travelling, sitting, waiting

It's been a long day. I've been rushing and sitting and waiting all day! I left home at 07.30 and got to the hospital at 17.00 just in time to speak to Mum's doctor before he left, not only for the day but for Atlanta, where he is going for a bit of training. I had a brownie from Costa Coffee at Birmingham airport with my coffee, water, then at Hamburg Central station, a multigrain baguette with cheese and cucumber, by this time it was 3pm. Oh, and I had an apple (one of our own of course) in the car on my way to the airport. After seeing the doctor I went to see Mum who was pleased to see me. She's looking well, you wouldn't know how ill she is by looking at her. The nurses took pity on me and got me a couple of slices of bread and cheese for tea. So I'm not hungry as such, I just feel like I haven't been eating very sensibly all day. And there is nothing sensible to eat quickly here either but I have found a bottle of white Franken wine. It's quite nice. Oh, I forgot about the Ritter Sport dark chocolate at the station while waiting for the train. I missed the ICE fast train because I was misdirected when I asked where to buy tickets from and ended up in the wrong queue. Next time I'll just go straight to the train and buy one from the ticket collector.

This is the third time I've been here since Mum's stroke 5 weeks ago. I've tried Ryanair, Luftansa and Flybe. Ryanair are the only airline to fly straight to Bremen from the UK on a regular basis, but I would rather not fly with them EVER AGAIN. Lufthansa means changing at Frankfurt or Munich which could include some speed walking across terminals but one is treated like a human, it does cost more and take longer but otherwise quite pleasant. Flybe was direct to Hamburg from Birmingham, so shorter drive UK end, but 2 trains & taxi required this end. Probably as long as Lufthansa, door to door. Cute little plane and polite staff. Probably cheaper than Lufthansa until you add train fares, so will use again. But travelling these days is not as nice as it used to be, what with all the security we have to go through and all the extra time waiting, queueing etc. A necessary evil.

Tomorrow starts with a chat with the neurologist before moving Mum to a short term nursing care home.