Shutting The Gate After The Horse Has Bolted

Having gotten home at 2.30am on Thursday morning, I proceeded to get up at 2.30am on Monday morning to get to the airport. 2 root causes (6 Sigma analysis!): I had just moved to Woolwich and was not sure how long it would take to get to the airport & the Glasgow airport bombing had resulted in UK police shutting the gate after the horse had bolted – searching cars as they came to the airport and increasing passenger security inspection measures. The car company told me that I should leave home at 3am so I dutifully got up early and was picked up at 3.05. The driver stopped at a petrol station along the way and we still managed to sail into the drop-off bays at Heathrow at 4am! It turns out that the check-in counters don’t open until 5am, at which time I sailed through them as well and into a queue of about 10 people for the security check (usually about 5 lines of 50 people deep) to find that the BA lounge doesn’t open until 5.30am. When it did open, I found myself a nice armchair with a high back and had a nap until the plane was ready for boarding. Needless to say, I was not in a good condition that day and struggled to be productive. My manager told me off when I told him about it the next day and said that I should never leave home that early. If I miss the flight, then I miss the flight, I should not get up at such ungodly hours again. That was nice.
My phone troubles are persisting. Rang up 3 on Monday afternoon to say that their efforts had been useless and they responded by saying that they could get my phone repaired. It was picked up from the office on Tuesday morning at 8.30am (despite 3 text messages saying that they would come between 12 & 6pm) and was dropped back on Thursday afternoon. The reception has improved but I am still having problems. Rang them again and they agreed to look into it and potentially send me out a new SIM card. Hope this will all be resolved soon.
Preparing for my Stirling trip, which is quite difficult for 2 reasons: 1) I work in a project room and sit next to the only phone so that everyone who needs the phone can see my screen, 2) the only computer which can access a printer is connected to the projector so everyone can see what you are doing if you want to print non-work related things!
Will be quite busy with people visiting in July/August/September. Charlie is first (at the end of July), then Vicki, then Vera, then the wedding and then Sandra. Will be great to catch up with everyone.