Boy, it's cold in England
Trip Start
Oct 27, 2008
1
23
Trip End
Dec 01, 2008
Coxwold, England, United Kingdom
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
There was a brief moment at Sydney airport when I thought I had got my extenstion after all, as it turned out that my name wasn't on the passenger list. But no, it took them ages, but eventually they managed to do the paperwork and found me just about the very last seat on the plane - and it was so, so full, quite horrid. I spent most of the time sitting in a crew seat by the rear exit door and the washrooms, that (for me) was more pleasant than being squashed inbetween folk. There was a two and a half hour delay at Singapore, with an equally full plane. I think there were only two spare seats on the whole plane, and I cunningly managed to get myself moved to next to one of them. But a fourteen hour flight, it's just too, too long especially when it's followed by a hitch in unloading luggage at (yes, you've guessed it) Terminal 5 at London, Heathrow - the sooner they do something about BAA's monopoly the better it'll be for customers).
So my original three and a half hours to get from Heathrow to Kings X for the 10 o'clock train back to York, remembering to collect the ticket I booked on-line from Wellington from the 'fast ticket' machine, was whittled down to 90 mins, and yes, you've guessed again, I missed it. Which was all a tad unfortunate really, as my ticket was for that one particular train and not transferable. That's assuming the guard was eagle-eyed and spotted it, of course......
So, there I was in York, trying to send a text msg and I was so cold that I couldn't text anything for shivering so much. But I did get home, thanks to a friend from the village who also gave me a most welcome lunch given that I hadn't eaten anything to speak of during the 30+ hours of travelling. Not before I'd showered and got into clean clothes, to try to stop feeling so tramp-like (if it's not PC to say that, then apologies to any tramps reading this). And now I've unpacked, done the washing, tied up a fair amount of stuff, got the RAC out to fix the car, taken it for a ride to Thirsk and to re-stock the fridge, and - most importantly of all - managed to stay awake until after 10pm. So now it's bed time, a time to remember the last few weeks and dream ahead to the next trip, whenever that may be (well, actually I know when it is but I'm not telling just yet) and to reinforce into my sub-conscious the lifestyle concept and ideas about how to be lifestyler.
And the last but not least point before I go is to say a great big thank you to everyone who contributed to the success of my five weeks in New Zealand and Australia. I'm not going to do the roll call, this time, like they do at the Oscars and such like, but so many of you have helped me in such different ways - and its because of all that support and help that I've been able to do the trip in the first place, and make it the achievement that it's been - another example of realizing the dream, and hey, the dream might have taken four years to come to fruition, but who cares, I got there in the end.
So, I'm going to love you and leave you for now, but I'll see you again next time round.......
H.x
