Tuesday 28 July.
After breakfast there was a few things to pack away before we left. Moira packed the video recorder and the TV into their boxes and I put them up in the loft. I checked the rat killer that I had put there when I cleared the loft two months ago. It was all still in place and not been eaten, showing that we must had got rid of the rats. Moira moved the car down to the parking slots and I closed the garage door and fitted the blocks on the runner to prevent opening. With everything packed, the house neat and tidy and all our security measures in place we were on our way about 9:30 am.
We stopped at the Spar supermarket on the way to pick up some fruit for our lunch, Moira had made sandwiches before leaving. It was a lovely day and the drive to King Shaka airport was uneventful with very little traffic on the road. Before dropping the car off with Budget/ Avis we filled up with petrol at the filling station we were told about at near the hire car drop-off point. I took photographs of the car being filled and the dash board with the petrol tank showing full. I have plenty of evidence if they try to charge us for petrol and Moira also made sure she got a receipt this time.
In the departures hall Moira printed off our boarding passes from the machine, she had booked in for all our flights on the internet last night. Once we had our passes we checked in our cases then it was on to security. There wasn't any problems and we were soon through to wait two hours for our flight to Jo'burg. We went to a bar and ordered beers to go with our lunch then sat and read until it was time to go. It was just an hour until we landed at O R Tambo airport. There we had to collect our cases from the carousel before checking in at the BA desk for our next stage. Our cases were labelled to go through all the way to Glasgow and they printed our boarding passed for the flight to London and for the next one to Glasgow. The security checks were straight forward again, the only nuisance is that we have to take the laptop and the Freeview recorder out of our backpacks each time to go through the x-ray machine separately. Next it was emigration where we got our passports examined and stamped
We had three hours to wait for our plane for London at 7 pm. We continued reading our newspapers for a while then went to look for a bar to get a beer to go with a couple of sausages that were left and Moira cooked last night. We found a restaurant but we couldn't just order a beer, Moira enquired at the information desk and they said there weren't any bars. There was a 'Mugg and Bean' coffee shop where we ordered a bottomless cup of coffee instead. The service was terrible and we nearly walked out after waiting so long when the waiter arrived with our order. It was a repeat when we asked for a top up for our bottomless cup but it passed the time and soon it was time to make for our boarding gate.
We had to show our boarding passes and passports to get into the waiting area just to sit for they were ready for us to board. The woman looked at my photograph in my passport then asked me to remove my hat to get a better comparison. Before this we had been scrutinised at the check-in desk, security and emigration without having to remove my hat but to get a seat in the waiting area it was required? It is either security paranoia or airport security is a growth occupation industry. The aircraft we were on was the latest thing with an upper deck. When Moira checked our seats on the web last night she said we were up top but we thought that was the small bump at the front of the plane where we had been seated once before. But this was different, it was a whole upper deck similar in size to the normal one below. There were separate boarding sections for upper and lower decks and it was quite a quick and efficient loading operation. Our seats were in the centre section and I had an aisle seat, this meant that I didn't have any worries about disturbing somebody to get to the toilet during the night.
The plane took off on time and it wasn't long before they were serving dinner. We both had salad with a spicy chicken and rice. It was all right and there had a nice wine to go with it. I watched a couple of TV comedies on the entertainment screen. There were both 'Still Open all Hours' the spin off from the old Ronnie Barker comedy of the 70's. After that there was a film of the Oscar Wilde play, 'The Importance of being Ernest' with Colin Firth and Judi Dench which was very good. I tried to watch something else but my eyes were closing and I tried to get to sleep. I was feeling cramped and my neck was sore but I was just managed to drop off when there was a scream from Moira. She was sleeping and the woman sitting next to her somehow stood on her foot and wakened her with a start. After that we both took pain killers and managed to get a bit if sleep.
Wednesday 29 July.
I must have managed a couple of hour's sleep as I wakened when they were starting to serve breakfast at 3:30 am(BST, we were back an hour). We both had an omelette which was a bit rubbery. The landing was on time at Heathrow and then we had a long walk to get to where we were catching our connection to Glasgow. It involved a walk on the moving walkway, a journey on the small driverless train then the ordeal of another security check. This was the worst one we have encountered. The queue moved very slowly and we removed the laptop and recorder from our packs as before. That went all right but for some reason my backpack was put to one side for closer examination. This was in a long queue of other bags to be checked closely and another long wait. When it was my turn they emptied the pack and waved some electronic wand over everything then sent it through the x-ray machine again. They found nothing and I was left to repack the bag again. It was fortunate that we had plenty of time ( 4 hours) before our flight to Glasgow.
We found a seat and parked ourselves for the wait. There was free WiFi and Moira downloaded the newspaper to her iPad. When I got my iPad out I found that the battery was flat. There were charging points nearby and I put it on to charge and after half an hour was able to download the 'Telegraph' as well and work on the crossword. The boarding gate for our flight wasn't put on the info display until three quarters of an hour before it was due to take-off. When we got the gate number as usual it was at the far end of the row of gates and a 10 minute walk. There was a large queue and we sat down until it cleared and we got on near the end. The plane was full and I had to put our bags in a locker well away from where we were seated. The take-off was 30 minutes late but that must have been taken into account in the schedule as we landed in Glasgow on time, 11:30 am.
It was just after midday when we headed to the bus stops for home. There weren't any delays after leaving the plane and our packs came through fairly quickly. We had just missed a bus to Braehead but there was one going to Paisley which we took and caught a train from there to Port Glasgow. When we got off the train Moira bought rolls for lunch at the bakery and we took a bus home and saved money by not taking a taxi.
Everything was all right in the house but the garden was a bit overgrown and will need attention soon. We settled down for some lunch when we got in, Moira had some salmon that she put that on the rolls with a cup of tea. In the afternoon we relaxed and once I got the TV going watched some old comedies late afternoon. After that it was quizzes while we had dinner. Moira had chicken drumsticks in the freezer and we had them with cous-cous. The third Ashes Test Match from Edgbaston started today And I watch the highlights on Channel 5. England did extremely well and bowled Australia out for 136. In reply they were 133/3, they should win this one.
We were both very tired and got to bed at 8:30 pm which was actually 9:30 pm SA time and by our body clocks.
Posted with Blogsy
No comments:
Post a Comment