The Anonymous Widower

Welcome to the United Kingdom

If I thought Gatwick was a disgrace going out, it was only because I hadn’t tried it going in.

It was like entering a building site and it was a long walk to passport control, which seemed to have been set up by vaguely clearing an area of the site. I’ve seen better facilities in countries that are very much less wealthy than the UK.

There was no signage to the trains and yet again trains south of the Thames were very badly organised.  It appeared that I needed to go to Platform 1, but after getting to the platform and finding one of the invisible staff, he said I needed Platform 4 for London Bridge.

To be fair the train arrived on time and there was a 141 bus waiting to take me home.

If you compare Gatwick to St. Pancras, it’s like comparing a twenty-year-old Skoda with a modern Jaguar.

It’s the last time, I’ll use that dump.

March 31, 2011 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , | 2 Comments

Why Does Anybody Use Gatwick?

To get to Athens, I used the 9:00 easyJet flight out of Gatwick. It was a mistake in that to get this flight I needed to leave home about seven to get the train to the airport. For a similar flight to Heathrow or Stansted, it would have been a little bit later.

To make matters worse no-one seemed to be able to tell me what ticket I needed, as of course I can get to the Zone 6 Boundary on my Freedom Pass. As also finding the right platform at London Bridge or Victoria is a nightmare, I decided to take Thameslink from St. Pancras. In theory it should have worked well, but because of the miles you have to walk in the tunnels at King’s Cross, I missed one train and had to wait twenty minutes. I suspect the designer of the new King’s Cross was some sort of sadist, as although it may have more capacity, it defintely puts you off changing trains at the station. I had hoped to catch a 56 to City Thameslink from home, but they had gone missing.

And then of course the train was delayed coming into London Bridge, so I got to Gatwick a few minutes late.

I checked in reasonably quickly and security wasn’t too bad.  But if I’d had to take my shoes or belt off, I’d have thought seriously about abandoning flying again.  I was only carrying one back-pack and I wouldn’t with anything more.

I was fairly late for the gate and it was queues and no seating, when I got through the last check. 

But we did get away from Gatwick just a few minutes late.

Let’s face it, if I fly again, I’m not going out of Gatwick.

March 23, 2011 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , , | 6 Comments

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