Monday 27th July. Hometime.
The last day of any sort of holiday is always depressing, regardless of whether you want to come home (as in this case) or not. Mainly because it means work in the morning. But also because it takes ages to get back.
We said bye to our hippodrome setting with a bizarre breakfast selection of lasagne and pasta, which was meant to set us up for the day. It didn’t. But anyway.
France decided it would acclimatise us to the British weather by itself being dull and cloudy, and so as we left Toulouse, it was as if we were back in Nottingham already. We made the final walk to Arenes metro station (aren’t they a band?) and found our way to Toulouse train station.
We waited for our ridiculously long train at the correct spot on the platform, and hopped on. We were sat there for at least half an hour wondering what the hell was going on, as we weren’t moving, and by admittance, my French isn’t what it used to be. Eventually, we set off, and got to Carcassonne just in time.
On the way to the bus, we met a girl from Newcastle, who was hoping she wasn’t going to miss the bus we thought we might miss. She had been to stay at her friends chateaux in Toulouse having been to the benicasim festival a few weeks earlier. Not bad.
We got to the airport (I use the term airport loosely, it might as well have been a shed), and passed some time by chucking about the ridiculously addictive mini-Widnes rugby ball I have (a snip at £2.99 in the Widnes club shop, by the way).
Time passed and we joined a long queue to board our delayed flight back to East Midlands. Some middle-aged man was moaning his arse off because four people pushed in, yet he didn’t have the balls to confront them. Instead he said it out loud just soft enough so they couldn’t here, and then insisted his wife tried to barge past them with their buggy. Nice one mate. You’d think the plane would take off without him.
Much of the plane journey involved me worrying that our away game with Barrow is going to be re-arranged for a Thursday night, which would mean me missing it (as it clashes with my 21st birthday party). That would really annoy me, considering I’ve not missed a minute of Widnes action this season!
So at 5.30, some 87 hours after I left my house for the journey, I returned.
That’s one hell of a trip for one away game.
Bring on next year!
