Tonight I flew back from Venice. I had a pleasant day meandering around , mainly sitting on water buses riding up and down . Not only does this give your feet a rest, but provides a kalidescope of touristic views as we sail along. I find this particularly exciting as there are photographic moments to be grabbed rather than pondered. I don't really do pondered, it doesn't fit in with 'restless and pacing'.  The key to a sucessful trip on a waterbus (touristically) is to go to the end of the route and wait until you can be first onto the boat, then you can sit in one of the 7 outdoor seats at the back (or on some boats there also some at the front). Sometimes I wear my mp3 player and listen to encouraging songs (particularly enjoyed the White Stripes new cd, along with many of the bands I rave about on this blog), sometimes I listen to the fellow passengers, many of whom are tourists and have strange tales to tell. The locals may also have strange and interesting tales to tell but I don't have any italian so I have to rely on the english speakers for my tit-bits. Sad to say nothing I heard was strange or interesting enough to find its way into this blog.

This riding up and down has left me with a red forehead; normally a little sun would not effect me so badly, but this english summer has been so poor my skin has not aclimatised to the summer sun yet. Fortunately I am not struck down, but have the mildist of discomfort by the end of the day.

Having planned to catch a suitable waterbus to the airport for my flight I  arrive nicely at the ticket office. The ticket-seller then tries to sell me a ticket for a fast bus to the airport at  €25, rather than the slow bus at €12. As I had made my plans on the bus taking 1hr 20mins, catching the fast bus would have been completely pointless and just left me hanging round even longer at the airport. So I didn't.

Ok so that was more detail than you wanted, but do read on, my point will become less obscure. Check-in and security were unexceptional. Strangely the airport cafe was the only place that I came across in my stay which complied with my guidebook's guidance on buying things in a cafe. First you go to the till and pay for what you want, then you take the till receipt to the serving person. In my case I had to take it to the sandwich person on one side of the till then on to the capacchino person on the other side of the till. The man in front of me got something completely different to what he wanted as he couldn't point at what he wanted and the till-person just interpreted 'sandwich' into a particular sandwich of her choice. I was a little better prepared, ha ha. Whilst I am not in favour of internationalisation (americanisation) I do think it a little cruel to retain this quaint custom only at the airport full of foreigners.

When we arrived at the gate at the appointed hour we found a screen announcing that the flight was running half an hour late. After a brief moment of annoyance I decided that half an hour didn't matter as I hadn't any exact idea of when we were supposed to get back to Gatwick anyway, and half an hour wasn't that long. So I found a nice place on the floor, listened to some music and read a book. Around the time we were supposed to fly a check-in type person arrived, so virtually everyone jumped up and pressed towards the desk. I and a few other sane people didn't. For a moment I did wonder whether I'd missed some vital announcement about there only being room for the first 70 people or something like that, but I don't think I did. After about 5 minutes of nothing happening there was a general drift back to the seats. Then comes the easyjet speil about people who've paid £2.50 extra being allowed on first, then childern, then people with an A on their boarding card then finally those with a B. Meanwhile 2 coaches have arrived to take all 140 passengers to the plane (yes that's 70 in each). Well I didn't pay £2.50, I don't have any childern , although I suspect 1 can be hired for less that £2.50 and I've no idea what you have to do to get an A on your priority; so I'm a B then. Most of the other B's still seem to think sitting(well most stand of course) on the coach is better that sitting comfortably in the terminal. Very few seem to have considered that the last person onto the coach will be the first off the coach. The first coach which is shared by those who have paid extra and a large school party departs. The rest of us get on the second coach. I am in the last 10 to leave the terminal. I think I'm probably around 85th on the plane, I get a seat; I get to Gatwick the same time as everyone else; Next time I won't be paying £2.50 or hiring a child either.