They're off

We slept the night in a hotel in Elstree, sharing it with folks from the audience at Strictly. 

Then, after a leisurely breakfast, we took a trip to Sainsbury's in Watford to do some last minute shopping.  Then down to Heathrow, where we bid au revoir to U and S, before driving back to Stansted.  We've got a night in a hotel here and parking for a week.  They have charge points for electric cars, but this afternoon we found them both to be "ICED" - that is, the parking spaces occupied by cars with Internal Combustion Engines, thus rendering them inaccessible to those of us with electric cars.  We managed to get access to one point, parking skew, but it only had a normal 13 amp socket.  We managed about 3 hours charging with a "granny" cable (very slow) - but at least we now have enough battery capacity to get home.

After a large gin, and a large glass of wine, we've repacked our suitcases to accommodate the last minute buys.  Tomorrow we fly out early to visit the daughters and grandsons.