Thursday 10th and Friday 11th February
Thursday was a mad day. There was a lot of office work to be done before we left and we finally stopped at about 7.00 pm.
Fifi, who was going to house sit, arrived and we had a good evening together. We showed her where everything was. She helped us with what we should leave out of the packing. Well we did need to have some room for presents. At just after midnight we celebrated Jenny's birthday with chocolate cake, candles, cards and presents.
Friday started with final packing, clearing and checking, double checking and in some cases treble checking to see if we had everything that we needed. As someone later said 'well if you have your passport and a credit card what else do you need?'
Jenny & Fifi |
Jenny & Mark |
By brunch time I was getting a bit twitchy with anticipation. Sue and Bill phoned to wish Jenny a Happy Birthday. They had arrived in Melbourne, Megan their daughter and Rupert their other son, who will be best man, were also there. Fifi gave us a lift to the coach and waved us off. The seats were not the most comfortable but at Stanstead we were able to get a hot chocolate whilst the drivers changed over.
To get to Heathrow it meant going on the M25 on a Friday afternoon!! It was dark and wet and there were a lot of red lights to follow. I was really glad not to be driving. At least we had some good music to listen to on the Ipod. OK so it wasn't really an Ipod but it is the same idea. It has a 30Gb hard drive called a Creative Zen Jukebox. Ipod is a lot easier to write/type. (Currently listening to Show of Hands and Davy Spillaine).
We were rather glad we were not relying on the bus to get us to Heathrow for a connection or flying out that day as the traffic meant that the bus reached Heathrow over an hour late. There were quite a few anxious people on the bus. All we had to do was find Jenny's younger sister Liz and her youngest child Harry. They were checking in to fly out Friday evening. We had a cup of coffee and a chat together before they went through to security checks. Whilst in Terminal 4 we saw a few police people. They do carry some BIG guns. To me they had the required effect. No way would I want to mess with them. What a job though. You wander around, which is a pretty boring thing to do, but at a moment's notice you have to be prepared to use your gun and kill people in a packed airport terminal with people who would be panicking all over the place. It made me wonder if the rules of engagement say kill the terrorist and if you kill a civilian so be it or do you ensure all civilians are safe at the cost of missing the terrorist. It is strange how your mind works sometimes.
We went to our hotel for the evening and caught up with some phone calls that we needed to make before we set off. Some friends were getting together for a weekend near Tewkesbury. We would have been with them if we were not here. We did get in touch and they sang Happy Birthday to Jenny. Oh yes it is still Jenny's birthday today.
