Friday to Tuesday, London to Sydney
Trip Start
Aug 31, 2008
1
37
Trip End
Oct 05, 2008
Sydney, Australia
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
I can't believe that today is our last full day of this trip. It just seems unreal to think that this time tomorrow we'll already have been flying for some hours.
First though, today - We woke to hear rain above - but the English weather variability continued, and by the time we were ready to go out it was sunny.
From Roisin & Phil's house it is possible to walk to Richmond Lock & take the bridge over the Thames & over the lock & weir. It was windy but beautiful. And we love Richmond so much, and our time living here was (mostly) so happy, that we seemed to be continually saying "do you remember when ... "
Writing continued Sat 4th October
(Now Saturday 4th, and I am sitting waiting at Heathrow airport. I stopped writing last night when we left to go out to dinner, and then had to finish off packing etc before bed so decided to leave finishing this until at the airport today. Now we learn that our flight is going to be at least an hour late, so there is plenty of "free time" at the moment.)
Now, back to yesterday - Friday. It is 13 years since David was in Richmond, but his memory for routes continues to be excellent. However I'm the one who remembers trivia. I remembered that the 0 degrees longitude line used to run through the King's observatory at Richmond (next to the Old Deer Park). I mentioned it to David in the morning and, when we returned in the evening, we spotted an information plaque explaining it. There was even a slit to look through, which directed your eyes to another plinth and the observatory.
We took the train one stop from Richmond to Kew Gardens, and after that signs directed us on the route to The National Archives. It felt good, returning to this familiar place - but for the first time there, David was with me.
We had already submitted the info for Readers' Tickets, but it still took a while as they are now photo-cards, so photos had to be taken as well as ID checked. But eventually we were "in".
We had pre-ordered some documents, but in fact some of those were "self-serve" digital documents, on computers. I'd ordered some very large books (unknowingly) and those were upstairs in the map room. We did get better at it, but it felt like we were sort of upstairs, downstairs, into the secure documents section, and out again. At each change we had to have our (clear plastic) bag of possessions and my lecture pad checked, as well as swiping our reader's card.
The first book I was able to get my hands on was a list of people imprisoned in the Debtors Prison. I knew the date of the newspaper announcement but had to scan the pages until I found poor Abraham Woolf. It was a large leather-bound book, thick pages, and elegant handwriting, and I was reading the book for 1841. I'm glad to have found my ancestor's entry, and I'm glad to learn that his debt was eventually discharged, but really it was also a special experience just handling the old book.
David chose to attend a talk for newcomers to Kew, and he also went looking (successfully) for the will of a 15th century ancestor of his, but mostly he was happy to work through a sheet I'd prepared with references for documents relating to his ancestors.
At 4.30 when we were leaving, we detoured into the small museum there. We saw the great and also the small Domesday books, the Magna Carta, a petition to the king from North America, signed by John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson & others - as well as other amazing documents.
David was photographing these through their cases, and without flash, when a voice called to him "I hope you're not using flash". He assured the voice that he was not, and continued his process.
It turned out that the woman was the conservation officer, come to check the humidity in each case. Perhaps to make up for her earlier suspicion, she offered to briefly turn on the light in each case for us, while she checked the humidity (making for better photos). We ended up chatting to her for a while - she was very interesting.
Eventually we walked back to Kew Station and took the train back to Richmond. From there we walked through to the village green, past the old Richmond Palace, down to the Thames - and again back through our memories.
"Do you remember when we were walking across this Green when something clicked for Justin and he suddenly understood his multiplication tables?"
"Do you remember walking past this palace with Jack and Dad, and Jack was dating buildings by the age of the bricks?"
"Do you remember when Cathy was a baby, walking here beside the Thames, pushing her in a pram?"
The river was then very high and although we walked across dry, one of the paths beside the river was flooded (the Thames is a very tidal river). Once David took our kids & Roisin's kids down to stand on the bridge & watch the river. While they were standing there, the river rose to the point of flooding the lower steps, and David had to eventually carry all the kids through the water to dry land.
Back at the house it was a hive of activities as daughters Emma was briefly visiting & Casey was preparing to go out. When they had left, we went out for our meal. Phil drove us first up Richmond Hill, so we could see where we used to live at Glenmore House, and then we drove down to Richmond to a favourite restaurant of Phil & Roisin. We had a lovely dinner together, which ended all too soon. Back at the house we sat & chatted for a while before we went upstairs to pack.
This morning, Saturday, Roisin and Phil had already been out to Heathrow, taking Casey for a whirlwind weekend trip to Ireland, before they took us out to the airport too.
The fiasco earlier this year at Heathrow was their opening of the new terminal 5. We thought it fortunate that we were leaving from terminal 4 - although there are major renovation works going on here that made entry into the terminal building quite tricky. We said a sad farewell to Roisin and Phil at the nominated drop-off point. But then it was a matter of walk a bit then take a lift down to ground level, cross through building works, then take a lift up to the departures level.
The website recommendations for Qantas recommended being at the airport 2 hours before departure, but Heathrow recommended 3 - for extra security checks. So we arrived here before 9.30 for a scheduled 12.15 departure. When we checked in, we were advised that the flight would be an hour late - had they mentioned that on their website we wouldn't have had to be out here so early!
It's now Tuesday 7 October & I am at home, finally finishing this travel blog entry.
In the end the flight left Heathrow a little after 2.15, so we were at the airport almost 5 hours before the flight left. A nuisance with so many flying hours ahead. The Qantas flight was good though - significantly more leg room than the Cathay Pacific flight, and I think even more than the Finnair flight too. It had become a standing joke between us about my screens not working on flights - but this one did! I took advantage of the fact by watching a number of movies and TV shows - which is one reason why the blog didn't get finished!
It was delightful to be able to choose from such a wide range of movies & reject one if you didn't like it & start another. One film I heartily recommend is "Children of the Silk Road". A "TV" documentary that I particularly enjoyed was "A year in the life of J.K. Rowling", covering the period when her final book 7 of Harry Potter was released, film 5 was released, and ending with her returning to the flat where she finished book 1. She spoke openly about sadness and relationship problems in her own life, as well as the themes of the series of books, and - an aspect I found fascinating - how many of the themes or conflicts were answers to episodes in her own life. She was in tears a couple of times (as was I).
The flight from London to Singapore was about 13 hours, then there was scheduled to be 90 minutes on the ground, and then the flight from Singapore to Sydney was about 7 hours. As it turned out, we left about 2 hours late, then "saved" about 10 minutes in each of the 3 stages, so arrived about 1.5 hours late back to Sydney. Daylight saving had started in Australia on Sunday too, which made the arrival hour 1 hour later.
Such long flights are never fun, and I didn't actually get any sleep. I gave up and watched movies probably for more time than I should on the overnight flight, and then tried to sit with my eyes shut for much of the day flight - not the right way around I know. Because I am a member of the Qantas Frequent Flyer program, they know about my Lactose intolerance & so brought special meals for each of the 3/4 meals we had. In fact their special meals are intended to cover whatever food intolerances people might have (lactose or gluten-free, or sometimes also vegan), so were a bit restrictive.
Having said that, I don't think anyone expects to get gourmet food or plenty of sleep, at least in economy class. The flight was very full, but there was at least some legroom & the personal air vents worked (not to mention the individual TV screens!). In hindsight I'd say that the Qantas flights - especially the first one - were the best of those we did on this trip.
When we arrived in at Sydney airport, the queues for Australian & NZ passport holders were short and quick, however the luggage delivery to the carousel was very slow, so we had ages to wait there. I'd sent Justin an SMS when we were waiting in the luggage area - he and Mum & Dad were waiting nearby for our call that we were ready to be picked up. I sent another message when we finally had our luggage and then we had only a couple of minutes wait outside before the very welcome sight of Mum & Dad's car approached - surprisingly with Justin driving. It was lovely to see them.
When we first went overseas in 1983, and then again when we travelled with the kids in 1994/95, we made lots of stops before we reached London, so it emphasised the distance travelled. This time, flying directly back to Sydney, it made the world seem much smaller - despite the long hours in the air.
It was after 11 when we finally arrived home, and there were a number of things to do before bed - not to mention some catching up with Justin. David, being David, was fully unpacked before he went to bed - I still haven't taken the last few things out of the case. So it was after 12.30 when we finally fell into bed. Oh the joy of getting into our own bed! We woke several times, but did get quite a bit of sleep. (Whereas last night our body clocks were more out of synch.)
So! I guess this is the end of this travel blog. Having been away 5 weeks there is still a lot of catching up to do at home, and that will probably take days yet. However already it seems unreal to think that a week ago was our first full day in London.
From Kerry, home again in Sydney now
