane a short while later. It has to be said that, particularly in comparison with the ease of use, atmosphere, and uncrowded environment of Oslo airport, Manchester terminal 1 (especially the arrivals area) is grim. Trolleys aren’t free and take a lot of figuring out to simply extract them from the rack, and I can’t imaging how anyone who doesn’t speak English, who is arriving tired off a flight, ever manages to use one.

Still, we eventually got one, placed the accordion on it and found the car at the first attempt in the multi story car park.

Traffic was light and so, just one hour and ten minutes after touching down on the runway, we were reversing onto the drive, having stopped briefly to buy bread and cheese…well, dinner was five hours ago and we’re feeling a bit peckish…!