England at last

We're here in rainy England. What an adventurous trip! From Brisbane to Melbourne was uneventful, although a bit noisy with tired, fretful children and babies, and we arrived in good time to get through customs. That process was not uneventful because I'd forgotten that water is a liquid that it is forbidden to carry onto an aircraft, so my carry on bag was pulled from the screening process. Once we got that sorted, we were on our way to the gate with just minutes to wait until our flight was to board.

And so we waited, and waited, with an increasingly restless crowd. No announcement was made until 11:30pm, a half hour after we were to have taken off. A 'technical fault' was being rectified, and we'd be boarding soon. I said to my sister that it would probably turn out to be a blown globe and that they were waiting for an electrician to replace. I was close, as later we were told it had been a sensor light on a door that had malfunctioned and needed replacing. Although we were understandably anxious about the late departure, we were glad that Qantas pay attention to their passenger's safety.

We finally lifted off just short of two hours late. The time in Melbourne was 12:45am, in Dubai - where we were to disembark for a brief while - it was 6:45am, so we had some hours to fill before we could sleep. Like most international flights, there was plenty of entertainment to choose from, with the screen set into the back of the seat in front. We had lists of movies to choose from, or TV shows, news, games and so on. There was food too, although I was pleasantly surprised to see that things had changed since my last long trip, with much lighter meals. We both had a 'real' book to read, opting to save battery power on our iPads.

The time passed pleasantly enough, and the seats we'd chosen were perfect. We had plenty of room and were seated at one end of the row of 4 in the middle seats. That meant we didn't have strangers wanting to disturb us to get out I to the aisle. The toilets were behind us, and the noise of the engines was just a distant roar.

We did manage to sleep reasonably well and woke to find that we were 2 and a half hours out of Dubai. We had made up some time with the help of tail winds but were advised that we would be at least an hour and a half late into Heathrow.

We left the aircraft in Dubai, to allow for crew changes and cleaning. For some obscure reason, we had to pass through more security checks and screenings to proceed to the boarding gate. That process was a bit chaotic, and we didn't have time to do any looking around, just rushed through and got to the gate with just a little time to spare. I did get the feeling that I was in an episode of 'The Dome' though, as the terminal is covered with a glass-like, bubble dome.

The last leg of our journey dragged by but we finally got into England an hour later than planned. By the time we cleared their border security and found our rental car (an unexpected trip in a bus to collect it) it was peak hour traffic. To make matters worse, it was raining, and the sky was low and very black. We sat in the rental lot car park for 15 minutes, to familiarise ourselves with the controls and the GPS, then set off to brave the traffic and the weather. From there it got a bit farcical for awhile until we got used to the directions on the GPS being in yards and miles! After a couple of missed turns, with Sarina recalculating our route (although she is very quiet, preferring that the driver is forced to look at the screen to see the directions - luckily I have Lindy) we joined the hoards fleeing London and travelling west. West is where the bad weather was coming from so we drove into worsening conditions.

We soon deviated away from the majority of the traffic, the sky lightened, the rain eased, and we had time to slow down and enjoy the green country. As we drove into Oxford and to our accommodation, Lindy saw her first old English houses, coming right to the street, chimney pots and all.

The Athena Guest House. What can I say? That's a story in itself, and we are in stitches constantly with it all. But more of that later. It's 7am now and time to make plans for the day.