Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

One of the longer days I've ever experienced, but didn't manage to find time to do a session in its 34 hours (at high latitudes you can cross a lot of time zones in not that many hours of flying). Travel day Helsinki-London-Vancouver. Might have thought about doing something with my 5 hours in London had I had anywhere to leave my bag, but I didn't (instead, thinking I probably didn't have time to get right into the city and back without pushing it, I decided to pick a random Underground station and look for somewhere to have lunch; slightly to my disappointment, I found what must be the only Underground station in suburban London which doesn't have an Indian place within easy walking distance). First part of the morning was devoted to catching up with an atmospheric scientist who used to be at Monash but is now in Helsinki; since Helsinki doesn't do early Sunday morning cafes the way Melbourne does, this was a picnic breakfast in the somewhat unglamorous setting of a bus shelter (it was raining), but the company was good.

The travel itself didn't go too badly, although we were about 40 minutes late on the Vancouver leg. Lots of cloud but caught just enough glimpses of Greenland, Iceland and Baffin Island to keep me satisfied. England is definitely the green brown and pleasant land at the moment; perhaps the most striking from the air are the cricket grounds where the pitch is lush green (even the most minor of grounds will have a turf pitch - often not a very good one from my experience) and everything off the pitch is bone-dry.

Was wondering if I might have some issues with British immigration not believing I was only going to enter the country for a couple of hours, but when I told the person I just wanted to get out of the airport for a couple of hours he said "I don't blame you". I had been looking forward to seeing the weekend British papers in the lounge, but someone must have done an exclusive deal because the only ones to be found were News Limited publications. (News seem to like doing this sort of deal, which may explain why Sky News have spent the week throwing their toys out of the cot over being kicked off the screens at Melbourne Central).