Gales.

Gales in London. The last flight is cancelled due to high winds at Heathrow. Nothing unusual about the anonymous airport hotel room apart from the floors which are made not of wood but of faux plastic wood. They're strangely cold and bare feet stick to them. Why would you have plastic looking wood rather than the genuine article ?

The only reading material a French comic book about the battle of Tarawa. How odd is that ?

A five thirty bus to the terminal for the first flight. On the aircraft a couple from Austin. She's wheeled on and he fusses as the airport staff help her into the seat. Broad blue hat with red piping and matching pashmina. Hands stretched out straight on her knees. There's an old fashioned Grace Kelly look to her. After takeoff she leans across the aisle and talks to me with that American openness to strangers that's alien to their British cousins. An indecorous cancer. They've been travelling the pilgrim route to Santiago for two months. Something they'd always promised they would do. Their children said it was mad. He wheeled her all the way apart from the mountainous stretch where they hired a car. They'd stop at churches and if she couldn't climb the steps, he'd run in, video the interior and then they'd sit outside and look at the pictures on his i-Pad. '' Now we're proficient in Spanish and we made it to Santiago ! ". There were traumas getting replacement tyres for her chair when the old ones wore out. '' Don't get me started on the brake linings ". The kindness of strangers helped overcome all obstacles. Now heading home for what she calls 'another journey'. He rubs her knuckles with the tip of his thumb in that way long married couples do and whispers " Shoosh ! Don't say that ". 

The most amazing stories can be found in the seat across the aisle.

At the train station a passenger with a dog. Interesting psychology. In the minute, maybe 90 seconds I'm there buying a ticket a man comes and tickles the dogs head, two girls stoop down to say hello and an old lady tells the owner how fine his companion is. Urban society slows and gives way to an older rhythm.

English bakeries have very different displays to their French counterparts.

Late in the evening after talking to men in dark suits I pass this new Rolls Royce parked outside the London hotel. The colour scheme perhaps not to everyones taste.

A record of some of those 'little' things too unimportant for a diary .