Den Haag; Monday, 28 October, 2013

At an unreasonable hour I got up to head over to the airport, with the wind rattling round the hotel even more than it had been the previous evening.

The bus, struggling at times against cross winds, headed back to the airport and there I found quite how good idea it had been to stay at the airport overnight as the winds had brought the Dutch rail system to a grinding halt, with no trains running through the airport. If I’d stayed in Den Haag, I would have been stranded.

Instead, 2 hours later I found myself sitting on a plane that was rocking heavily on the tarmac with every gust of wind. After a 40 minute wait for air traffic to spot a gap in the winds we pushed back from the gate, pretty much straight onto the runway, and headed off towards Gatwick.

With the winds still battering Southern England it was a very bumpy landing into Gatwick, but in the end only about an hour behind schedule, and for once my bag was already going round on the carousel when I got to baggage reclaim, which could only mean one thing – the trains would be in a horrible state.

45 minutes later I finally pulled out of Gatwick on a surprisingly empty train heading back towards Croydon and work.