Over the sea to Hants
Well, dear reader, it is Monday morning here in the UK, and the sun is still shining, despite the fact that is is a Bank Holiday. In fact, the sun has been shining since we got here (coincidence??). It is not as warm as NZ, but very welcome non the less.
Our trip over was long but smooth, 37 hours elapsed time door to door. Claire provided us with a taxi service to Auckland Airport and we said our goodbye's at the security gate (so that she knew we had actually gone and weren't just hiding). With having brand spanking new Kiwi passports we were able to use the electronic systems to scan the passports and have our photos taken. Great fun. After being thorough searched we wandered through the departure lounge in search of cups of tea. While drinking our tea our Cathay Pacific plane arrived, and as it approach the gate is was "washed" by two fire trucks. We are yet to establish why it was singled out for this treatment.
We boarded on time and headed for Hong Kong, watching films and reading. Nicky didn't like the seating as much as I did, but we both agreed that the food wasn't fantastic. Soon after we arrived in Hong Kong Nicky started looking for wifi with her iPad, found some, and set about emailing. About an hour and a half after arriving we were boarding our Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt. Nicky preferred the seating, and we both appreciated the food being better. Breakfast at 3am (our bodies time) was particularly good. We watched and read more; I finished a book which Claire had loaned me (The House of Silk, a Sherlock Holmes volume written by Anthony Horowitz) and thoroughly enjoying it, as Nicky is also now doing.
We arrived in Frankfurt, which was initially just as dark as Hong Kong, with about an hour before our flight the London. With the being a "local hop" and leaving at 7am on a Saturday morning, the mush smaller plane was only about half full. It felt quite cute after being on the two big jets. We were late taking off due to traffic, and also had to circle Heathrow for awhile, but as compensation the pilot gave us a fantastic tour of the sights of London. We ended up landing about an hour later than we had expected, but because we arrived into Terminal 1 on a local flight, we got through customs and baggage claim in about 20 minutes. We then had a 15 minute free bus ride to the Avis shop to pick up the car. It took an hour and a quarter to queue and do the necessary. I was initially disappointed not to get the car I asked for (a Vauxhall Astra) and to get a diesel not a petrol engine, but the Peugeot 208 is actually a nice car to drive and is a bit of an upgrade over what we had booked.
So, finally at 10 to 10 we set off for Andover, and the baptism of Mary Assumpta. It was 11.02 by my chronograph when we got there, so the service had already started, but I didn't think 2 minutes late after 12,000 miles was too bad.
Everybody who is anybody was of course there, and after the service we had lots of hugs and tears and welcomes.We wandered over to the church hall for drinks and chats, and a little while later the children were all served chips, beans and sausages (note to CED - pizza ordered had been considered). Peter Cocker and I got our hopes up when seeing the children eating, but unfortuneatley the adults were served a selection of excellent casseroles and curry and with veg, rice and spuds.
Come mid afternoon as people dispersed Nicky and I decided to take up Katherine and Ben's offer of staying with them, so we followed them in their self-propelled tactical support VW, to their home on the outskirts of Andover. After a number of mugs of tea (I still feel a little de-hydrated even now) Nicky went off to bed and I went for a walk with K&B, Tamsin and Tara, in the very pleasant fileds and lanes that ajoining their estate. Ben plied me with some lovely Theakstons while making excellent lasagne which I also washed down with a glass of wine. Come 21.00 hours thought I was flagging and took myself off to bed.
We slept quite well but the body clocks were very confused. Ben's excellent breakfast (which did include black pudding) set us up the day however. We drove back into Andover and I dropped Nicky near a church, then went and parked at Alison and Tims and wakled into town to do some shopping, primarily for SIM cards.We had a bit of time with the Hanlons before driving over to Farnborough to unload the car. Nicky wanted to see Aunt Veronic so we nipped over to Farnham to the home where she currently resides. She is 97 and very frail, but her memory was better than we were expecting. She could remember that Nicky and I met at University (though was surprised that it was 30 years ago) and that we had one child. Once we started to fill in some of the details for her much seemed to come back, possibly helped by Felicity's recent briefings on our visit. While were we there Fiona McNaught arrived (Duncan's sister). She had traveled from London by train and bus, and mentioned that she hadn't seen Felicity and Reg for years, so I invited her dinner. Felicity had already invited a visiting American while at church in the moring, so there were 6 of us for dinner and it was a lively affair.
Again around 9ish Nicky and I were flagging for headed for bed. Another short night of sleep so were are still feeling quite tired, but we have visits in London to make today, so that should be stimulating.
I think that's all for now.
Take care,
Rick
Our trip over was long but smooth, 37 hours elapsed time door to door. Claire provided us with a taxi service to Auckland Airport and we said our goodbye's at the security gate (so that she knew we had actually gone and weren't just hiding). With having brand spanking new Kiwi passports we were able to use the electronic systems to scan the passports and have our photos taken. Great fun. After being thorough searched we wandered through the departure lounge in search of cups of tea. While drinking our tea our Cathay Pacific plane arrived, and as it approach the gate is was "washed" by two fire trucks. We are yet to establish why it was singled out for this treatment.
We boarded on time and headed for Hong Kong, watching films and reading. Nicky didn't like the seating as much as I did, but we both agreed that the food wasn't fantastic. Soon after we arrived in Hong Kong Nicky started looking for wifi with her iPad, found some, and set about emailing. About an hour and a half after arriving we were boarding our Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt. Nicky preferred the seating, and we both appreciated the food being better. Breakfast at 3am (our bodies time) was particularly good. We watched and read more; I finished a book which Claire had loaned me (The House of Silk, a Sherlock Holmes volume written by Anthony Horowitz) and thoroughly enjoying it, as Nicky is also now doing.
We arrived in Frankfurt, which was initially just as dark as Hong Kong, with about an hour before our flight the London. With the being a "local hop" and leaving at 7am on a Saturday morning, the mush smaller plane was only about half full. It felt quite cute after being on the two big jets. We were late taking off due to traffic, and also had to circle Heathrow for awhile, but as compensation the pilot gave us a fantastic tour of the sights of London. We ended up landing about an hour later than we had expected, but because we arrived into Terminal 1 on a local flight, we got through customs and baggage claim in about 20 minutes. We then had a 15 minute free bus ride to the Avis shop to pick up the car. It took an hour and a quarter to queue and do the necessary. I was initially disappointed not to get the car I asked for (a Vauxhall Astra) and to get a diesel not a petrol engine, but the Peugeot 208 is actually a nice car to drive and is a bit of an upgrade over what we had booked.
So, finally at 10 to 10 we set off for Andover, and the baptism of Mary Assumpta. It was 11.02 by my chronograph when we got there, so the service had already started, but I didn't think 2 minutes late after 12,000 miles was too bad.
Everybody who is anybody was of course there, and after the service we had lots of hugs and tears and welcomes.We wandered over to the church hall for drinks and chats, and a little while later the children were all served chips, beans and sausages (note to CED - pizza ordered had been considered). Peter Cocker and I got our hopes up when seeing the children eating, but unfortuneatley the adults were served a selection of excellent casseroles and curry and with veg, rice and spuds.
Come mid afternoon as people dispersed Nicky and I decided to take up Katherine and Ben's offer of staying with them, so we followed them in their self-propelled tactical support VW, to their home on the outskirts of Andover. After a number of mugs of tea (I still feel a little de-hydrated even now) Nicky went off to bed and I went for a walk with K&B, Tamsin and Tara, in the very pleasant fileds and lanes that ajoining their estate. Ben plied me with some lovely Theakstons while making excellent lasagne which I also washed down with a glass of wine. Come 21.00 hours thought I was flagging and took myself off to bed.
We slept quite well but the body clocks were very confused. Ben's excellent breakfast (which did include black pudding) set us up the day however. We drove back into Andover and I dropped Nicky near a church, then went and parked at Alison and Tims and wakled into town to do some shopping, primarily for SIM cards.We had a bit of time with the Hanlons before driving over to Farnborough to unload the car. Nicky wanted to see Aunt Veronic so we nipped over to Farnham to the home where she currently resides. She is 97 and very frail, but her memory was better than we were expecting. She could remember that Nicky and I met at University (though was surprised that it was 30 years ago) and that we had one child. Once we started to fill in some of the details for her much seemed to come back, possibly helped by Felicity's recent briefings on our visit. While were we there Fiona McNaught arrived (Duncan's sister). She had traveled from London by train and bus, and mentioned that she hadn't seen Felicity and Reg for years, so I invited her dinner. Felicity had already invited a visiting American while at church in the moring, so there were 6 of us for dinner and it was a lively affair.
Again around 9ish Nicky and I were flagging for headed for bed. Another short night of sleep so were are still feeling quite tired, but we have visits in London to make today, so that should be stimulating.
I think that's all for now.
Take care,
Rick
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