Puctuality is overrated...

I am finally in Swansea after a crazy two days of travel, I'm also attempting to type on a British keyboard, so you'll have to forgive any major typos!

This picture is the first in a series I am titling, "Flat Family" after the beloved children's book Flat Stanley. This is Flat Beverly finishing her breakfast Tuesday morning in the Jackson airport...I know, I know, she eats alot!

After bumming around the Jackson airport for a couple hours with Mary and Momma, I finally boarded my flight to Atlanta. This was after taking numerous "Flat Family" pictures and discussing the mini Civil Rights museum that is located off to the side of the Delta check-in desks. That flight had been delayed over thirty minutes due to rain showers in Kentucky...that was only the first in a loooong series of delays.

I made it to Hotlanta with plenty of time to spare or I thought I did. In actuality they changed my gate number...after I had already gone to the original gate. My original gate was in a hidden section of the airport, behind the food court which I had no idea even existed. Back there are the "quarantine gates", the ones where you have to enter a glass box to wait for your flight and you aren't allowed to leave it once you enter. Way sketch. Thankfully that gate was reserved for flights to Rome, I unfortunately was not going to ROME! So I had to wander around the concourse and talk to several people before discovering where my flight had been moved to.

We boarded the flight from Atlanta to Gatwick on time, early even...but that was just a tease. We in fact sat on the tarmac for over an hour....AN HOUR! So that they could medically evacuate at least seven people. I have no idea what happened to all those people. I do know that the woman next to me, across the aisle, twisted her ankle and had to get off the plane to seek medical attention which they forced on her. While this was happening, the British man next to me offered to fight me for her vacated seat. It wasn't worth five quid so I told him he could have it, he repayed me by accusing me of pushing the poor old lady down! It wasn't even my seat! I switched with someone...I really think he pushed her, he was vicious about claiming that seat...but otherwise a nice guy. Once in the air, everything was fine and we managed to make it to Gatwick only about half an hour behind schedule.

Gatwick had my luggage (yay!) and also the meanest customs agents ever. She was trying to trick me by asking the same questions over and over...by the time we were finished I had no idea which way was up or if they were letting me in the country. It never gets any easier.

I was nervous about the train rides, but that went fairly well. My first train was apparently the only one working, the two before it had either broken or had a sick passenger...so that meant we picked up extra stops adding about twenty minutes to our arrival time. I got to Reading Station, exhausted and barely coherent and had to stand in the cold rain that had begun to fall at some point during the journey. I had to stand in front of a tiny computer screen shivering until they posted the platform my final train would leave from. Once I had that info and had safely boarded my last train, I thought I was done with delays. I was so wrong. I sat in the "quiet carriage" of this super long train which only had like six people in it, all of whom were working on laptops or reading important files, I just curled up and went to sleep. I only woke up when the train simply stopped on the tracks, I have no idea why, but it delayed us exactly twenty-three minutes. I know this because Siusan was keeping track of it for me and when I finally showed up in Swansea she wanted to know where in the world I had been. I told her...where hadn't I been?

So now I'm in Swansea. I won't bore you with the details of my afternoon, just know that Ms.Faye is doing very well and stinky Missy has already ripped the nose off of one of the toys I brought her. I'm going to meet with Brian, the pastor at Parklands early next week to make plans for the summer, so I have the rest of this week to recover from the travel. Siusan is forcing me to stay awake until 9 or 10:00, "for my own good". Sigh, we'll see.