That is what the sign over the doors claimed at the South Terminal end of the monorail. One minute, 50 seconds to North Terminal.

Every three minutes turned into 45.Every three minutes turned into 45. Heathrow has nothing on Gatwick Airport when the monorail between the Noth and South Terminals decides to break.

Imagine yourself standing there in the crush of several hundred people, all of whom have been waiting and are getting anxious about their flight. Following repeated announcements with soothing words and “any minute now” blandishments, a transporter comes in along the rail and pulls to behind the steel doors. We hear pings, we hear grinding. Two minutes later, it happily pulls out on the way back to North Terminal.

You didn’t hear me say anything about the doors opening, now did you?

Most large airports no longer have a convenient way to walk between their far flung terminals. In the case of Gatwick, there are only two choices – one along a four lane highway without a sidewalk and the other along the tarmac where you can go only with an airport employee pass. It wasn’t the distance to walk, there was just no way to do it.

The airport personnel arranged buses as fast as they could. Unlike Frankfurt which regularly runs both, Gatwick doesn’t have a bus option unless you want to sneak onto the parking bus. The line for the bus was filling up faster than the buses were loading.

I am glad I allowed plenty of time at the airport.

Knitting

I have the first leg finished on the Rattlesnake Creek sock for SKP2008 and started a Candle Flame scarf with the Wollmiese that I have been hording since Fabienne sent it to me last year.

No pictures today, I am using my DH’s computer. I like duty free shops, no tax plus the rebate plus the sale Canon is sponsoring actually gave me an affordable price on a new camera lens. Almost made up for the fact that my MP3 players all were out of juice.

-Holly