back in London & being by myself (kind of?)
Today we flew from Dublin back to London, and I’m officially on my own (kind of).
Because we were staying in Newry, which was a solid hour from Dublin, and our flight was at 9:30 this morning, so we left at 5:30, meaning I was awake at 4:45am. 4:45AM?! That’s just wild sorry. I only got probably only 6 hours of sleep last night, honestly I don’t know how people can do that on a regular basis, I’m barely functioning right now and that’s just one night! I felt like a zombie, but somehow we managed to get everything in the car and onto the road.
Weirdly for us, nothing went askew, and I even got a couple minutes of a nap on the way. Around 15 minutes out of Dublin we stopped off to get some more petrol, and found the hire car company drop-off point at the airport no problems. It was a revelation that I (with the help of our lovely Airbnb host Mary) could convince Dad we did not need to be at the airport 3 hours before our flight. Although technically we did, it was an international flight, it really wasn’t. Spoiler alert for the trip, we never even had to go through a passport control. It was treated like flying from Perth to Geraldton, it was a bit hilarious to be honest. We got to the airport and through security and were at our gate all by 9am, plenty of time. I was a bit smug that everything went as smoothly as it did, I swear Dad thinks the world will implode if we’re not at the gate 3 hours early.
Our flight took off no hiccups around here, and I even gave him my window seat for a little nap. These slights make me giggle honestly, by the time we get up to altitude they bring around some tea and coffee then we start the descent. We landed back in London around 11:30, and our bags were pretty much the first off the belt. The minutes were counting down until I was going to be officially on the solo extravaganza of the trip. Dad has some business stuff to get to in the south of England, so he’s not really going home yet, but I won’t see him again until I come home in January. Saying goodbye wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be to be honest, I think it helped that I was heading to stay with our friends that we did last time, so it’s not like I was straight out on my own. Going onto the tube alone was very strange though. Especially because I’ve spent 24 hours a day for a month with Dad, it was odd to just walk out of an airport by myself and get on a tube, I felt like I’d left my little lamb behind all by himself.
The tube was uneventful, I mean I got the right one and got off at the right stop, so I guess that’s something. I did feel pretty proud of myself that I didn’t need to use my google maps to get from the airport back home, I reckon I looked like a proper local and everything.
This afternoon I’ve mainly tried to stay awake to be honest. I’m going to do some washing, which is much needed, and watch the House of the Dragon finale before hopefully getting at least 9 hours of sleep. Although I may have Archie (their dog) visiting me tomorrow morning, so I’ll go to bed early just in case. It’s not like I can’t let him in! We did go down to the local Tesco to get food for dinner, and I’m planning on what to cook for the family over the next couple of days, which I’m really looking forward to. Especially with the next couple of months being really daunting I’m happy that I can have some kitchen-cooking therapy, it’ll be nice and relaxing to have some chill time in the kitchen. I also feel like it’s the least I can do. I’m staying with our friends for 10 days in London completely without paying for anything, so I definitely want to chip in any way I can.
So right now I guess is my first day officially solo? Doesn’t really seem like it quite yet, but on paper it seems so. At the moment it feels fine, I think because really I’m not quite alone, we’ll see how we go later on, but right now I’m looking forward to exploring some more of London and getting out and about to some new places in England!
Can’t guarantee I’ll be posting everyday like I have been recently, now I’ll be in the same place for a little while I’ll hopefully be able to do some boring, mundane normal people things, so there might be days where there isn’t anything much to write about. There’ll be updates when there’s updates to give!
Currently MIA,
Lauren x
