It's been a while, but here we are again...

Germanwings flight 8:05am from London Stansted to Cologne.

Of all the flights I’ve missed in my life – and I must admit that there have been a few – this was definitely the most inexcusable case.
When I got to the gate at about ten to eight, wondering why their hadn’t been a final boarding call, I saw the plane through the big glass panes, slowly pulling out backwards from its docking position towards the airfield. And that was it. End of story, missed the plane. There was no dramatic sprint to the gate, loaded with bags and dripping with sweat, squeezing past passengers loitering on escalators... only to miss the plane by a minute.
No. It was sadly undramatic in fact - there was point to run somewhere, to shout at someone or make any kind of scene and I wasn’t even terribly upset or angry. I had only myself to blame.

Why did I miss the flight?
I was taking my time first buying books in the airport bookstore and then at Starbucks: choosing a combination of something to eat and something to drink that would fit the amount of Sterling change I still had left, weighing down my wallet.

So I missed one flight to Cologne, but gained one delicious banana-strawberry smoothie, a fair-trade chocolate chunk shortbread and three small, though exciting books:
“The Stranger” by Albert Camus
“Of Empire” by Francis Bacon
and last but not least, a book on something I’ve always regretted not knowing anything about: “British Politics – A very brief introduction” by Tony Wright

Overall – did I loose or gain?