Travels, 13

Not too much to say about the final leg of more than a month of travelling.

On Friday morning, after the conference was over, we had breakfast and checked out, and then João took us and Cheryl Praeger to the airport. I had arranged to get a fairly late plane since I didn’t really know how long it would take to get to the airport from Évora.

In fact, it was quite a quick trip, not much over an hour and a half, mostly through open coountry where many cork trees were to be seen. Finally over the Vasco de Gama bridge, and along the road to the airport. A slight glitch when the entrance João tried to take was blocked, and we had to go around again; but finally the three of us were at the airport.

Cheryl’s plane was before ours, so we said goodbye and she went off to check in and drop her bags. We looked for a seat (not so easy to find), and eventually settled fairly near a small takeaway food shop, so we were able to have a nice leisurely lunch before heading off for our plane. There were huge queues, but I discovered that they were for a different airline; the queue for British Airways was very short, though extremely slow moving. Eventually all was done, so we were off through security and passport control and finally found a seat near our departure gate.

The plane had a small delay but picked up time; immigration and customs were quick, and soon we were waiting for the Elizabeth line. Home in time to get enough food for our day-and-a-half stopover.

The trip to St Andrews on Sunday was relatively painless, though the train was very crowded. I managed to get hold of the programme for the Permutation Patterns conference (starting the next day) and found I was chairing a session on the first afternoon of the meeting.

The conference was in the basement of the Gateway building (constructed as a hotel, but the company couldn’t fulfil the conditions of the lease, so sold it cheaply to the university). Lunch was provided, but after the first day I wasn’t able to take advantage of this since I had to look after Rosemary.

It was a good conference with some excellent talks, but I was only an intermittent attendee, since I had rather a lot of things to do, piled up after a month away. Also, Bruce Sagan (who had featured as an answer in a Permutation Patterns-themed cryptic crossword) wasn’t there, though quite a few old friends, including Christian Bean, one of the first cohort to take my Advanced Combinatorics module in St Andrews, and by the end a few new friends too.