We arrived in London without any sleep. I do have a small complaint about their in-flight entertainment system which appeared to put films on a loop. I watched About Schmidt (not a bad film) which was 2 hours long. Everything else was about one and a half hours which meant that they'd restarted by the time About Schmidt had finished. Grrr.
Stepping out beyond baggage claim it suddenly strikes you that Heathrow is an overcrowded, unspacious, dirty airport. Yuk. We headed out on the Picadilly Line to King's Cross where we'd separate. Helen to her parent's in Reading and myself oop north to see my sister and nephews.
This is the end of the line for Helen and I on our travels. There's no easy way to describe it but our relationship hasn't worked, we're not meant to be and it's time to go our separate ways. No bitterness just happiness that we've had a fantastic trip. We've seen the world together (well, not really but it feels like most of it) which is a bit more than most. You can't argue with that.
London Underground wasn't making life easy though by having closed all the tube lines running parallel to the north section of the Circle Line. This meant Helen had to retrace her way back down the Picadilly Line then along the Bakerloo Line to Padders and onto Reading.
I was onto the £80 train to Newcastle (a 5% increase since I left Newcastle in September the day before the boys were born). A dirty train, puddles of urine in the toilets. This must be Britain. I did finally see the Angel of the North. Whilst scanning the horizon for a gravity defying coastline dominating mother of all statues I saw it nestling under a couple of tower blocks. How disappointing.
David and Sam are a cracking pair of lads showing no evidence of being through the wars. 
Copyright 2003 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.