John Edward Cooper’s Notes
Wednesday 3 February 2016
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[2016] [Tuesday 2 February 2016] 17:30 (2 Feb)–07:00 TOM165 Jamaica, Sangster Intl Airport–Manchester Airport 08:55–11:49 Manchester Airport–Cleethorpes It was announced that the temperature at Manchester Airport was a mere 1°C. We emerged through a bank of low cloud over the cityscape and landed ca.7.15am. The egress “tube” was brought to the door near our location, so we were among the first off. It didn’t feel excessively cold when I stepped off the plane. There was a needless interminable-seeming zig-zagging “snake” of tape-barriers-between-stanchions to the automatic passport scanners. The scanner I entered let me through straight away, but Janet was trying to make hers recognise her for quite a long time. The baggage-claim carousel started up almost as soon as we got to it, and our three pieces of luggage arrived fairly quickly. Thence, via the transparent “Nothing to Declare” barrier-doors, along the long, tubular pier, to the railway station.… I don’t normally willingly complete questionnaires, but when a fellow asked me to participate in respect of the journey we were about to undertake I agreed to do so because I thought I’d then be able to comment on the inadequate luggage space we always encounter on this journey. That’s always a source of anxiety before the return journey. When we boarded, I managed to get our two large cases on the luggage rack, but despite there being another rack at the rear of the coach there were still cases that had to be left in the space in front of the doors. A Japanese-looking guy was struggling to lift his case onto the higher level of the rack above our cases, so I gave him a hand. There were no seat-reservation tickets in the seat-backs. The seats whose numbers matched those on our reservation ticket proved to be table seats, which we didn’t want, so we chose other, aircraft-style seats. There were seats to spare when we departed. The train filled up at Manchester Piccadilly and subsequent stations, but had pretty much emptied by the time we got to Grimsby. No-one got on with reservations that challenged our sitting in the seats we’d chosen. There was a dusting of snow on some of the hills between Stockport and Sheffield. We alighted at Grimsby Town because of the ease of getting a taxi from there. We arrived back home just before midday.… [2016] |
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