A Brighton Belle meets Skippy - Part 2
[or part 7 for the pedants - John]
(For those of you who haven’t known us for 25 years, this title will be meaningless – others will remember that it was the title of my trip report of our very first visit to Oz in 1985. This is our 7th trip down under, but the only the second time I have attempted a trip report.)
Sunday, Aug 29th. Woke up early on one of the few days we can relax after a summer of running B&B in France. I can't imagine why, but my iPAQ gave me the explanation as the appointment reminder chimed up with AUSTRALIA. Aha.
Andy's disappointment that we were ready even though he turned up 20 mins early to take us to the tube station, having joked on Friday about our continual lateness. It’s not my fault that the last thing I do after getting the house ready for dinner parties etc is to have a shower and hence always seem to greet guests with wet hair (mine, not theirs). Having woken up early, though, we were actually on time!
Disappointment that we stopped for a cup of coffee when Andy turned up early because as we were en route Andy’s sat nav was predicting arrival 5 mins before the last tube from Cockfosters to Heathrow for an hour. The question was did his sat nav calculate according to ‘Andy speed’, or normal motorists? It's astounding that someone who could drive Miss Daisy with his sedateness and a satnav which warns of speed traps could accumulate points for speeding. We didn’t want to start the 20+ hour journey by hanging around a tube station for an hour.
· Disappointment when we tried to drop off our baggage just after 2 p.m. for our 9.30 flight. Although you are exhorted to get to the airport early, and BAA's adverts suggest you drop off your bags early and then relax BA don't agree - not at Terminal 3 anyway [and that's another disappointment, I was looking forward to experiencing terminal 5 once we'd decided to fly with BA, but no such luck]. Back to the bags, though. 'Oh no, you can't check your bags in till 3 hours before the flight - we just don't have the storage space.' Now they don't put THAT on the website, or on the boarding card you get when checking in online like good little girls and boys. We had planned to get there early, get rid of our luggage and have a long, luxurious dinner.
Reasons to be cheerful
We made the tube train with time to spare. Andy got going with the speed, the M25 wasn’t being a naughty little motorway and we got to Cockfosters with no aggravation.
My knee. Two weeks before we left France my left knee started playing up. Don't know what caused it - possibly too much standing doing all that ironing whilst running B&B in France, or the stretching exercises I started doing whilst ironing. Or just a combination of old age and gross overweight. Myself I subscribe to the stretching exercises theory - I've always claimed, as many of my friends will testify, that exercise is bad for the health.
Anyway, I couldn't straighten my knee out whenever I got out of a chair, and couldn't put any weight on it until I could lock the knee. You should have seen me trying to get up and down on the beach when Steve, Alice, Kate, Malcolm and Tony stayed. Not only was it the new trouble, but also the fact that I haven't been able to put any weight on my knees for the last few years since I've got rogue cartilages.
But as soon as we got back to England I tried ultrasound on it and hey presto, it helped! I’ll take the machine with me and hopefully all will be well soon.
· Paying the extra for Premium Economy – just look at that legroom! I even managed to sleep for about 3-4 hours in the 13-hour flight out to Singapore. Qantas for the second leg was even better – not only bigger seats, but trays that weren’t broken, tablecloths and wine poured from 75cl bottles not little screw-topped 1/3 ltr bottles. And they didn’t stop coming around with it, unlike miserly BA.
Watched some really uplifting films too – How to Train Your Dragon. I started to watch Sherlock Holmes but just couldn’t get into it, which may be my fault rather than the film. Then I passed the time with various comedy programs which required little concentration. I just love the films on flights – on the second 7-hour leg from Singapore to Melbourne, though, they were even better – Iron Man II and Shrek Forever After.
· Singapore Airport – how often is it that you are slightly disappointed you only have a 2-hour stopover. Somehow this terminal manages to engender a feeling of peace, exactly the opposite of the disgusting Terminal 3 at Heathrow. Perhaps it’s the carpet which keeps the noise down, the plant displays, the . . . care for customers? It showed up BAA who seems to believe it is in the herding of cattle business. At T3, when we actually got through to departures after our 4-hour wait with all our bags, I was almost pleased that we had to have our meal on the other side. The departure lounge was even noisier, had less chance to find a seat and only 1 decent place to eat.
· Pensione Hotel, Spencer Street, Melbourne. OK, the room is so small the door actually hits the bed as you try to open it, but it is clean, a big comfortable bed and has everything else you need. Plus it is A$100 per night cheaper than the main convention hotel, and that’s a lot of food and drink. More importantly, though, they had a room ready for us at 7.30 a.m.!
Now that’s a great start to our holiday!
[or part 7 for the pedants - John]
(For those of you who haven’t known us for 25 years, this title will be meaningless – others will remember that it was the title of my trip report of our very first visit to Oz in 1985. This is our 7th trip down under, but the only the second time I have attempted a trip report.)
Sunday, Aug 29th. Woke up early on one of the few days we can relax after a summer of running B&B in France. I can't imagine why, but my iPAQ gave me the explanation as the appointment reminder chimed up with AUSTRALIA. Aha.
Andy's disappointment that we were ready even though he turned up 20 mins early to take us to the tube station, having joked on Friday about our continual lateness. It’s not my fault that the last thing I do after getting the house ready for dinner parties etc is to have a shower and hence always seem to greet guests with wet hair (mine, not theirs). Having woken up early, though, we were actually on time!
Disappointment that we stopped for a cup of coffee when Andy turned up early because as we were en route Andy’s sat nav was predicting arrival 5 mins before the last tube from Cockfosters to Heathrow for an hour. The question was did his sat nav calculate according to ‘Andy speed’, or normal motorists? It's astounding that someone who could drive Miss Daisy with his sedateness and a satnav which warns of speed traps could accumulate points for speeding. We didn’t want to start the 20+ hour journey by hanging around a tube station for an hour.
· Disappointment when we tried to drop off our baggage just after 2 p.m. for our 9.30 flight. Although you are exhorted to get to the airport early, and BAA's adverts suggest you drop off your bags early and then relax BA don't agree - not at Terminal 3 anyway [and that's another disappointment, I was looking forward to experiencing terminal 5 once we'd decided to fly with BA, but no such luck]. Back to the bags, though. 'Oh no, you can't check your bags in till 3 hours before the flight - we just don't have the storage space.' Now they don't put THAT on the website, or on the boarding card you get when checking in online like good little girls and boys. We had planned to get there early, get rid of our luggage and have a long, luxurious dinner.
Reasons to be cheerful
We made the tube train with time to spare. Andy got going with the speed, the M25 wasn’t being a naughty little motorway and we got to Cockfosters with no aggravation.
My knee. Two weeks before we left France my left knee started playing up. Don't know what caused it - possibly too much standing doing all that ironing whilst running B&B in France, or the stretching exercises I started doing whilst ironing. Or just a combination of old age and gross overweight. Myself I subscribe to the stretching exercises theory - I've always claimed, as many of my friends will testify, that exercise is bad for the health.
Anyway, I couldn't straighten my knee out whenever I got out of a chair, and couldn't put any weight on it until I could lock the knee. You should have seen me trying to get up and down on the beach when Steve, Alice, Kate, Malcolm and Tony stayed. Not only was it the new trouble, but also the fact that I haven't been able to put any weight on my knees for the last few years since I've got rogue cartilages.
But as soon as we got back to England I tried ultrasound on it and hey presto, it helped! I’ll take the machine with me and hopefully all will be well soon.
· Paying the extra for Premium Economy – just look at that legroom! I even managed to sleep for about 3-4 hours in the 13-hour flight out to Singapore. Qantas for the second leg was even better – not only bigger seats, but trays that weren’t broken, tablecloths and wine poured from 75cl bottles not little screw-topped 1/3 ltr bottles. And they didn’t stop coming around with it, unlike miserly BA.
Watched some really uplifting films too – How to Train Your Dragon. I started to watch Sherlock Holmes but just couldn’t get into it, which may be my fault rather than the film. Then I passed the time with various comedy programs which required little concentration. I just love the films on flights – on the second 7-hour leg from Singapore to Melbourne, though, they were even better – Iron Man II and Shrek Forever After.
· Singapore Airport – how often is it that you are slightly disappointed you only have a 2-hour stopover. Somehow this terminal manages to engender a feeling of peace, exactly the opposite of the disgusting Terminal 3 at Heathrow. Perhaps it’s the carpet which keeps the noise down, the plant displays, the . . . care for customers? It showed up BAA who seems to believe it is in the herding of cattle business. At T3, when we actually got through to departures after our 4-hour wait with all our bags, I was almost pleased that we had to have our meal on the other side. The departure lounge was even noisier, had less chance to find a seat and only 1 decent place to eat.
· Pensione Hotel, Spencer Street, Melbourne. OK, the room is so small the door actually hits the bed as you try to open it, but it is clean, a big comfortable bed and has everything else you need. Plus it is A$100 per night cheaper than the main convention hotel, and that’s a lot of food and drink. More importantly, though, they had a room ready for us at 7.30 a.m.!
Now that’s a great start to our holiday!
