'ave cum to 'ull'

So this blog comes from the UK, having just spent another 26hrs of my life on that horrible transit route. OK, it’s better than walking, and it’s better than spending a month or more on a ship.. like they used to, but it’s still not that fab. This time however, it was made easier by having the indomitable Molly traveling with me, and her self-deprecating approach to adversities large or small is always a tonic, or even a laugh, depending on how she actually finds it. She will be expecting me to tell you about our trip, so here goes, and there’s some bits of video too, from Daile’s new waterproof video camera.
We had a dodgy start. Molly’s main baggage was 24kg on an allowance of 20kg, her hand luggage was 13kg on an allowance of 7kg and on top of that she had a box of paintings (using a specially made cardboard box that Daile had had made) that was 14kg. To compensate for this, my bags were very light, and I’m proud to tell you that I managed to travel with only 8kg main baggage and just over that for the cabin bag. We offloaded the main bags and the painting box and went off for a cuppa with Daile and the girls. Daile casually asked Molly if she’d got all her liquids sorted out for the plastic bag treatment that they all have to have nowadays. Molly admitted that she’d not given it any thought, and proceeded to look. She emptied about 1kg of things that we knew she’d not be able to get through customs, like a sewing box that Ali had given her for Christmas, and quite a few liquids of one sort or another. I took her camera and charger into my bag. We put my trousers belt around the bag so that it would squeeze into the size measuring frame should the powers that be decide to check that.. and off we went.
The first thing that happened was that Molly’s bag got stopped in the scanner because they said they thought there were scissors in it. They had a look and found two pairs of tweezers. I thought ‘blimey that’s going a bit far’ but then they went and scanned it again and declared that they STILL thought there were scissors in the bag. A second look proved them to be right. The inspector drew out a pair that were those kind that are for cutting hair… long thin stainless ones that look for all the world like a dagger! MOLLY!
So we laughed that off, lost the scissors of course, and moved on to passport control. Molly copped it from them because her visa had only been a 3 month one, and she’d been with us for 5 months! However, I didn’t realise she was having problems because I was too! I’ve just had a new passport issued because mine ran out earlier in the year, and the man asked me if I had it with me because my new one didn’t have a visa for Australia at all! He said that I wouldn’t be able to get back in without it… so I’d have to get Daile to send it to the UK so that I had it before I came back! So BOTH of us got carted off to one side by the supervisor. She was able to associate my new passport with my current permanent residence visa from the old passport, so all was well there….but she told us that Molly would not be allowed to return to Australia for 3 years for overstaying her visa. She did say that it might be possible to have this reviewed if she goes to the embassy and explains what happened. (Apparently you get a 3 month visa be default, and if you want more than that you need to tee it up specially).

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. The highlight for me was that there was a little girl on the plane that was VERY similar in disposition and look to Matilda at a similar age. It made me feel quite broody.. not for more kids or anything like that, but just for that time of my life.






We knew we’d arrived in the UK, cos we had to queue to land, and wait for ages to get our bags. In fact it took the best part of an hour (that’s right!) to get our bags, which seemed to come in lumps that would have more or less corresponded to one of those silver containers they transit them in from the plane to the terminal. We’d get one load come down, then it would stop for 5 minutes, and then another load, and another 5 mins…etc. I would have loved to have seen what the baggage handlers were doing the rest of the time.

We met Ali, (who’d been waiting that whole time) and went for a coffee, which she kindly bought, along with a toasted sandwich for me. I wanted to properly say tarra and by the time I’d done, I had only an hour and a quarter left to get to Kings Cross and my connection to Hull. I’d pre-booked this from Australia and left myself what I’d thought would be plenty of time…(3 hrs from landing). I made it with 5 mins to spare, and that was largely because I’d set my watch with the wrong time at the airport. I’d thought I’d missed it by ten minutes so it was a very pleasant surprise!

I booked on the ‘quiet carriage’ which smelled of the toilet at one end… presumably from the stuff being spattered underneath it when it flushed. Not only that, but I had to point out to a man that he wasn’t supposed to be calling his office from that particular carriage… and that there were stickers all over it to say so. He looked at me like I was a stupid old man (which of course I am) but apologised none the less.

The guard lent me his phone so that I could phone Mum and Dad to say I was on the train.. so that was almost enough to offset the smell. The countryside this time of year is VERY grey looking. It’s funny that we always think of the UK as green, and to be sure, it is green in summer, but we forget that during the winter, it’s far from it. All the trees are bare, and the grass is yellow, rather than green. After all the rain we’ve been getting in Queensland this summer, with all the associated greening up of where we live, it was a bit of a shock!

Just pulled out of Doncaster… and I saw a train spotter!!! Ha ha. I’d forgotten about those!