My father always arrives at the airport a good 3 hours before the scheduled depature time; something that my family pokes fun at.
Thursday evening, standing on the platform at Victoria station, waiting for my train to arrive to take me to Gatwick Airport, I thought to myself 'hey, dad isn't totally insane for wanting to get to the airport stupidly early...'
This epiphany came about as I waited for the 18.15 train that never arrived, then scrambled into the 18.30 train that pulled up five minutes late, sat in the crowded train for another 10 minutes waiting nervously for it to actually depart.
Twenty minutes later, when the train was moving at a heart-wrenchly snail's pace, I realised that my father was brilliant for always getting to the airport early and I was a foolish child for thinking that an hour and a half was ample time.
Ten minutes after that I was frantically trying to find alternative flights to Geneva on my blackberry, still sitting on the slow moving train.
About five minutes after that I nearly started crying when the conductor came on and announced that we'd be making another stop before getting to Gatwick.
Finally got to the airport, me and J armed ourselves with our suitcases as battering rams as we literally sprinted up the stairs, out to the bus to take us to North terminal, begged the driver to leave immediately, ran to security.
Got through security, didn't bother putting my boots back on, just ran with coat and boots in one hand, suitcase in the other hand and passport in mouth.
Of course the gate was the furthest possible frigging one from security, and involved running up not one but two escalators. Finally got to the gate ready to throw up, only to find that the flight was delayed, but of course they hadn't gotten around to updating the board...
At that point I was ready to not only throw up from sheer exhaustion, but had somehow sustained a wrist injury from hauling my heavy suitcase around the terminal.
But we made it there...and the trip to Gatwick would only be a taste of things to come
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