My mother arrives

[ailbhe]

My mother arrived today.

I left the house to meet her at 10 am. Rob left with me, to spend the day in the office in London. I got a train at 10:34 or thereabouts, and arrived in Gatwick Airport a full hour before her plane was due to arrive.

So I ate brunch and wandered around a bit and had a slight, ah, well, I had an interaction with an incompetent coffee-counter-droid who was rude to the other staff as well as to his customers. I've been a coffee-counter-droid; it's not hard to pretend to be polite and friendly.

So I had an Earl Grey tea and a pice of bad shortbread and waited some more. By the time it was 20 minutes 'til my mother was due to arrive, I was standing at the arrivals gate hopping up and down on my toes. I strongly suspect that people thought I was there to meet a boyfriend. Perhaps I'm not giving hoi polloi enough credit. Perhaps too much.

She arrived more or less on time, and we found the train and faffed about a bit and got some tea before travelling back to Reading. Then we came home via the bank where I paid the mortgage.

That was about it. We had a very pleasant evening and eventually Rob came home and we ate. Then we sent her to bed and suddenly remembered that she had to open her birthday present. She liked it.

And that reminds me - Rob's aunt's father died. His uncle's wife's father, I mean. I'm saddened by this because I met the man and he was lovely to me. I met him only last summer. I'm happy about my mother and sad about my aunt-in-law-twice-over's father.