Bugger.

Had my laptop bag stolen in Sweden. :(

Really bad news. The insurance will cover the costs, but it's the shear hassle of having to replace everything. On the plus side it means I can upgrade some of my stuff. I've had my eye on a universal travel adaptor for a while, which could do aircraft, laptop etc... looks like I can get one now.

Should have a replacement laptop by Friday.

Fear of Flying and a Busy Life...

My schedule through to Eastercon is a nightmare, even by my standards. I've been feeling progressively less comfortable with flying - not sure why. The flight is fine, landing is generally fine, I can take bad turbulance in flight with no issue. Take off, for some reason, I'm less comfortable with.

My sister suggested a short hypnotherapy course to deal with this before it becomes an issue. I might consider that. It's certainly highly irrational... on the other hand...

Flying back last night, we managed to get shifted to an earlier flight. It's the first flight I've had to do for ages without a book, laptop or iPod to distract me. Which was annoying. So I spent more time than usual looking out of the window.

You can imagine my surprise when, as we descended from the holding stack over East London, I saw the belly of another aircraft off our port wing, a few hundred metres away from us and pulling a tight turn. It ended up on a course 90 degrees to us and decending. Not fun, and judging from the angle the other plane was at, even less fun to be on that one.

Almost as much fun as a few weeks ago where I mentioned to the flight crew that we'd just passed another aircraft with an engine fire.

MoreTravel Hell...

One for the frequent flyers...

BAA seem to have lost the plot. I turned up at T4 for my flight to Copenhagen, I had 2 and half hours plus to kill.

I had boarding card, I wandered up to the security point, where I noticed that there was a lengthy queue out into the terminal. I walked passed a rather scary looking barrier with people queuing outside, and asked where the queue started.

It was OUTSIDE in a tent. Over an hour to get to the queue INSIDE the terminal building.

Apparently next week will be worse.

According to the BAA staff, they've increased the security alert, but not the staff numbers. Go figure.